Fantasy in Death

4

Back in the busy hive of Cop Central, Eve studied Roland Chadwick through the glass of Observation. He continued to sweat, just a bit, and his tear-swollen eyes tended to dart and dash around the room, as if he expected something to materialize in a corner and take a nice big bite out of him.

Perfect.

“We’ll take him together to start,” Eve told Peabody. “I’m going hard. He expects it from me now.”

“And you’d give him herbal tea and a fluffy pillow otherwise.”

“I’ll leave the fluffy to you, after I storm out of the room in disgust, leaving dire threats in my wake.”

“And I ‘there-there’ him until he spills his guts.”

“That’s the plan.”

Eve watched as Roland laid his head on the table as if to sleep. It wouldn’t have surprised her in the least if he’d popped his thumb in his mouth.

“While you’re doing that, I’ll start on Dubrosky. He’s been around the block a few times, and he has to know his dupe in there is a very weak sister. I believe his guts will also spill.”

Peabody smiled as Roland cushioned his face on his folded arms. “My guy will spill first.”

“Maybe. Let’s find out.”

She strode in, a tough, impatient woman who seemed capable of taking that nice big bite and enjoying it. Roland’s head popped up even as he shrank in his chair.

“Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Peabody, Detective Delia, in Interview with Chadwick, Roland, on the matter of the murder of Minnock, Bart. Roland Chadwick,” she continued, using both names to add a little more intimidation, “have you been read your rights?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Do you understand your rights and obligations in this matter?”

“Okay, yeah, but-”

She dropped her file on the table between them with a force that echoed like a slap. It shut him up.

“You worked for Bart Minnock, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am, I told you how I-”

“Can you account for your whereabouts yesterday?”

“I was at home, I mean, I was at work, and then-”

“Which is it?” She snapped the words out, leaned on the table, deep into his space. “Home or work? It’s an easy question, Roland.”

“I-I-I-I was at work all day, until I went home.” Like the words off his tongue, color stammered in his face, pink then white, pink then white. “I logged out and everything. It was after five. You can check. You can see.”

“And you log out, Roland, every time you leave the building? Every single time?”

“Well, mostly. For sure at the end of the day. For sure then. I didn’t do anything. I don’t understand why you’re so mad at me.” His voice pitched into a whine threatening to reach dog-ears-only territory. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Is that so? Maybe Bart would disagree. Maybe he’d have a little something to say about that. If he wasn’t dead.” She flipped open the file, spilled the crime scene photos out. “But it’s a little hard to get the words out when your head’s across the room from the rest of you.”

Roland took one look at the photos, went a very pale green. He said, fairly clearly: “Gah.” Then his eyes rolled up white as he slid to the floor.

“Well, shit.” Eve blew out a breath and fisted her hands on her hips. “Better get him some water, Peabody.”

“It was kind of graceful, the way he went down.” Peabody got a cup of water while Eve crouched down to pat Roland’s cheeks.

“Out cold. He’s not faking. Okay, Roland, come on back. Better get a medic in case… wait, here he comes. Roland!” She spoke sharply as his eyes twitched, then blinked. Then she gave a head jerk to Peabody so her partner would be the one playing nursemaid.

“Are you all right, Mr. Chadwick?” Peabody knelt down, eased his head up. “Try a little water. Take a sip, that’s the way. Take a breath. Do you need medical attention?”

“I don’t… what happened?”

“You fainted. Do you want me to call a medic?”

“No. No, I don’t think… I just need to-” His eyes popped wide now, and he grabbed Peabody’s arm like a drowning man. “Don’t make me look again. Don’t make me look.”

“Tougher to look than to be part of causing it?” Eve said coldly.

“I didn’t. I swear.” He all but crawled into Peabody’s lap, and Eve knew her work was done. “I swear! Don’t make me look.”

“Okay, it’s okay. You don’t have to look. Have some more water. We’ll wait until you’re feeling steady again.”

“Fine, that’s fine.” Eve pushed the photos back in the file. “You want to coddle him, he’s all yours. I can’t stand being in the same room with him. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, exiting Interview.”

She slammed the door behind her, but not before she heard Roland’s breathless thank-you to her partner.

Satisfied with Part A, she headed to the next interview room for Part B.

Milt Dubrosky had the buffed and polished looks of a spa rat. She imagined he devoted a good part of his day to the gym, and a good part of his week to treatments. His hair-too perfectly streaked to be nature’s gift-lay in subtle waves around a smooth, fine-boned face. His eyes, a soft, shimmering blue flashed out of long, dark lashes as he beamed out a high-wattage smile.

“Officer, I don’t know why I’m here, but at least the view just got a whole lot better.”

“Lieutenant.”

His smile flashed along with his eyes as he executed a snappy salute. “Sir, yes, sir.”

“Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in Interview with Dubrosky, Milton, on the matter of the murder of Minnock, Bart.”

“What?” Those bold eyes widened as he sucked in a breath. “Bart’s been murdered? When? What happened?”

“You’ve been in Interview before, Dubrosky.” She tapped the file that held his record. “So you know I’m the one who asks questions, and you’re the one who answers them. Have you been read your rights?”

“Yeah, the cops who brought me in. But they didn’t tell me anything.”

“Can you verify your whereabouts from between three p.m. and eight p.m. yesterday?”

“Sure. Sure. I was at my salon-that’s Urban Meadows-from about one to three-thirty, then I met a friend for coffee. I did some shopping and went to another friend’s place about five-thirty. Roland, Roland Chadwick. He works for Bart at U-Play. He got in shortly after I did, and we stayed in the rest of the night. He can vouch.”

“The name and contact information for your coffee date.”

“No problem. Britt Casey.” He rattled off a ’link number and an Upper West Side address. “We’re in a workshop together. Acting workshop. So we get together now and then to discuss craft.”

He was good, Eve decided, but not that good. Poor Roland, she thought, just how many ways can you be duped? “And what time did you leave your acting pal and head out on your own?”

“Sometime around five, I guess.”

“Coffee and shopping date. Where did you have coffee? Where did you shop? Do you have receipts?”

“I don’t actually remember the name of the coffee shop. And I didn’t actually buy anything. It was more window-shopping.”

Eve said nothing, just stared at him.

“Okay, look. I was at the salon like I said. My consultant’s name is Nanette. You can ask her. And I met Britt after, but it wasn’t for coffee, if you get me.” He tried the smile again, one that said I’m a scamp, but you gotta love me. “We went to the Oaks Hotel for a couple hours. See, the thing is, she’s married and I’m sort of living with someone.”

“Chadwick?”

“Ah, no. But my roommate and Britt? They don’t know about each other. I’d really appreciate it if they could keep not knowing about each other.”

“Name of the roommate?”

“Chelsea Saxton.”

Eve lifted her brows. “And where, exactly, does Roland Chadwick fit in?”

Dubrosky lifted his shoulders, let them fall in an oops gesture. “You could say I’m sort of semi-living with him, too.”

“With him also unaware of the other two, and they of him?”

“What can I say? I’m a people person.”

“That’s a lot of juggling. A man that adept at juggling would be able to juggle enough time in for a stopover at Bart’s apartment.”

“Never been there.” He added an easy, cheerful wave. “No reason to. I knew him a little, sure, because Roland works for him at U-Play. Seemed like a nice guy. Ro sure thought the world of him. I don’t know why anyone would kill the poor bastard.”

“You’re adept at e-work, too.”

“A hobby, really. Acting’s my real passion.”

“And combining hobby with passion you can make some cash selling inside information to interested parties. Especially when you’re stringing along a love-sick puppy with a bullshit IQ of zero, like Roland.”

“Aw, now, Ro’s a sweet kid. Maybe a little dim when it comes to anything outside of tech or gaming, but a sweet kid. And me? I’ve got a need to be admired, I admit it. He admires me.” Dubrosky turned up his hands as if to say, “Just look at me? Who wouldn’t admire all this?”

“Enough to leak data on Fantastical.”

Dubrosky tried looking blank, but didn’t quite pull it off. “Sorry, never heard of it.”

“Save the bullshit, Dubrosky. My IQ in that area’s tuned and toned. And, Admiring Roland’s already spilled it.” She leaned back. “Admiring you doesn’t mean taking the fall for you. He’s not quite as dumb as you think.”

“Ro’s not dumb.” Dubrosky didn’t miss a beat. “He just gets confused sometimes when it comes to reality. He’s wired to games, and a lot outside his bubble gets past him.”

“Like you have two side pieces, and a penchant for e-spying?”

“It’s not illegal to spread yourself around. Believe me, all my lovers are happy.” He wrapped an arm around the back of his chair, posed. “What’s the harm?”

“It tells me you’ve got no scruples, and a man with no scruples doesn’t think twice about cheating, stealing, lying. It’s a short step over to murder.”

“I don’t kill people, sweetheart. I seduce them.”

“Call me sweetheart again.” She leaned in, eyes flat. “Go ahead.”

“No offense, no offense.” He held up his hands for peace. “I’m not denying I’ve taken my hobby too far a couple times. I get caught up, like anyone else. But if you’ve got my sheet, you know I don’t do violence. The fact is, sweet-Lieutenant,” he corrected quickly, “I don’t need to. And sure, Ro’s told me some things about the big secret project. He’s excited about it, and he likes to talk. Part of a good seduction is listening. I listen. Not a crime.”

“Try listening to this,” Eve suggested. “Do you know what else I have besides your sheet? Your financials. It’s pretty interesting reading, too. All these nice deposits, which I’d say keeps you in salon time with Nanette. More interesting as your employment records indicate you haven’t had a paying job in close to a year.”

“People give me money as gifts. It’s part of the admiring.”

“I’m going to bet Bart didn’t admire you. I’m going to bet when you went to him asking for payment to keep the information your sap passed you, he’d have threatened to go to the cops.”

“I don’t do blackmail.” He glanced down at his nails. “It’s too messy.”

“Here’s something really messy.” Once again she took out the crime scene photos.

Dubrosky didn’t turn green; he didn’t faint, but he did go stark white. “Oh my Jesus. Oh my Christ. Somebody cut off his head.”

“I bet you practice swordfights in those workshops. Action roles, period pieces.” Eve cocked her head as she gave him a cool up-and-down study. “You’re in good shape. I bet you can handle a heavy sword without much trouble.”

“Listen. Listen to me.” Suave vanished in sober. “I make a living sleeping with people who can afford to slip me some cash, buy me nice things. I make more by selling information when I’ve got it. I don’t hurt people. I sure as hell don’t kill them. Roland’s a mark, sure. He’s easy. But the fact is, I’d just about tapped that out, which is why I’m easing over to Britt. She’s got a rich husband who lets her play at acting and spend all the money she wants. He’s out of town a lot-financial consultant. I figure I can tap that for a while, maybe get in the house, hack one of his comps, see what I see. I’m laying groundwork there, so why would I do something like this? I don’t do this. I didn’t do this.”

“Who’d you sell the information to?”

“Ah hell.” He pushed a hand through his hair, ruining its perfection and telling Eve he was sincerely frightened. “If I roll there, you’ve got to cut me a deal.”

“I don’t have to do squat. You’ve already confessed, on record, to corporate espionage. And here’s the thing, Milt. I really, really don’t admire you. Names. Now.”

He sat back, closed his soft, shimmering eyes, and spilled his guts.

When she’d finished with Dubrosky, she had him escorted back to a cell. She would do what she could do to make sure he spent the next few years as a guest of the fine state of New York. And she hoped he sorely missed his salon appointments.

“I got mine,” Peabody told her when they met in Eve’s office.

“Then we’re two for two.” Eve programmed coffee, waved Peabody to the AutoChef so she could get her own.

“I didn’t know half of what he was talking about. The more upset he got, the more he babbled, and the babble got pretty technical. I figure to ask McNab to look over the interview and interpret, but…” Peabody paused to give the coffee a couple of little blows before taking the first sip. “But what I got was he gave Dubrosky the details of his research and whatever work he did on the Fantastical project, and anything else he had a hand in or knew about. The guy’s a walking mouth. They couldn’t be screening as well as they seem to think they are.”

“One of the holes,” Eve murmured, thinking of Roarke’s comment. She walked over to her narrow window, looked out at a passing airtram as she considered. “My guy’s so slimy if I stepped on him I wouldn’t wipe him off my shoe, I’d just incinerate the shoe. He lives off sex and what passes for charm, targeting marks, juggling them. He claims he was having sex with a new target when Bart lost his head. In the Oaks Hotel.”

“That’s pretty uptown for a sex con.”

“The mark’s got a rich husband. So, we’ll check it out, but it rings. He’s also living with yet another mark when he’s not doing the walking mouth. They pay his freight, and he digs into their business, and sells the data to interested parties. I’ve got the interested party on this one.”

She sipped coffee, thinking of the young, stupid Roland, the young, naive Bart. “I don’t think Dubrosky got into Bart’s and sliced him up. He might snag a fingernail or get spatter in his perfect hair. But he’s going over for the rest. And if we pin the murder on the buyer, we may be able to slap him with accessory. He’s earned a nice long stretch in a very small cage.”

“You really didn’t like him.”

“I really didn’t. But the point is, if he hadn’t used the lovestruck Roland for gain, maybe Bart Minnock would still be in one piece. You take the two women he was juggling along with Roland. I want to get some data on Lane DuVaugne of Synch Entertainment before we talk to him.”

Peabody looked into her coffee mug. “They’re going to be pissed.”

“Oh yeah. You get the fun stuff.” She gave Peabody the names and contact information. “Be discreet,” she added. “Britt Casey’s married. She probably deserves a kick in the ass, but if she’s as dumb as Roland, I’m inclined to cut her a break and try to keep her husband out of it.”

“I’ll be the soul. If this guy was banging three marks, how’d he have time for anything else?”

“Apparently, it’s just a matter of good time management.”

“I wonder what supplements he takes, or if he has a special diet.”

“I’ll be sure to ask next time we speak. Out.”

Eve sat to begin runs on both DuVaugne and the company, and while the data began to screen, followed a hunch.

Once again Roarke answered directly. “Lieutenant.”

“Are you in the house?”

“I am, yes. In EDD.”

“What can you tell me, off the top, about a Lane DuVaugne and Synch Entertainment.”

“I’ll come down.”

“You don’t have to-” she began, but she was talking to empty air.

“Okay then.”

She started with DuVaugne. The fifty-nine-year-old vice president was on wife two, who-no surprise-clocked in at twenty-eight years younger. They based their three-year marriage on the Upper East Side, with additional housing in Belize and the Italian Riviera. The current wife was a former lingerie model.

Men were so simple, really.

He’d held his position at Synch for sixteen years, and pulled in a hefty twenty-two million, before bonuses, annually.

He had no criminal record.

“We’re about to change that.”

What change do you wish to implement? the computer asked.

“Nothing. None. A person can’t even talk to herself around here.”

She did a quick scan on the company. It had been around nearly as long as DuVaugne had been alive, developing, manufacturing, and distributing games and game systems. Offices and plants worldwide. She frowned as she read the cities, backtracked through company history, tried to wade her way through the official financial and employment data.

She hated to admit it, but she felt some relief when Roarke walked in. Then he shut the door.

“Uh-oh.”

“I simply prefer not to broadcast my business.”

“Your business crosses with Synch?”

“Not at the moment. Where’s your candy?”

“What candy?”

He gave her a look. “I know very well you hide candy in here. I need a boost. Give it over.”

Her frown deepened, and she tracked her gaze toward the door. “Don’t let anybody come in. It’s a damn good hiding place.”

“You know, you could easily rig a cam in here, and catch whoever’s lifting your stash in the act.”

“One day I’ll catch the candy thief, but it’ll be by guile and wit, not technology. It’s a matter of pride and principle now.”

She took a tool from her desk, then squatted in front of her recycler. After a few twists, she removed the facing and pulled an evidence bag from the back.

“Your guile and wit contest causes you to keep candy in the recycler, with the trash?”

“It’s sealed.” She broke the seal with a little pop and whoosh to prove it, then took out one of three chocolate bars. She tossed it to him, then bagged the remaining two with a fresh seal before hiding them again. She glanced back to see him studying the candy.

“If you’re going to be so dainty give it back.”

“There was a time I rooted through alley garbage for food, without a thought. Things change.” He unwrapped the candy, took a bite. “But apparently not that much.”

She replaced the tool, then stood, hands on hips, studying the recycler for any signs of tampering. “Okay. Still good.”

“And a demonstration of true love if I ever saw one.” He brushed a hand over her tousled cap of brown hair, then tapped a finger on the dent of her chin before touching his lips to hers. “Better than chocolate.”

The shadows had lifted, she noted. Work could do that-focus and channel grief and regret. “Synch Entertainment.”

“Yes. About a year ago I looked into acquiring the corporation.”

“Naturally. It exists, so you want it.”

“On the contrary.” He sat in her shabby visitor’s chair. “After some research and vetting I decided I didn’t want it, or not at this time.”

“Because?”

“It’s in trouble. The sort I have no need or desire to take on. Better to wait until it’s either limping along then buy it cheap, or wait until they shake things out, fix the problems, and offer a good price for a healthy company.”

“What kind of problems? Other than they’ve closed two on-planet plants in the last sixteen months-small ones, outside the U.S. They have no plants or offices off-planet, so they’re either missing that market altogether, or the cost of distributing their products to that market would be prohibitive.”

He arched his brows. “Well now, my heart swells with pride. Listen to the business acumen.”

“Be a smartass, lose the candy.”

“Why don’t you come over here and try to take it?” Smiling now, he patted his knee in invitation.

Oh yeah, he was feeling better.

“I don’t know anything about the game market, except it has to be almost no-fail. People want to play, all the damn time. In arcades, at home, at parties, in the office. So why can’t a company that’s been in the game of games for over half a century make it work?”

“Because they’ve invested more, at least in the last decade, in marketing and execs than in creative minds and new technology, and they’ve continued to ignore the off-planet market, considering it too small and cost prohibitive.” He shrugged as he took another bite of the candy bar. “They’re stuck in a certain mind-set, and if it doesn’t change, and soon, they’ll shortly be a generation behind.”

“Okay, so they overpay the suits and figure if it was good enough ten years ago, it’s good enough now.”

“Basically. The two people who founded it fifty-odd years ago sold it off during its prime. It’s had its ups and downs since, as companies will. At this point it’s in a slow but steady downswing.”

“Something like U-Play’s Fantastical would change the swing.”

“It could, absolutely, if developed and marketed well. Is this your motive?”

“Might be. DuVaugne paid a source nearly a hundred and fifty thousand, so far, for data on the program. He’s a VP at Synch.”

“In Development,” Roarke added. “I looked him up on the way down. He’d be a hero if he brought the company this idea, and the means to create it. I imagine his contract with them includes bonus clauses. He’d rake in quite a bit, and for a very small investment.”

“Which is a very nice motive for murder, or for making another investment and hiring it out. He’s also got a fairly new and very young second wife. I bet she likes the high life.”

He smiled at her. “Most do.”

“Uh-huh. So, when down the road a couple decades if you think about ditching me for fresh? Remember who carries a weapon.”

“Something I never forget. Or fail to appreciate.”

“Okay. I need to have a little chat with DuVaugne.”

“I’d be interested in chatting with him myself.”

“Can’t do it. Can’t,” she repeated, shaking her head. “You’re a competitor, and it could sour my chances of shaking him out. Complicate them anyway.”

“Fair enough.”

“I should touch base with Morris, and I want another pass at the scene. Keep me updated on the e-work.”

“I’ll do that, but I want to go with you to Bart’s.”

She started to speak, stopped and reconsidered. “You might be handy there.”

“I do what I can.” He balled up the candy wrapper, two-pointed it into the recycler before he rose. “Thanks for the candy.”

She smiled. “What candy?”