Holiday In Death

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Jesus, Dallas." Feeney shrugged the shoulder she was leaning over. "Stop breathing down my neck."

"Sorry." She leaned back one stingy inch. "How long does it take to program the print into this thing?"

"Twice as long as it would if you weren't nagging on me."

"Okay, okay." She backed off, stalked to the window of the conference room. "It's sleeting," she said more to herself than him. "Traffic's going to be ugly later."

"Traffic's always ugly this time of year. Too many damn tourists. I tried to do a little shopping last night. Wife wants this sweater thing. People are like wolves on a dead deer out there. I'm not going back."

"Video shopping's easier."

"Yeah, but the fucking circuits are jammed. Everybody and his cousin's on trying to scoop up bargains. I don't come up with a dozen pretty boxes under the tree for her, I'm bunking in the den till spring."

"A dozen?" Mildly horrified, she swung back around. "You have to buy her more than one?"

"Man, Dallas, are you green in the marriage area." He snorted, working manually on the programming. "One present don't mean dick. Quantity, pal. Think quantity."

"Great, terrific. I'm sunk."

"You got a couple of days left. And here we are."

Her shopping dilemma cleared from her mind as she rushed back. "Run it."

"I'm getting to it. Here's our man on the 'link."

Is Mr. or Mrs. Kates available?

"I cut out the other voices. That's your pauses," Feeney explained.

Good morning, Ms. Kates. This is Nicholas Claus. I wondered how the work on my necklace is progressing.

"I can run the rest, but that's enough for a match."

"The accent's vague," Eve mused. "He doesn't put a lot on it. That's smart. You got Rudy in there?"

"Coming up. This is from the interview tape. Just him."

We advise all our clients to meet their matches in a public place. Any who agreed to meet him privately subsequent to that were making their own decision.

"Now we got prints. This baby computes everything: pitch, inflection, cadence, tonal quality. Don't matter a damn if you disguise your voice. It's as reliable as fingerprints and DNA. You can't fake it. Shift to Subject A, graft style, on screen and on audio."

Working…

Eve listened to the 'link call, watched the lines of color skim and jump along the screen. "Split the screen," she told him, "put the interview blurb up under that one."

"Just hold on." Feeney ordered the function, then pursed his lips. "Got a problem here."

"What? What's wrong with it?"

"Meld prints on screen," he ordered, then sighed as the points and valleys clashed. "They don't match, Dallas. They aren't even close. You got two different voices here."

"Shit." She tunneled her fingers through her hair. Because she could see it for herself, her stomach started to burn. "Let me think. Okay, what if he used a distorter on his end of the 'link?"

"He could mess it up a little, but I'd still get match points. Best I can do is ran a scan, search for any electronic masking, clean it out if I find it. But I've seen enough of these to know when I'm looking at two different guys."

He sighed and sent her one of his mournful looks. "Sorry, Dallas. This sets things back a ways."

"Yeah." She rubbed her eyes. "Run the scan anyway, will you, Feeney? How about the feature-by-feature from the videos?"

"It's coming – coming slow. I can run Rudy's ear shape, eye shape against it."

"Let's go that route, too. I'm going to check with Mira, see if the profile's done."

To save herself time, Eve called Mira's office. The doctor was gone for the day, but a preliminary report had been transmitted to Eve's office 'link. She headed over, trying to pick apart the voice prints as she went.

The guy was smart, she mused. Maybe he'd figured on a voice print analysis. Anticipated it and found a way around it. What if he'd had someone else call the jeweler's?

And that was reaching, she admitted. But it wasn't impossible.

She heard what she would have sworn was a giggle, and stepped inside her office to see Peabody chatting amiably with Charles Monroe.

"Peabody?"

"Sir." Peabody sprang instantly to her feet and to attention. "Charles, ah, Mr. Monroe has some… wanted to…"

"Restrain your hormones, Officer. Charles?"

"Dallas." He smiled, rising from his seat on the arm of her one pathetic chair. "Your aide kept me company, charmingly, while I waited for you."

"I bet. What's the deal?"

"It might be nothing, but – " He shrugged. "One of the women from my match list got in touch a couple of hours ago. It seems her date for a jaunt upstate this weekend hit a snag. She thought I might like to substitute, though we didn't really connect before."

"That's fascinating, Charles." Impatient to get on with her work, Eve dropped into a chair. "But I don't feel qualified to give you advice on your social life."

"I can handle that on my own." As if to prove it, he winked at Peabody and had her going rosy pink with pleasure. "I was toying with the idea of taking her up on it, but knowing how things can go, I chatted her up awhile to get a feel for it."

"Is there a point to this?"

He leaned forward. "I like my moment in the sun, Lieutenant Sugar." Both of them ignored Peabody's gasping snort at the term. "She started unloading. She'd had a big bustup with the guy she'd been seeing. Dumped all the crap on me. She caught him cheating on her with some redhead. Then she tells me how he thought he could make up for it by having Santa bring her a present last night."

Eve sat up slowly, and now her attention focused in. "Keep going."

"I thought that would do it." With satisfaction, Charles leaned back. "She says the doorbell rings about ten last night, and when she looks out there's Santa with a big silver box." He shook his head. "I have to tell you, with what I knew, my heart just about stopped. But she's rambling on about how she wouldn't give the cheating bastard the satisfaction of opening the door. She didn't want his pitiful makeup gift."

"She didn't let him in," Eve murmured.

"And I figure that was why she was alive to call me and bitch."

"You happen to know what she does for a living?"

"She's a dancer. Ballet."

"Yeah, that works," Eve murmured. "I need a name and address. Peabody?"

"Ready."

"Cheryl Zapatta, she's on West Twenty-eighth. That's all I've got."

"We'll find her."

"Look, I don't know if I did the right thing, but I told her. Your one-on-one with Nadine Furst had just run, so I figured it was out. I told her to turn on her screen, and I filled her in." He blew out a breath. "She panicked. Big time. Said she was getting out. I don't know if you're going to find her for a while."

"If she's scrambled, we can get an order to enter and search. You did the right thing, Charles," Eve said after a moment. "If she hadn't heard the report, she might have had a change of heart and opened the door the next time. I appreciate you coming in."

"Anything for you, Lieutenant Sugar." He got to his feet. "Can you let me know what happens?"

"Watch your screen," Eve advised.

"Yeah. Uh, would you mind showing me the way out, Officer?" He sent a killer smile at Peabody. "I'm a little turned around."

"Sure. Lieutenant?"

"Go ahead." Eve waved them away, then dived into Mira's report. Engrossed and frustrated, she didn't notice that it took Peabody twenty minutes to show Charles to his choice of people glide or elevator.

"She's cleared the son of a bitch." Eve sat back, scrubbing her face over her hands when Peabody came back in. "I've got nothing to hang on him."

"Rudy?"

"His personality index doesn't fit the profile. His capacity for physical violence runs low on the scale. He's devious, intelligent, obsessive, possessive, and sexually limited, but in the doctor's opinion, he isn't our man. Damn it. His lawyer gets a copy of this, I won't be able to touch the little creep."

"Are you still looking at him for it?"

"I don't know what I'm looking at." She tried to keep her head and her temper clear. "We go back and we start over. From the beginning. We re-interview, starting with the first victim."

At eight forty-five, Eve charged up the steps. She was already irked, as Summerset had greeted her in the foyer with his bilious stare and the comment that she had precisely fifteen minutes to make herself presentable before guests began to arrive.

It didn't help to race into the bedroom and find Roarke showered and dressing. "I'll make it," she blurted out and dashed into the bath.

"It's a party, darling, not an endurance test." He wandered in behind her, mainly for the pleasure of watching her strip. "Take your time."

"Yeah, like I'm going to walk in late and give that butt-face another reason to complain about me. Shower, all heads full, one-oh-one degrees."

"You aren't required to meet Summerset's approval." He leaned idly against the wall to watch her. She showered as she did nearly everything: quickly and efficiently, no wasted time or moves. "In any case, people traditionally arrive late for affairs like this."

"I'm just running a little behind." She hissed as shampoo ran into her eyes and stung. "I lost my prime suspect, and I'm starting from scratch." She sprang out, took a step toward the drying tube, then stopped. "Shit, am I supposed to put that glop on my hair when it's wet or when it's dry?"

Having a fairly good idea which glop she referred to, Roarke plucked a tube from the shelf and poured a dab in his palm. "Here, allow me."

The way his hands moved through her hair made her want to purr, but she eyed him narrowly. "Don't mess with me, pal. I don't have time for you."

"I have no idea what you mean." Enjoying himself, he chose another tube and poured a generous pool of body lotion into his hands. "I'm simply helping you get ready," he began as he slid his slickened hands over her shoulders, her breasts. "Since you seem frazzled."

"Look – " Then she closed her eyes and sighed when his hands slithered down to her waist, slipped over her butt. "I think you missed a spot."

"Careless of me." He lowered his head, sniffed at her throat. And bit. "Want to be very, very late?"

"Yeah. But I'm not going to." She wiggled away and leaped into the drying tube. "But don't forget where you left off."

"A pity you didn't get here twenty minutes ago." Having decided that watching her wasn't going to help his blood cool, he strolled back into the bedroom.

"I just have to gunk up my face some." She whipped out of the tube and dashed for the mirror without bothering with a robe. "What am I supposed to wear to something like this?"

"I have it."

She stopped fumbling ineptly with her lash dye and scowled. "Do I pick out your clothes?"

"Eve, please."

She had to laugh. "Okay, bad example, but I don't have time to think of another one." Solving the problem of hairstyle by skimming her fingers briskly through what she had, she turned into the bedroom to see Roarke studying what she supposed some people would call a dress.

"Get out of here. I'm not wearing that."

"Mavis brought it by the other night. Leonardo designed it for you. It'll look very good on you."

She frowned at the fluid panels of silver held together on the sides by thin sparkling straps. The straps were repeated at the shoulders, catching a drape of fabric in the front and much, much lower in the back.

"Why don't I just go naked and save time?"

"Let's see how it looks."

"What do I wear under it?"

He tucked his tongue in his cheek. "You're wearing it."

"Jesus Christ." With ill grace, she stepped into it, wiggled it up.

The material was soft as a waterfall and clung like a lover, the seductive side slashes exposing smooth skin and slender curves.

"Darling Eve." He took her hand, turning it over to nuzzle the palm in one of the gestures he used to turn her legs to putty. "Sometimes you take my breath away. Here, try these."

He took a pair of diamond drop earrings from the dresser and handed them to her.

"Were these already mine, or what?"

Now he grinned. "You've had them for months. No more presents until Christmas."

She fastened them on, and decided to take it philosophically when he selected her shoes. "There's no place in this thing to keep my communicator. I'm on call."

"Here." He offered her the ridiculously small evening bag that matched the shoes.

"Anything else?"

"You're perfect." He smiled when he heard the beep that signaled the first car arriving at the gate. "And prompt. Let's go down so I can show off my wife."

"I'm not a poodle," she muttered and made him laugh.

Within an hour, the house was full of people and music and light. Scanning the ballroom, Eve could only be grateful Roarke never expected her to have any input into the preparations.

There were huge tables groaning under silver platters of food: honied ham from Virginia, glazed duck from France, rare beef from Montana; lobster, salmon, oysters harvested from the rich beds on Silas I; an array of fresh vegetables picked only that morning and cleverly arranged in patterns. Desserts that would tempt a political prisoner from a hunger strike surrounded a three-foot tree fashioned out of sinfully rich cake and hung with gleaming marzipan ornaments.

She wondered that it could still amaze her what the man she had married could conjure.

A soaring pine decorated with thousands of white lights and silver stars stood at either end of the ballroom. The floor-to-ceiling windows showed not the nasty sleet that hissed over the city, but a hologram of a dreamy snowscene where couples skated on a silver pond and young children raced down a gentle slope on shiny red sleds.

Such details, she thought, were so utterly Roarke.

"Hey, sweetheart. All alone in this palace?"

She arched a brow when she felt the hand on her bottom and turned her head slowly to stare at McNab.

He went red, then white, then red again. "Christ! Lieutenant. Sir."

"Your hand's on my ass, McNab. I don't think you want it to be there."

He snatched it away as if scorched. "God. Man. Shit. Beg your pardon. I didn't recognize you. I mean…" He jammed the hand he sincerely hoped she'd allow him to keep in his pocket. "I didn't know it was you. I thought… You look…" Words failed him.

"I believe Detective McNab is trying to compliment you, Eve." Roarke slipped up beside them and, because it was too much to resist, stared hard into McNab's panicked eyes. "Weren't you, Ian?"

"Yeah. That is…"

"And if I believed he'd realized it was your ass he was fondling, I'd just have to kill him. Right here." Roarke reached out and flicked at the strings of McNab's snazzy red tie. "Right now."

"Oh, I'd have already taken care of that myself," Eve said dryly. "You look like you could use a drink, Detective."

"Yes, sir. I could."

"Roarke, why don't you take care of him? Mira just came in. I want to talk to her."

"Delighted." Roarke draped an arm around McNab's shoulder and squeezed just a little harder than comfort allowed.

It took longer than Eve liked to make her way across the room. It amazed her how much people wanted to talk at parties. And about nothing in particular. That was delay enough, but she caught sight of Peabody, looking very un-Peabody-like in sweeping evening pants of dull gold and a trim sleeveless jacket. Her bare arm was tucked comfortably through Charles Monroe's.

Mira, Eve decided, could wait. "Peabody."

"Dallas. Wow, the place looks amazing."

"Yeah." Eve shifted her gaze and pinned Charles with angry eyes. "Monroe."

"Fabulous home you've got. Lieutenant."

"I don't recall your name on the guest list."

Peabody colored, stiffened. "The invitation said I was free to bring a date."

"Is that what this is?" she asked, keeping her eyes on Charles's. "A date?"

"Yes." He lowered his voice as a flicker of hurt clouded his eyes. "Delia is aware of my profession."

"Are you giving her the cop's standard discount?"

"Dallas." Horrified, Peabody stepped forward.

"It's all right." Charles tugged her back. "I'm on my own time, Dallas, and hoping to spend a pleasant evening with an attractive woman whose company I enjoy. If you'd rather I leave, it's your house, your call."

"She's a big girl."

"Yes, she is," Peabody murmured. "Just a second, Charles," she added, then gripped Eve's arm and tugged her aside.

"Hey!"

"No, you hey." Fury bubbled into her voice as Peabody boxed Eve into a corner. "I don't have to clear my personal time or relationships with you, and you have no right to embarrass me."

"Wait a minute – "

"I'm not done." Later, Peabody would recall the look of speechless shock on Eve's face, but at the moment she was too revved to notice or react to it. "What I do off duty has nothing to do with the job. If I want to take on table dancing in my personal time, it's my business. If I want to pay six LCs to fuck me blind on Sundays, it's my business. And if I want to have a civilized date with an interesting, attractive man who for some reason wants to have one with me, it's my business."

"I was only – "

"I'm not done," Peabody said between clenched teeth. "On the job, you're in charge. But that's where it ends. If you don't want me here with Charles, then we'll leave."

As Peabody turned on her heel, Eve snagged her wrist. "I don't want you to leave." Her voice was quiet, controlled, and stiff as a petrified board. "I apologize for stepping into your personal life. I hope it doesn't spoil your evening. Excuse me."

Hurt, unbelievably hurt, she walked away. Her stomach was still jittering with it when she found Mira. "I don't want to take you away from the party, but I'd like a few minutes. In private."

"Of course." Concerned by the dark eyes and pale cheeks, Mira reached out. "What is it, Eve?"

"In private," she repeated, and ordered herself to bury her feelings as she led the way out. "We can talk in the library."

"Oh." The minute she stepped inside, Mira clasped her hands in sheer pleasure. "What a marvelous room. Oh, what absolute treasures. Not enough people appreciate the feel and the smell of a real book in their hands any longer. The delight of curling into a chair with the warmth of one instead of the cool efficiency of a disc."

"Roarke's into books," Eve said simply and shut the door. "The testing on Rudy. I question some of your findings."

"Yes, I thought you might." Mira wandered through, admiring, then settled onto a soft leather chair, smoothing the skirt of her rose-pink cocktail suit. "He's not your killer, Eve, nor is he the monster you want him to be."

"It has nothing to do with what I want."

"His relationship with his sister disturbs you on a deep and personal level. She isn't like you, though; she isn't a child, she isn't defenseless, and while I do believe he has an unhealthy measure of control over her, she isn't being forced."

"He uses her."

"Yes, and she him. It's mutual. I agree that he is obsessive when it pertains to her. He is sexually immature. The very thing that eliminates him from your lists, Eve, is the fact that I strongly believe he is impotent with anyone but his sister."

"He was being blackmailed and the blackmailer is dead. A client was hitting on his sister; that client is dead."

"Yes, and I admit that with that evidence I was prepared to find him capable of those murders. He isn't. He has some potential for physical violence. When roused, when threatened. But it's a flash, it's immediate. It isn't in his makeup to plan, to orchestrate, to complete the kind of killings you're dealing with."

"Then we just turn him loose?" Eve walked away. "Let him go?"

"Incest is against the law, but it has to be proven to be coerced. This isn't the case. I understand your need to punish him, and to, in your mind, release his sister from his hold."

"This isn't about me."

"Oh, I know that, Eve." Because it hurt her heart to watch, she reached up to take Eve's hand and stop the restless pacing. "Don't keep punishing yourself."

"I focused on him because of this. I know I did." Suddenly weary, she sank down beside Mira. "And because I did, I might have missed something, some detail, that would have led to the killer."

"You followed very logical, very clear-cut steps. He had to be eliminated from the list."

"But I took too long to do it. And every time my gut told me I was looking at the wrong man, I ignored it. Because I kept seeing myself. I'd look at her and I'd think, way back in my mind, I'd think, That could be me. If I hadn't killed the son of a bitch, that could be me."

She lowered her head into her hands, then dragged them back through her hair. "Christ, I'm messing up. All over the damn place."

"How?"

"There's no point in getting into this."

Mira merely stroked Eve's hair. "How?"

"I can't even seem to handle a perfectly ordinary holiday. Just the thought of trying to figure out what to do, what to buy, how to act makes my stomach ache."

"Oh, Eve." Laughing lightly, Mira shook her head. "Christmas drives nearly everyone half crazy with just those problems. It's absolutely normal."

"Not for me, it isn't. I never had to worry about it before. I didn't have so many people in my life."

"Now you do." Mira smiled, indulged herself by stroking Eve's hair again. "Who do you want to get rid of?"

"I think I just managed to kick Peabody out." Disgusted, Eve shot to her feet again. "She comes in with an LC. Oh, he's basically okay, but he's a goddamn whore, a great looking, slick, amusing one."

"It disturbs you," Mira suggested, "that you like him on one level and despise him for what he does for a living."

"This isn't about me. It's about Peabody. He says he wants a real relationship, and she's got stars in her eyes over him and she's majorly pissed at me because I said something about it."

"Life's messy, Eve, and I'm afraid you've gone and carved yourself out a life, with all the conflicts and problems and hurt feelings that entails. If she's angry with you, it's because there's no one she admires or respects more."

"Oh, Christ."

"Being loved is a heavy responsibility. You'll mend your fences with her, because she matters to you."

"I'm getting damn crowded with people who matter."

The house screen across the room blinked on. Summerset's pinched face filled it. "Lieutenant, your guests are inquiring about you."

"Fuck off." She smiled thinly as Mira swallowed a laugh. "At least that's one person I don't have to worry about mattering. But I shouldn't have busted up your evening."

"You haven't. I enjoy talking with you."

"Well…" Eve started to stick her hands in her pockets, remembered she didn't have any, and sighed. "Would you mind hanging out here for a minute? There's something I want to get from my office."

"All right. May I look through the books?"

"Sure, help yourself." Not wanting to take the time to go out and down the stairs, Eve slipped into the elevator. She was back in less than three minutes, but Mira was already cozied into a chair with a book.

"Jane Eyre." She sighed as she set it aside. "I haven't read it since I was a girl. It's so wrenchingly romantic."

"You can borrow it if you want. Roarke wouldn't mind."

"I have my own copy. I just haven't taken the time. But thank you."

"I wanted to give you this. It's a couple of days early, but… I might not see you." Feeling ridiculously awkward, she held out the elegantly wrapped box.

"Oh, how sweet of you." With obvious delight, Mira clasped the box in her hands. "May I open it now?"

"Sure, that's the deal, right?" She shifted her feet, then rolled her eyes as Mira delicately untied the fussy bow and painstakingly unfolded the corners on the paper.

"Drives my family crazy, too," she said with a laugh. "I just can't bear to rip in; then I save the paper and ribbon like a pack rat. I have a closet full of it which I constantly forget to reuse. But…" She trailed off as she opened the lid and found the bottle of scent inside. "Why, it's lovely, Eve. It has my name etched on it."

"It's this personalized sort of fragrance. You give the guy physical and personality traits, then he creates an individual fragrance."

"Charlotte," Mira murmured. "I wasn't sure you knew my first name."

"I guess I heard it somewhere."

Mira blinked at sentimental tears. "It's wonderfully thoughtful." She set the bottle down and turned to draw Eve into a hug. "Thank you."

Swamped with warmth, and embarrassment, Eve let herself be held. "I'm glad you like it. I'm pretty new at this kind of thing."

"You did very well." She drew back, but caught Eve's face in her hands. "I'm so fond of you. Now I need the powder room because another of my Christmas traditions is to weep a little over my gifts. I know where it is," she added, patting Eve's cheeks lightly. "You go dance with your husband and drink a little too much champagne. The world outside will still be there tomorrow."

"I need to stop him."

"And you will. But tonight, you need your life. Go find Roarke and take it."