Creation In Death

18

AS EVE HAD SEEN THEIR HOME IN ITS SNOWY landscape as a painting, Roarke saw the crime scene as a play. A dark play with constant movement and great noise, all centered around the single focal character.

The white sheet on the white snow, the white body laid over it, with deep brown hair shining in the hard lights. He thought the wounds stood out against the pale flesh like screams.

And there his wife stood in her long black coat, gloveless, of course. They’d both forgotten her gloves this time around. Hatless and hard-eyed. The stage manager, he thought, and a major player as well. Director and author of this final act.

There would be pity in her, this he knew, and there would be anger, a ribbon of guilt to tie them all together. But that complicated emotional package was tucked deep inside, walled in behind that cool, calculating mind.

He watched her speak to the sweepers, to the uniforms, to the others who walked on and off that winter stage. Then Peabody, the dependable, in her turtle-shell of a coat and colorful scarf, crossed the stage on cue. Together, she and Eve lowered to that lifeless focal point that held the dispassionate spotlight of center stage.

“Not close enough,” McNab said from beside him.

Roarke shifted his attention, very briefly, from the scene to McNab. “What?”

“Just couldn’t get close enough.” McNab’s hands were deep in two of the many pockets of his bright green coat, with the long tails of a boldly striped scarf fluttering down his back. “Moving in on a dozen roads from a dozen damn directions. Moving in, you can feel we’re getting closer. But not close enough to help Gia Rossi. It’s hard. This one hits hard.”

“It does.”

Had he really believed, Roarke wondered, a lifetime ago, had he honestly assumed that the nature of the cop was to feel nothing? He’d learned different since Eve. He’d learned very different. And now, he stood silent, listening to the lines as the players played their parts.

“TOD oh-one-thirty. Early Monday morning,” Peabody said. “She’s been dead a little over twenty-six hours.”

“He kept her for a day.” Eve studied the carving in the torso. Thirty-nine hours, eight minutes, forty-five seconds. “Kept her a day after he was finished. She didn’t last for him. The wounds are less severe, less plentiful than on York. Something went wrong for him this time. He wasn’t able to sustain the work.”

Less severe, yes, Peabody could see that was true. And still the cuts, the burns and bruising spoke of terrible suffering. “Maybe he got impatient this time. Maybe he needed to go for the kill.”

“I don’t think so.” With her sealed fingers, Eve picked up the victim’s arm, turned it to study the ligature marks from the binding. Then turned it back to examine more closely the killing wounds on the wrist. “She didn’t fight like York, not as much damage from the ropes, wrists and ankles. And the killing strokes here? Just as clean and precise as all the others. He’s still in control. And he still wants them to last.”

She laid the arm down again, on the white, white sheet. “It’s a matter of pride in his skill-torture, create the pain, but keep them alive. Increasing the level of pain, fear, injury, all while keeping them breathing. But Rossi, she wound down on him ahead of his schedule, ahead of his goal.”

“Before he’d have been able to see the media bulletins with his image,” Peabody pointed out. “It’s not because he panicked, or took his anger out on her.”

Eve glanced up. “No. But if he had, she’d still be dead. If he had, we still did what we had to do. Put that away. He started on her Saturday morning, finished early Monday. York Friday night. So he had a little celebration, maybe, or just gets a good night’s sleep before he rewinds the clock for Rossi.”

Takes time out to shadow me, Eve thought. Another tried and true torture method. Rest and revisit. Time out again to lure and secure Greenfeld. Need your next vic in the goddamn bullpen.

“Cleans her up, takes his time. No rush, no hurry. Already got the dump spot picked out, already surveyed the area. Set up a canvass.”

From her crouched position, Eve surveyed the area. “This kind of weather, there aren’t going to be a lot of people hanging out in the park. Bides his time,” she continued. “Loads her up, transports her here. Carries her in.”

“Sweepers have a lot of footprints to work with. The snow was pretty fresh and soft. They’ll make the treads, give us a size, a brand.”

“Yeah. But he’s not worried about that. Smart enough, he’s smart enough to wear something oversized, try to throw us off. To wear something common that’s next to impossible to pin. When we get him, we’ll find them, help hang him with them, but they won’t lead us to him.”

As dispassionate now as those harsh crime scene lights, Eve examined the body. “She was strong, in top shape.” Good specimen? she wondered. Had he thought he’d had a prime candidate for his nasty duet? “She struggled, but not as much as York. Not nearly as hard as York, not as long. Gave out, that’s what she did. Physically strong, but something in her shut down. Must’ve been a big disappointment to him.”

“I’m glad she didn’t suffer as much. I know,” Peabody said when Eve lifted her head. “But if we couldn’t save her, I’m glad she didn’t suffer as much.”

“If she could’ve held out longer, maybe we could’ve saved her. And either way you look at it, Peabody, doesn’t mean a fucking thing.”

She straightened as she spotted Morris coming toward them. In his eyes she saw something that was in her, some of what was in Peabody. She would, Eve thought, see that same complicated mix of anger, despair, guilt, and sorrow in the eyes of every cop involved.

“Gia Rossi,” was all Morris said.

“Yes. She’s been dead a little more than twenty-six hours by our gauge. A group of kids cutting through the park found her. Mucked up the scene some, but for the most part then just cut and ran. One of them called it in.

“Something went wrong for him with her.” Eve looked down at the body again. “He didn’t get a lot of time out of her. Maybe she just shut down, or maybe he used something-experimenting-some chemical that shut her down.”

“I’ll flag the tox as priority. She isn’t as damaged as the others.”

“No.”

“Can she be moved yet?”

“I was about to roll her.”

With a nod, he bent to help, and together they rolled the body.

“No injuries on her back,” Morris said.

“Most of them don’t. He likes face-to-face. It has to be personal. It has to be intimate.”

“Some bruising, lacerations, burns, punctures on the back of the shoulders, the calves. Less than the others.” Gently, he brushed the hair aside, examined the back of the neck, the scalp, the ears. “In comparison, I’d say he barely got to stage two in this case. Yes, yes, something went wrong. I’ll take her in now.”

He straightened, met Eve’s eyes. “Will there be family?”

He never asked, or so rarely she’d never registered it. “She has a mother in Queens, a father and stepmother out in Illinois. We’ll be contacting them.”

“Let me know if and when they want to see her. I’ll take them through it personally.”

“All right.”

He looked away, past the lights into the cold dark. “I wish it were spring,” he said.

“Yeah, people still end up dead, but it’s a nicer atmosphere for the rest of us. And, you know, flowers. They’re a nice touch.”

He grinned, and some of the shadows around him seemed to lift. “I like daffodils myself. I always think of the trumpet as a really long mouth, and imagine they chatter away at each other in a language we can’t hear.”

“That’s a little scary,” she decided.

“Then you don’t want to get me started on pansies.”

“Really don’t. I’ll check in with you later. Peabody, get that canvass started.” She left Morris, heard him murmur, All right now, Gia, then stepped up to Roarke.

“I’m nearly done here,” she began. “You should-”

“I won’t be going home,” Roarke told her. “I’ll go in, start working in the war room. I’ll take care of getting myself there.”

“I’ll go on in with you.” McNab looked at Eve. “If that’s all right with you, Lieutenant.”

“Go ahead, and contact the rest of the team. No reason for them to lay around in bed when we’re not. This is a twenty-four/seven op now. I’ll work out subteams, twelve-hour shifts. The clock’s about to start on Ariel Greenfeld. We’re not going to find her like this.”

She looked back. “I’m goddamned if we’re going to find her like this.”

I t was still shy of dawn when she got to Central. Before she went to her office, she walked into the war room. As the lights flicked on she looked around. It was quiet now, empty of people. It wouldn’t be so again, she thought. Not until they’d closed this down.

She was adding more men, more eyes, ears, legs, hands. More to work the streets, flash the killer’s picture, talk to neighbors, street people, cabbies, chemi-heads. More to knock on the doors of the far too numerous buildings Roarke had thus far listed in his search.

More people to push, push, push, to track down every thread no matter how thin and knotted.

Until this was done there was only one investigation, only one killer, only one purpose for her and every cop under her.

She walked to the white board and in her own hand wrote out the time it had taken for Gia Rossi to die after Rossi’s name.

Then she looked down at the next name she’d written. Ariel Greenfeld.

“You hold the hell on. It’s not over, and it’s not going to be over, so you hold the hell on.”

She turned, saw Roarke watching her from the doorway. “You made good time,” he told her. “McNab and I detoured up to EDD, to requisition more equipment. Feeney’s on his way in.”

“Good.”

He crossed over to stand, as she was, in front of the whiteboard. “It depends, on some level, on her now. On you, on us, certainly on him, but on some level, on her.”

“Every hour she holds on, we get closer.”

“And every hour she holds on, is another hour he may move on you. You want that. You’d will it to happen if you could.”

No bullshit, she decided. No evasions. “That’s right.”

“When they killed Marlena, all those years ago, broke her to pieces to prove a point to me, I wanted them to come at me.”

Eve thought of Summerset’s daughter, how she’d been taken, tortured, and killed by rivals of the young, enterprising criminal Roarke had been. “If they had, the whole of them, you’d have ended up in the ground with her.”

“That may be. That very likely may be.” He shifted his gaze from the board to meet hers. “But I wanted it, and would have willed it if I could have. But since that wasn’t to be, I found another way to end every one of them.”

“He’s only one man. And there may not be another way.”

Thinking of those who were lost, he looked at the board again. Only one man, and perhaps only one way. “That’s all very true. Here’s what I know, here’s what I understood out there in the cold and the dark with you tending to what he’d made of Gia Rossi. He thinks he knows you.”

He turned his head now, and those brilliant blue eyes fired into hers. “He thinks he understands what you are, knows who you are. But he’s wrong. He doesn’t know or understand the likes of you. If it comes to the two of you, even for a moment, if it comes to the two of you, he may get a glimmer of who and what you are. And if he does, he’ll know something of fear.”

“Well.” A little shaken, a little mystified, she blew out a breath. “That’s not what I was expecting out of you.”

“When I looked at her, at what he’d done to her, I thought I would envision you there. Your face with her face, as it is on your board.”

“Roarke-”

“But I didn’t,” he continued, and lifted her hand to brush his fingers to her cheek. “Couldn’t. Not, I think, because it was more than I could stand. Not because of that, but because he’ll never have that power or control over you. You won’t allow it. And that, Darling Eve, is of considerable comfort to me.”

“It’s a nice bolster for me, too.” She aimed a glance toward the door, just to make sure they were still alone. Then she leaned in, kissed him. “Thanks. I’ve got to go.”

“And if he kills you,” Roarke added as she strode to the door, “I’m going to be extremely pissed off.”

“Who could blame you?”

She started back to her office, stopped when Peabody hailed her. “Baxter and Trueheart are notifying the mother, as ordered. I just spoke with the father.”

“All right. When Baxter reports in, we’ll clear it for her name to be released to the media.”

“Speaking of the media, I poked into your office in case you were there. There’s about a half a million messages from various reporters.”

“I’ll take care of it. Let me know when everyone’s in the house. We’ll do the briefing asap.”

“Will do. Dallas, do you want me to update the boards?”

“I’ve already done it.” She turned away to go to her office.

She flicked through the source readout on the messages, transferring them to the liaison. Only when she came to one from Nadine did she pause, then order playback.

“Dallas, the lines are buzzing you’ve got another one. It’s going to get ugly, so this is a heads up. The spit’s already flying and most of it’s going to splatter on you and the NYPSD. If you’ve got anything I can use, get back to me.”

Eve considered, then ordered the callback. Nadine picked up on the first beep.

“I thought media darlings slept till noon.”

“Sure, just like cops. I’m already in my office,” Nadine told her. “Working on some copy. I’m going on at eight. Special report. If you’ve got anything, now’s the time to share.”

“A source from the NYPSD stated this morning that new and salient information regarding the individual the media has dubbed The Groom has come to light.”

“What new and salient information?”

“However, the source would not divulge any details of this information due to the need to confine any and all such data within the investigation. It was also stated by the same source that the task force formed to pursue the investigation is working around the clock to identify and apprehend the individual responsible for the deaths of Sarifina York and Gia Rossi. As well as to seek justice for them and for the twenty-three other women whose deaths are attributed to this same individual.”

“Nice, but there’s a lot of spin in there. The media’s going to come at you hard. You’re going to take hits.”

“You really think I give a rat’s ass about a few publicity bruises right now, Nadine? Air the statement. What I want is for him to know we’re coming, and to worry about what we might have. Don’t release Rossi’s name until the eight o’clock airing.”

“How about this? Will the NYPSD source confirm or deny that the investigation is focused on a specific suspect?”

“The source won’t confirm or deny, but stated that members of the task force are seeking or have located and interviewed persons of interest.”

“Okay.” Nadine nodded as she scribbled. “Still doesn’t really say anything, but it sounds like it says something.”

“Do you still have your researchers on tap?”

“Sure.”

“I may have something for them to play with later. That’s it, Nadine. You want the official department statement, go to the liaison.”

Eve clicked off, got coffee. Though it annoyed her, she used it to chase an energy pill. Better jumpy than sluggish, she decided, then called up the results from the global search she’d done from home.

As the names began rolling on, she sat back, closed her eyes. Thousands, she thought. Well, what had she expected given the search elements she’d had Roarke input.

So she had to narrow them, refine it.

Her ’link beeped. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Team’s in the house,” Peabody told her.

“I’ll be there.”

T ired cops, Eve thought when she stepped into the war room. Her team now consisted of tired, frustrated, and pissed off cops. Sometimes, she thought, cops did their best work that way. They’d be running on adrenaline and irritation-and in a lot of cases the boost of energy pills.

No bullshit, she thought again. No evasions.

“We lost her.” The room fell instantly silent. “We’ve got the full resources of the top police and security departments in the country behind us. We’ve got the experience, the brains, the bullheadedness of every cop in this room. But we lost her. You’ve got thirty seconds to brood about that, to feel crappy about it, to shoulder the guilt. Then that’s done.”

She set down her file bag, walked over to get more coffee. When she came back, she took out the copy she’d made of Ariel Greenfeld’s photo, pinned it in the center of a fresh board.

“We’re not losing her. As of now we’re round the clock for the duration. As of now, she’s the only victim in this city. As of now, she is the single most important person in our lives. Officer Newkirk?”

“Sir.”

“You and the officers you’ve been working with will take this first twelve-hour shift. You’ll be relieved by officers I’ve assigned at…” She checked her wrist unit. “Nineteen hundred. Captain Feeney, I’ll use your recommendation for another pair of e-men to take the second shift. Field detectives, I’ll have your relief lined up shortly.”

“Lieutenant.” Trueheart cleared his throat, and Eve could see him fighting the urge to raise his hand. “Detective Baxter and I have worked out a crib rotation. I mean to say we discussed same on the way back from notifying next of kin. With your permission, we’d prefer not to be relieved, but to handle the twenty-four-hour cycle ourselves.”

“You need more men,” Baxter added, “you get more men. But we don’t go off the clock. How about you, Sick Bastard?” He used Jenkinson’s nickname.

“We’ll sleep when we get him.”

“All right,” Eve agreed. “We’ll try it that way. I’ve done a global search for mutilations, murders, and missings meeting the targets’ descriptions. We concluded in the first investigation that it was likely the killer had killed before, practiced before. I widened the search,” she told Feeney, “went global and back five years, and netted thousands of results.”

She held up the disc copy of the run, tossed it to Feeney. “We need to whittle it down, refine it. And we need to find one or more that could be his-and find his mistakes.

“Item second,” she continued, and worked through her list.

A s Eve briefed her team, listened to their reports and coordinated the duties, Ariel Greenfeld came awake. She’d surfaced twice before, barely registering her surroundings before he’d come in. Small room, glass walls, medical equipment? Was she in the hospital?

She struggled to see him clearly, but everything was so blurry. As if her eyes, and her mind, had been smeared with oil. She thought she heard music, high trilling voices. Angels? Was she dead?

Then she’d gone under again, sliding down and down to nothing.

This time when she awoke, the room was larger. It seemed larger to her. The lights were very bright, almost painful to her eyes. She felt weak and queasy, as though she’d been sick a very long time, and again thought, “Hospital.”

Had she been in an accident? She couldn’t remember, and as she lay still to take stock, felt no pain. She ordered herself to think back, to think back to the last thing she could remember.

“Wedding cakes,” she murmured.

Mr. Gaines. Mr. Gaines’s granddaughter’s wedding. She had a chance for the job, a good job, designing and baking the cake, standing as dessert chef for the reception.

Mr. Gaines’s house-big, beautiful old house, pretty parlor with a fireplace. Warm and cozy. Yes! She remembered. He’d picked her up, driven her to his house for a meeting with his granddaughter. And then…

It wanted to fade on her, but she pushed the fog away. When it cleared, her heart began to hammer. Tea and cookies. The tea, something in the tea. Something in his eyes when she’d tried to stand.

Not the hospital. God, oh God no, she wasn’t in the hospital. He’d drugged her tea, and he’d taken her somewhere. She had to get away, had to get away now.

She tried to sit up, but her arms, her legs were pinned. Panicked, sucking back a scream, she pushed up as far as she could. And felt terror run through her like a river.

She was naked, tied, hands and feet, to a table. Some sort of metal table with rope restraints that looped through openings and bit into her skin when she strained against them. As her eyes wheeled around the room she saw monitors, screens, cameras, and tables holding metal trays.

There were sharp things on the trays. Sharp, terrifying things.

As her body began to shake, her mind wanted to deny, to reject. Tears leaked when she twisted and writhed in a desperate attempt to free herself.

The woman in the park. Another woman missing. She’d seen the media reports. Horrible, that’s what she’d thought. Isn’t that horrible. But then she’d gone off to work without another thought. It didn’t have anything to do with her. Just another horrible thing that happened to someone else.

It always happened to someone else.

Until now.

She dragged in her breath, let it out in a scream. She screamed for help until her lungs burned and her throat felt scorched. Then she screamed some more.

Someone had to hear, someone had to come.

But when someone heard, when someone came, fear choked off her screams like a throttling hand.

“Ah, you’re awake,” he said, and smiled at her.

E ve input the names on the list Roarke had generated of season ticket holders. Her first search requested highlighting males between sixty and eighty years of age.

She’d expand that, if necessary, she thought. He may have created a bogus company for this particular purpose, or any type of persona.

No guarantee he sprang for season tickets, she mused. He could cherry pick the performances that appealed to him rather than just blanket the whole season.

When the amended list came up, she followed through with a standard run on each name.

She was over three-quarters through when she zeroed in.

“There you are,” she murmured. “There you are, you bastard. Stewart E. Pierpont this time? ‘E’ for some form of Edward. Who’s Edward to you?”

His hair was salt-and-pepper in the ID photo, worn in a long, dramatic mane. He claimed to be a British citizen, with residences in London, New York, and Monte Carlo. And a widower this time around, Eve noted. That was new.

The deceased wife was listed as Carmen DeWinter, also British, who died at the age of thirty-two.

Eve narrowed her eyes at the date of death. “Urban War era. Maybe you got too damn clever this time, Eddie.”

She did a run on DeWinter, Carmen, but found none who matched the data given on the Pierpont ID. “Okay, okay. But there was a woman, wasn’t there? She died, was killed, or hey, you took her out yourself. But she existed.”

She went back to Pierpont, checked the listed addresses. An opera house in Monte Carlo, a concert hall in London, and Carnegie Hall in New York.

Sticks with his pattern, she thought. But the season tickets were either delivered somewhere, or were picked up.

She grabbed what she had, hustled to the war room, and Roarke’s station. “Who do you know at the Metropolitan Opera, and how much grease can you use to clear the way for me?”

“I know a few people. What do you need?”

“Anything and everything on him.” She tossed down the printout on Pierpont. “That’s him, season-ticket-holder style. Nice call on that, by the way.”

“We do what we can.”

“Do more. There isn’t time for bureaucracy and red tape. I want a clear path to whoever can give me the juice on this guy.”

“Give me five minutes,” he said, and pulled out his personal ’link.

She stepped away to give him room as her own ’link signaled. “Dallas.”

“Might have something,” Baxter announced. “On the rings. We’ve been working it, and I think we’ve nailed where he bought them. Tiffany’s-gotta go with the classic.”

“I thought we checked there before.”

“Did, nobody remembered, no rings of that specific style carried. We decided to give it another push. Classic style, classic store. And while they’re not flashy, they are sterling. We’re trolling the clerks, batting zero, then this woman overhears. A customer. She remembers being in there right before Christmas and noticing this guy buying four sterling bands. Commented on it, and the guy gives her a line about his four granddaughters. She thought it was charming, so she remembers it. Turns out, when we get the manager to dig a little, they carried a limited supply of that style late last year.”

“Record of the sale.”

“Cash, four sterling accent bands, purchased December eighteenth. The wit’s a peach, Dallas. Said she ‘engaged him in conversation.’ I get the feeling she was trying to hit on him, and she said she complimented him on his scent, asked what it was. Alimar Botanicals.”

“Trina’s got a damn good nose. That’s one of her picks.”

“Better yet, he mentioned he’d first discovered it in Paris, and had been pleased to find it was carried here in New York, in a spa boutique on Madison, with a downtown branch. Place called Bliss. He scoped Trina in the downtown salon.”

“Yeah, that’s the spot. See if your wit will work with Yancy.”

“Already asked and answered. She’d be, quote, ‘tickled pink.’ A peach, Dallas, with eyes like a hawk. She saw a photo in his wallet when he took out the cash. She said it was an old photo, took her back to her own youth. A lovely brunette. She thinks she can give Yancy something to work with there, too.”

“That’s good work, Baxter. That’s damn good work. Bring your peach in. Dallas out. It’s moving for us.” Her eyes were hard and bright as she turned back to Roarke. “It’s moving now.”

“Jessica Forman Rice Abercrombie Charters.” Roarke tossed Eve a memo cube. “Chairman of the Board. She’ll be happy to speak with you. She’s at home this morning. If she can’t help you, she’ll find the person who can.”

“You’re a handy guy.”

“In many, many ways.”

The smile felt good on her face. It felt powerful. “Peabody, with me.”