Divided in Death

Chapter 13

Eve considered it strength of character not to keep the room sealed, with her inside. But she braced herself, went downstairs, then wound her way through the house to the back patio.

And stared at the scene.

She knew her scenes. Normally, there would’ve been a corpse somewhere in the vicinity, but she still knew how to read a scene where death wasn’t part of the landscape.

There was a bird singing a two-note repetitive chirp that was both cheery and insistent. Butterflies with wings of bold orange and black massed like a fanciful army on the purple spires of a bush that fountained just beyond the west corner of the stone patio.

Roarke’s newest toy, an enormous silver monstrosity on wheels, was smoking away, with the man himself at the helm with a long-handled spatula. The smoke smelled like meat-real meat from real cows. Several individuals were currently chowing down on it in the form of thick burgers on buns.

They were seated at tables or standing around chatting, in full party mode.

The city’s medical examiner was swigging beer from the bottle and having what appeared to be an amusing conversation with Mavis. Mira-and where the hell had she come from-was seated at a table scattered with food and flickering candles while she held some sort of confab with Leonardo and the terrifying Trina.

The captain of EDD stood munching a burger one-handed and giving Roarke advice on the mysteries and mystiques of outdoor cooking.

Everyone seemed pretty damn jolly and well-fed, and to Eve’s mind out of place. Hadn’t she just left a sealed room where she’d spent considerable time picking her way through red tape and the land mines of diplomacy and palm greasing? Wasn’t she in the messy middle of a murder investigation involving covert organizations and state secrets?

Now it was burgers and beer in the twilight with birds and butterflies.

Her life, she decided, was just plain strange.

Leonardo spotted her first, and with a wide grin splitting his big caramel-colored face, glided over to her in what Eve supposed was his casual cookout-wear of shimmery white pants and a bright yellow shirt that crossed over his impressive chest in a skin-tight X. He bent down, his soft, curling hair brushing her cheek just before his lips.

“Mavis told me she’d been upset, and came to you. I wanted to thank you for being there for her, for giving her this time tonight to feel normal and steady again.”

“She just needed to spew.”

“I know.” Then he wrapped his big arms around Eve, pressing her hard against the rock wall of his chest. This time when he spoke, his voice was thick and shaky. “The baby moved.”

“Yeah.” She wasn’t quite sure what response was called for, and gingerly patted him somewhere on the miles of exposed skin of his back. “She said. So, ah, everything’s good now.”

“Everything’s perfect.” He heaved a sigh. “Perfect.” He drew back, and his gold eyes were gleaming. “Good friends, the woman I love with our child inside her. Life is so precious. I realize that now more than ever before. I know Dr. Mira needs to speak with you, but I just wanted to have a moment first.”

Drawing her close to his side he all but carried her to the table where Mira sat.

“Now don’t start.” He wagged a finger at Trina. “Dallas needs to speak with Dr. Mira, and to have a moment to relax.”

“I can bide my time.” Trina grinned, a wide magenta smile that sent a chill up Eve’s spine. “I have plans. Lots of plans.” She scooped up her plate and wandered off on six-inch platform sandals.

“Oh my God.”

With a look caught between sympathy and amusement, Mira patted the chair beside her. “Sit. What a gorgeous evening. I’m stealing an hour of it to be here, on what was supposed to be a quick professional call. Now I’m having this lovely glass of wine and this rather magnificent hamburger.”

“Did he actually cook it?” Eve glanced back at Roarke. “On that thing?”

“He did. I’m probably telling tales out of school, but he talked to my Dennis at some length about how to use the grill.” Mira took another bite. “He seems to have figured it out.”

“Nothing much gets over on Roarke. A professional call?” she prompted.

“Yes. I could’ve waited until tomorrow, but I thought you’d like to know as soon as possible that Reva Ewing passed her level-three.”

“Thanks. How’s she doing?”

“A little shaky and tired. Her mother took her straight home. I think she’s in good hands there.”

“Yeah, Caro’s another who always seems to know what she’s doing.”

“She’s afraid for her daughter, Eve. However efficient and steady she is on the surface, under it, she’s desperately worried. I could speak with her, or Roarke could. I’m sure he will. But the fact is you’re the one in authority. And you’re the one whose thoughts and opinions she’d respect most in this.”

“Did you come by to tell me about the level three, or to tell me I should talk to Caro?”

“Both.” Mira patted her hand. “Also, I looked over the results of her blood tests taken just after she was taken into custody.”

“There was nothing. No chemicals, illegal or otherwise. And the medicals found no trauma to indicate she’d been physically knocked out.”

“No.” Mira picked up her wine. “But we both know there are some anesthetics that can debilitate quickly, and dissipate without a discernible trace within two or three hours.”

“The sort of thing Homeland would have in its pantry.”

“I imagine so. When I had Reva under, I took her back through the steps and stages of that night. She recalled a movement to her left as she was facing the bed. She doesn’t remember this, not clearly, except under hypnosis. A movement,” Mira went on, “then a scent, something strong, bitter, and the taste of it in the back of her throat.”

“Probably sprayed her.” Eve looked over the gardens, but she wasn’t seeing the busy butterflies now, or hearing the insistent bird. She saw the candlelit bedroom, the bodies curled close together on bloody sheets. “Waited for her to come up, came in on her on her off-side, hit her with the spray. Set the rest of it up while she was out.”

“If so, it was organized thinking. Cold and organized. And still… much of what was done was overly dramatic-beyond the violence that shows the capability for brutality, there were added steps, complications that were unnecessary for the result we’re assuming was desired.”

“Because he was having fun with it.”

“Yes.” Pleased, Mira enjoyed her hamburger. “He was. Several misjudgments and flourishes-when simplicity would have served his purposes better-indicate to me that he gets caught up in the role he’s playing. Enjoying it, and perhaps wanting to prolong it.”

“Adding touches to a pretty tight and simple plan that unbalance the whole. What do they call it? Ad-libbing.”

“Very well put. You have organized thinking but impulsiveness as well. I doubt he was working alone. I also doubt that the one who conceived the core of the plan was the one to carry it out. Now I’m going to pass you to Morris so you can get the business over with and enjoy some of your evening.”

“It’s a little tough to enjoy anything when I know Trina has plans.” But Eve rose, walked over to Morris. “Got something for me?”

“Dallas!” Mavis popped up. “Did you know Morris played the sax?”

“The what?”

“Saxophone,” Morris said. “Tenor. It’s a musical instrument, Lieutenant.”

“I know what a saxophone is,” she muttered.

“He used to play with a band in college,” Mavis went on. “And sometimes they still get together for private gigs. They’re The Cadavers.”

“Of course they are.”

“We’re going to jam sometime, right?” Mavis asked Morris.

“Name the time, name the place.”

“Too mag to lag!” she danced off and into Leonardo’s arms.

“That’s a very happy young woman.”

“You wouldn’t’ve thought so if you’d seen her two hours ago.”

“Gestating ladies tend to swing. They’re entitled. Want a beer?”

“What the hell.” She snagged one from the cooler. “What’ve you got for me?”

“Nothing as wonderful as this cow patty. Chloe McCoy. No evidence of recent sexual activity. But… it would appear she’d expected some as she’d inserted protection. An over-the-counter product called Freedom. This coats the vaginal area with both spermicide and a lubricant, which protect against STDs and conception.”

“Yeah, I know what it is. You can use it up to twenty-four hours before you rock. When did she use it?”

“My best guess? An hour, possibly two pre-mortem. And she’d also ingested fifty milligrams of Sober-Up at approximately the same time.”

“Well now, isn’t that interesting?”

To show their unity on that point, he tapped his bottle of beer against hers. “At least one hour before she ingested the termination pills. And if those were purchased on the black market, someone has a very valuable source. They weren’t generic or clones or homemade. And, the kicker: They were dissolved in the wine before they were ingested.”

“So she protects herself against pregnancy or STD, sobers herself up, cleans her apartment, gets herself a sexy outfit, and does her face and hair. Then drops a couple of fatals in her wine and offs herself.” Eve took a long pull on the beer. “And you said you didn’t bring me anything as interesting as that burger.”

“You haven’t tasted the burger yet.”

“I’ll get to it. What’s the ruling on this matter by the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City?”

“Homicide, staged to look like self-termination. That girl didn’t knowingly eat those pills.”

“No, she didn’t.” And that made Chloe McCoy hers. “Termination pills require a prescription-after considerable testing and counseling. If she didn’t get them that way, and she didn’t, and they weren’t black-market, would you say that a strong possible source for meds of that type and potency would be a covert government organization?”

“I wouldn’t say no.”

“Neither would I.” She pondered for a few minutes. “There’s something I’d like you to check out.”

When she was finished with Morris, Eve headed over to the grill. “I’ve got some new juice,” she said to Feeney, then found a plate shoved into her hand.

“Take a minute. There’s always time for meat.”

The scent of the burger had saliva pooling in her mouth. “A lot of new juice, Feeney. ME’s ruling homicide on McCoy, and I’ve got the gears oiled in Jamaica so Peabody and McNab can haul the evidence back here. Mira says-”

“Go ahead.” Roarke lifted the burger off her plate and to her mouth. “Take a bite. You know you want to.”

“This isn’t the time for a family picnic.”

“Think of it as a combination family and company event.”

“You gotta eat, Dallas,” Feeney told her. “That’s primo cow. You don’t wanna waste it.”

“Fine. Fine.” She bit in. “Mira says-okay, this is really good, and I see absolutely no reason I can’t sit down and eat this while I brief you.”

“Just let me set this on auto, and you can brief both of us.”

She moved to a table, and sitting, gripped the burger in both hands. Even as she took another bite, Roarke was dumping some sort of grilled vegetables on her plate.

“To balance it out,” he told her.

“Whatever.” If he wanted to play as if everything was dandy between them, she could get on board. There was enough inside her head without marriage weirdness. “Okay, here’s how I think it went down, and I need EDD to dig into McCoy’s links and verify. Whoever took her out contacted her. She’s happy and excited enough to take some Sober-Up to counteract the wine she’s been guzzling with her neighbor. She uses birth control. She fixes up the place, and herself.”

“Sounds like someone expecting a hot date, not a girl getting ready to pop termination pills.” Feeney shook his head. “She’s been rolling with Blair Bissel, and Bissel’s dead. You figure she had another guy dangling?”

“Possible. More possible that whoever contacted her made her think one of several options. That he had news on Bissel-the whole thing was a mistake, a cover-up, maybe an operation. He’s going to bring Bissel to her place, for hiding out until it’s safe. Or he made her think he was Bissel.”

“That’d be a trick.”

“Not if you’re the man’s brother. You got a strong resemblance, and you could augment that. You’ve been jealous of the bastard all your life, and here’s your chance to get some young stuff on his back.”

Feeney contemplated the beer he’d brought to the table. “That’s a good one. Damn good one. Had to contact her, though, if she had time to prep herself. We’ll go deep on the ‘links, and put her unit in the mix. If he used e-mail, it’s going to be a bitch to find.”

“That’s your deal. I’m looking at Carter Bissel. He knows what big bro’s been up to. He’s had a side deal going with his trainer. Blair’s working with Kade, and sleeping with her. She knows about McCoy, and about whatever Bissel gave her that was secreted in the locket. There’s a reason that was taken from the scene. McCoy’s a loose thread, and she has to be snipped.”

“I said it’s good, but why not just go in and snip?” Feeney questioned. “Why the big show?”

“Same deal as Ewing. Lots of bells and whistles, lots of show and smoke. He likes to improvise. He’s having fun with this. And maybe because the need for cover seemed to warrant it, maybe for the drama. Maybe both.”

“Follows.” Feeney nodded at Roarke. “I did a good job with her.”

“You did, yes. She’s cop to the bone.”

“Let’s try to stick with the point.” But Eve took a healthy and satisfying bite of burger. “Either way, it’s the same MO under the surface. Kill, and go to considerable lengths to make it seem like what it’s not. Hang the murder on somebody else. Ewing in the first case, McCoy herself in the second.”

“Plays well,” Roarke agreed. “When her killer arrived, however, wouldn’t she question or object if Bissel wasn’t along?”

“He gets inside. Tells her they have to be careful. They need her help. The more theatrical the story, the quicker she’d buy it and go along. All he has to do is talk her into starting a note. Hell, she might’ve written it herself beforehand, just a dramatic sort of touch. He slips the meds into her wine. After she drinks it, all he has to do is lay her out, then walk away.”

“Or”-Eve ate a grilled pepper without thinking about it-”the HSO could’ve staged the whole thing. Gotten in, disabled her. But that doesn’t explain the BC, or the Sober-Up. Whoever killed her didn’t know she’d used either. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is.”

Roarke remembered the young woman clinging tearfully to Eve’s shins in the gallery. It fit. It was just sad enough to fit. “You’re heading back to Bissel’s brother.”

“Yeah, I’m liking the looks of him. He’s been MIA for almost a month. Plenty of time to have a little face work done, make himself look more like his brother.” She polished off her burger, took another drink of beer. “But there’s one more possibility, a little out-there, but interesting.”

“Blair Bissel killed her,” Roarke put in.

“You’re pretty quick for a guy who grills burgers in his spare time.”

“Smoke’s gotten to you two,” Feeney said. “Bissel’s in a cold drawer at the morgue.”

“It looks that way. It probably is that way,” Eve agreed. “But let’s take this into spy vid territory for a minute-which Reva said was one of his hobbies-and which we know was his profession. What if Bissel was playing both sides? Or he was doing a double agent thing with, or without, HSO sanction. They find out Kade’s turned, or he’s just pissed she’s playing with his brother. He sets them up, knocks them down, and handily frames his wife, who he’s done with. He snips McCoy and gets back whatever she was holding for him in the locket.”

“You don’t think somebody as sharp as Morris would see the body didn’t match the ID photo? Even with the couple of bashes in the face, there’s dental. There’s fingerprints. There’s fricking DNA. All of it matches Blair Bissel’s.”

“Yeah, and he’s probably on ice. I said it was out there, and Carter Bissel heads my list. Morris is going to run a scan and see if he had any recent facial surgery. And because, if this is true, it would be another thread, I need you to hit IRCCA, find me a recently deceased face fixer. I’m betting Carter Bissel had work done-either to play Cain or to be tricked into playing Abel. One of the Bissel brothers is alive. We just need to figure out which.”

Eve told herself not to think about what was being done to her. Otherwise, she might scream like a girl. Her hair was plastered to her head with a thick pink goop. A new product according to Trina, guaranteed to add luster, body, and bring out the natural highlights.

None of which, to Eve’s mind, mattered.

Her face and throat were slathered with something green, and sealed with some sort of spray. Before that, her skin had been buffed and scrubbed, examined and critiqued. And not just the skin on her face and throat, Eve thought, still inwardly shuddering, but every inch that covered her body. From the throat down she’d been painted yellow, then sealed with the same spray before having her mortified body wrapped in a heat sheet.

At least she was covered. Small blessings.

She’d quietly turned off the VR goggles Trina had programmed when Trina had given the delighted Mavis her full attention. Eve didn’t want the mindless nature sounds or the soft, swimming colors of the relaxation program.

She might have been naked on a padded table and covered from head to feet in goo. But she was still a cop, and she wanted to think like one.

Back to the victims. It was always back to the victims.

Bissel, Kade, McCoy, with Bissel as the focal point. Who or what stood to gain from their deaths?

The HSO. During the early days of the Urban Wars, the government had formed the arm as a way to protect the country, to police the streets and gather intel covertly from radical factions.

It had done the job. It had been necessary. And over the years since, some said it had morphed into something closer to a legalized terrorist group than a protection and intel operation.

She happened to agree.

So, the murders could have been a cleanup operation. If Bissel and Kade had turned, and McCoy unwittingly knew too much, all three might have been terminated to protect some global security project. The Code Red was the obvious linchpin. The data units had been corrupted. What data needed to be eliminated? Or was the use of the worm simply a ploy to point toward the techno-terrorists?

The Doomsday Group. Assassinations, terminations, large- and small-scale destruction and loss of life through technological sabotage were their reasons for being. Kade and Bissel could have been playing both ends, or on assignment to infiltrate. They could have been targeted by the terrorists, taken out, and McCoy treated as collateral damage.

But then why weren’t they taking credit? Media play with a lot of bloody fist-pumping and skewed messages were a big part of the program for any terrorist group. There’d been enough time for an acknowledgment to have been leaked to the mainstream press.

In either case, why the frame on Ewing? Why-if either organization for reasons of its own wanted to keep the lid on the terminations-go to so much time and trouble to implicate Reva Ewing?

To slow, hamper, or eliminate her work on the extermination program, and utilize whatever data Bissel had gathered from his devices to create one first, in the HSO’s case, or to reformulate the worm to override the extermination, in Doomsday’s case.

Possible, and she wouldn’t close those doors. She’d run probabilities and give them a push.

But with either of those scenarios she still had Carter Bissel floating around like a goddamn dust mote. Had Kade recruited him with or without HSO sanction? With or without Blair Bissel’s knowledge?

And where the hell was he?

She tried to bring a picture of him into her mind, but it was blurry and kept dissolving in all the melting colors that swirled lazily in her brain.

She’d stopped hearing Mavis’s and Trina’s birdlike chatter at the edge of her focus, so there was only the gentle whoosh, like a heartbeat inside a womb.

Even as she realized the relaxation program had been reactivated, she sank under it.

In Roarke’s home computer lab, Feeney sat back at his station and pressed the heels of his hands hard against his aching eyes.

“You ought to take something for that eye-strain headache,” Roarke commented. “Before it blows on you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Feeney puffed air into his cheeks, let it out. “Don’t do as much geek work as I used to.” He studied the unit currently laid out in sections and small bits over his counter. “Got spoiled handing this sort of detail over to one of my young guns.”

He glanced over at Roarke’s station and was somewhat mollified to see the civilian’s progress was as slow and exacting as his own. “You got an estimate on when we might have one of these up and running again-working like this, just the two of us?”

“I figure sometime in the next decade if we’re lucky, into the fourth millennium if we’re not. This bitch is toasted.” Roarke shoved back, scowled at the burned-out guts of his current project. “We can replace, repair, reconfigure, and beat it with a hammer. We’ll retrieve data. I’m annoyed enough at the moment to make it my bloody life’s work. But Christ knows we could do it all faster and easier with a few more hands and brain cells. McNab’s good. He’s got the hands and the geek quotient to keep him at something like this for hours on end, but he won’t be enough.”

They sat in brooding silence for a moment, then eyed each other.

“You talk to her,” Roarke said.

“Oh no, I’m not married to her.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“It’s your setup here.”

“It’s an NYPSD investigation.”

“Like that means a damn to you. Okay, okay.” Feeney waved a hand before Roarke could speak again. “Let’s settle this like men.”

“Want to arm wrestle?”

Feeney let out a snort, then dug into his pocket. “We’ll flip a coin. You call it.”

Eve heard what sounded like flutes. For a moment she saw herself running naked through a flower-strewn meadow where small, winged creatures played long, reed-like instruments. Birds sang, the sun shone, and the sky was a perfect bowl of cerulean blue.

She woke with a start and said: “Gak.”

“Wow, Dallas, you were really out.”

Blinking, Eve focused on the figure spread out on the table beside her. She thought it was Mavis. It sounded like Mavis, but it was tough to make a positive ID when the form was covered with hot pink from shoulders to toes, the face coated with electric blue, and the hair plastered down with a mix of green, red, and purple.

She’d have said gak again, but it seemed redundant.

“You didn’t drool or anything,” Mavis assured her. “In case you were worried.”

“Let out a couple of sex moans.” Trina’s voice came from somewhere near her feet, and Eve froze.

“What are you doing?”

“My job. You’re all rinsed off. Blissed right through that part. Got your derma revitalizer rubbed in. Your man’s going to like this one. Going to finish up with your hair and face after I do your feet.”

“Do what to my feet?” Gingerly, Eve boosted herself on her elbows and looked down. “Oh my God! God almighty! You painted my toes.”

“Just a delux ped. It’s not a satanic ritual.”

“My toes are pink.”

“Yeah, I went conservative with you. Sun-kissed Coral. Nice with your skin tone. Your feet were a disgrace,” Trina added as she sprayed on sealer. “Good thing you were under VR while I was working on them.”

“How come she’s not under?” Eve demanded, pointing at Mavis.

“I get more out of it if I’m aware of the treatments. I like getting souped and rubbed and scrubbed down and painted. It’s the ult of ults for me. You hate it.”

“Mavis. If you know I hate it, why do you make me do this?”

Mavis smiled an electric blue smile. “’Cause it’s fun.”

Eve lifted a hand to rub her face, then gaped in shock as she saw her nails. “You painted my fingers. People will see them.”

“Neutral French job.” Trina walked back up, slid a finger over one of Eve’s eyebrows. “Need trimming. You oughta chill, Dallas.”

“Do you understand that I’m a cop? Do you understand that should I have to restrain a suspect and he gets a load of my shiny yet neutral French job, he’s going to break his neck laughing? Then I’ll be under IAB investigation for the death of a suspect at my hands.”

“I know you’re a cop.” Trina showed her teeth in a smile. The left eyetooth was decorated with a tiny green stud. “That’s why I threw in the little boob tat gratis.”

“Boob? Tattoo?” Eve sat up as if she’d been propelled out of a catapult. “Tattoo?”

“Just a temp. Came out really good.”

She was almost too horrified to look. To counter the fear, she took a handful of Trina’s glossy black hair, yanked her tormentor’s head down. If necessary, she would beat that head against the padded table until unconsciousness ensued. Ignoring Trina’s yelps and struggles, and Mavis’s giggling calls for peace, Eve tipped down her chin and looked at her breast.

There on the curve of the left was a painted replica of her badge, minutely detailed though it was no bigger than her own thumbnail. Her grip loosened a bit as she tilted her own head to read her name. And Trina escaped.

“Jesus, are you whacked? I said it was a temp.”

“Did you give me any hallucinogenic substance while I was under VR?”

“What?” Obviously steamed, Trina shook back her abused hair, folded her arms, and glowered at Mavis. “What is wrong with her? No, I didn’t give you anything. I’m a certified personal body and style consultant. I don’t have illegals on my menu. You ask me something like that, and-”

“I asked something like that because I’m looking at what you painted on a personal area of my body, and I kind of like it, so I want to make sure I’m not under some illusionary drug haze.”

Trina sniffed, but there was a light that was both pleasure and humor in her eyes. “You like it, I can make it permanent.”

“No.” In defense, Eve slapped a hand on her breast. “No, no, no. No.”

“Got it. Just the temp. Mavis has to cook a while more, so we’ll finish you up.” Trina pressed a mechanism on the table and a section lifted up like the back of a chair.

“How come you’ve got all those colors in the gunk on your hair?”

“I’m getting multied,” Mavis explained. “I’m going to have some red curls, and purple spikes, and-”

“There wasn’t any of that in mine.” Fear clutched at her throat. “Was there?”

“Relax.” To get back some of her own, Trina yanked Eve’s head back by the hair. “The pink streaks’ll wash out.”

“She’s just kidding,” Mavis said as Eve went pale. “Honest.”

By the time it was over, Eve was limp as a noodle. The minute she was alone, she dashed into the nearest bathroom, shut the door, and braced herself for a look in the mirror.

Her knees went weak with relief when she saw there were no streaks of pink, or anything else, in her hair. Nor were her eyebrows the carnival of colors Mavis’s had been when Trina finished with them. She wasn’t vain, Eve assured herself. She just wanted to look like she looked. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. And since she did, the ball of tension between her shoulder-blades dissolved.

Okay, maybe she looked a little better than usual. Trina did something to her eyebrows whenever she got her hands on them that made the arch more defined and framed out her eyes. And her skin had a nice glow to it.

She shook her head, pleased when her hair fell into place without any fuss.

Then her eyes widened in shock. She was vain, or edging perilously close to it. And it had to stop. Deliberately, she turned away from the mirror. She needed to get out of this stupid robe and into clothes. As soon as she did, she’d check on the lab.

Work, she assured herself, was the only thing worth being vain about.