Indulgence in Death

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LUC DELAFLOTE ARRIVED AT THE ELEGANT HOME on the Upper East Side at precisely eight P.M. He was, after all, a man who prided himself on precision. The dignified droid met him at the door, escorted him and the driver, who carried carefully packed ingredients, to the spacious kitchen with its views of the patio, little koi pond, and gardens.

Delaflote carried his own tools, as he believed it demonstrated their import and his own eccentricity.

Fifty-two years before, he’d been born Marvin Clink in Topeka. Through talent, study, work, and towering ambition young Marvin had formed himself into Delaflote de Paris, maître cuisinier. He’d designed and prepared meals for kings and presidents, sautéed and flambéed for emirs and sultans. He’d bedded duchesses and kitchen maids.

It was said—he knew, as he’d said it himself—that those fortunate enough to taste his pâté de canard en croûte knew how the gods dined.

“You may go.” He dismissed the driver with a single turn of his wrist. “You.” He pointed at the droid. “You will show me now the pots.”

“One moment, please,” the droid said to the driver. The droid opened several deep drawers holding a variety of pots, pans, and skillets. “I will show the driver out, then come back to assist you.”

“Assistance I don’t want from you. Keep out of my kitchen. Shoo.”

Alone, Delaflote opened his case of knives, spoons, and other tools. He took out a corkscrew, and opened the bottles of wine he’d personally selected. After opening, he searched the polished steel cabinets for a worthy wineglass.

Sipping, he studied his temporary realm, the stove, ovens, sinks, prep counters, and deemed it would do.

For the client who had paid him handsomely for the trip to New York to prepare a romantic, late-night supper for two, he would create a selection of appetizers highlighted by the caviar he’d chosen and served on a bed of clear, crushed ice. When the appetite was whetted, the fortunate pair would enjoy an entrée of salmon mousse along with his signature baguettes and thin slices of avocado. His main, poulet poêle de Delaflote, would be served with glazed baby vegetables and garnished with generous sprigs of fresh rosemary from his own herb garden.

Ah, the fragrance.

This he would follow with a salad of field greens harvested only an hour before he’d boarded his private shuttle, then his selection of well-aged cheeses. For the finale he would prepare his far-famed soufflé au chocolat.

Satisfied, he set up his music—romantic ballads—in French, bien sûr, for a romantic meal. Donning his apron, he got down to business.

As he sometimes did, he acted as his own sous-chef, chopping, slicing, peeling. The shapes, the textures, the scents pleased and excited him. For Delaflote, peeling a potato could be as sensuous and pleasurable as peeling the clothes from a lover.

He was a man of small stature and trim build. His hair, a dramatic and carefully styled mane of glossy chestnut, flowed back from a face dominated by large, heavily lidded brown eyes. They gave him the look of a romantic, a dreamer, and were often the first element in the seduction of women.

He adored women, treated them like queens, and enjoyed having several lovers revolving through his life at the same time.

He lived life fully, wringing every drop of flavor from it and savoring every morsel.

With the chicken in the oven, the mousse chilling, he poured another glass of wine. Enjoying it, he sampled one of his own stuffed mushrooms, approved.

He cleaned his area, washed the greens, vegetables, and herbs for the salad, then set that to chill. This he would lightly toss with a tarragon dressing while his client and the fortunate husband dined on the main course. Pleased with the scents perfuming the air, he basted the chicken with sauce—the recipe a secret guarded as fiercely as the Crown Jewels—added the pretty little vegetables.

Only then did he step out into the walled garden where, according to the client’s wishes, the meal would be served. Again he approved. Lush roses, big-headed hydrangeas, arching trees, starry lilies rose and spread and speared around the paved courtyard. The night held clear and warm, and he would see that dozens of candles were arranged and lit to add the sparkle of romance.

He checked the time. The servers would be arriving any moment, but in the meanwhile he would call the droid, have it set out the table, show him the selection of linens and dinnerware.

He took out one of his herbal cigarettes to smoke while he set the scene.

The table just there, little tealights glittering in clear holders. Roses from the garden in a shallow bowl. More candles ringing the courtyard—all white. He would send one of the servers out to get more if there weren’t enough on hand.

Ah, there, nasturtium. He’d toss some of the flowers with the salad for color and interest.

Crystal stemware, mais oui.

The sounds of the city, of traffic crept over the garden walls, but he would mask that with music. The droid would have to show him where the system was kept so he could make the appropriate selections.

He turned a circle, stopped when he saw a man step out of the lights of the kitchen into the shadows of the garden.

“Ah, you are arrived. There is much work to be . . .” He stopped, eyebrows lifting when he recognized the man.

“Monsieur, you I was not expecting.”

“Good evening, Delaflote. I apologize for the subterfuge. I didn’t want it known I was your client tonight.”

“Ah, so, you wish to be incognito, oui?” Smiling a knowing smile, Delaflote tapped the side of his nose. “To have your rendezvous with a lady, what would it be, on the q.t. You can trust Delaflote. I am nothing if not discreet. But we are not complete. You must give me time to create the ambience as well as the meal.”

“I’m sure the meal would be extraordinary. It already smells wonderful.”

“Bien sûr.” Delaflote made a slight bow.

“And you came alone? No assistants?”

“Everything is prepared only by my hands, as requested.”

“Perfect. Would you mind standing just over there a bit? I want to check something.”

With a Gallic shrug he’d perfected over the years, Delaflote moved a few steps to the right.

“Yes, just there. One moment.” He backed into the kitchen, retrieved the weapon he’d leaned against the wall. “It does smell exceptional,” he said as he stepped back out. “It’s a pity.”

“What is this?” Delaflote frowned at the weapon.

“It’s my round.” And he pulled the trigger.

The barb went through the heart as if the organ had been ringed like a target. With its keen, merciless edge, it continued out the back to dig into the trunk of an ornamental cherry tree.

Moriarity studied the chef, pinned there, legs and arms twitching as body and brain died. He stepped closer to take the short recording as proof he’d completed the round.

With the ease of a man who knew all was in place, he walked back inside, replaced the weapon in its case. He opened the oven for a moment, breathed in the rich aroma before shutting it off.

“It really is a pity.”

So as not to waste the entire business, he rebagged the wine, found the champagne Delaflote had chilling. He took one last glance around to be sure all was as it should be, and satisfied, walked back through the house and out the front. The droid he’d programmed for the event waited in a black, four-door sedan.

He checked the time, smiled.

The entire business had taken hardly more than twenty minutes.

He didn’t speak to the droid; it already had instructions. As programmed it pulled into Dudley’s garage.

“Put these in Mr. Dudley’s private quarters,” he ordered, “then return the car. After you return to base, shut down for the night.”

In the garage, Moriarity retrieved the martini he’d left on a bench less than thirty minutes before, then slipped out the side door. He strolled toward the house, circled, and joined the loud, crowded party already in progress.

“Kiki.” He chose a woman at random, slipping an arm around her waist. “I was just telling Zoe how wonderful you look tonight, and had to track you down to tell you myself.”

“Oh, you darling.”

“Tell me, is it true what I heard when I was inside a few minutes ago? About Larson and Kit?”

“What did you hear?” She looked up at him, all eyes. “Obviously I’m not mingling enough if I’m not getting the gossip.”

“Let’s both get another drink, then I’ll tell you all.”

As he walked with her, his gaze met Dudley’s through the sea of people. When he inclined his head in a faint nod, they both smiled.

Eve rubbed a hand on the back of her neck to ease the crick.

“People go missing, or end up dead. That’s why we have cops, but . . .”

“You have something?” Roarke worked at the auxiliary in her office rather than in his own so they could easily relay impressions.

“About nine months ago, the two of them went to Africa, a private hunting club. It costs a mint and a half, and you’re only allowed one kill of an animal on the approved list. You have guides, a cook, assorted servants, various modes of transpo, including copters. You sleep on gel beds in big, white, climate-controlled tents that other people haul around, eat on china plates, drink fine wine, blah blah. The brochure here hypes it as adventurous elegance. You can have a gourmet breakfast, then go out and shoot an elephant or whatever.”

“Why?” Roarke wondered.

“My thought, but some people like to shoot things, especially if the things can’t shoot back. Melly Bristow, a grad student from Sydney, working on her master’s—wildlife photog—signs on as a cook. One fine morning she isn’t there to whip up that gourmet breakfast. They figure she’s gone off on her own to take pictures and vids, which she’s done occasionally according to the statements I’ve got here, and her camera shit’s gone, and so’s her daypack. But she doesn’t answer the ’link everyone’s required to carry at all times. Everybody’s a little ticked because she’s holding up the hunt.”

Eve swiveled in her chair. “Somebody else makes breakfast, and when she still isn’t back, they triangulate her ’link, and one of the guides heads out to bring her back. All he finds is her ’link. Worried now, contacts camp, and we’ve got a search party forming. They find her camera stuff, or most of it, and they find a blood trail. Eventually they track a pride of lions, and the female and young are snacking on what’s left of her.”

“Christ, that’s an ugly end. Even if she’d been ended beforehand.”

“I think she was spared being eaten alive or mauled while she was still breathing.” Though Eve had to agree. Even if, it was ugly.

“You think Dudley and Moriarity killed her, then framed the lions?”

“That’s a gambit you don’t hear every day,” Eve mused. “But here’s the thing. When they recovered her she was still, more or less, wearing her belt. And the stunner everyone’s required to carry was still in the holster. This was her third trip out with this company, so she wasn’t altogether green, especially if it’s true everyone on staff has to go through training before going out with a group. She has time to get her ’link out of its holder, drop it, but she doesn’t go for her stunner? And there weren’t any photos taken that morning in her camera.”

Didn’t play, she thought. Just didn’t jibe.

“She wanders a mile away from camp, but doesn’t take any pictures?” Every step of it sent out a buzz for her. “They found what they determined was the kill site, trampled brush, the blood, drag marks, and so on. A mile from camp, and they’d missed her just after dawn. She goes out in the dark—flashlight was in her daypack—when according to the data on this site that’s when a lot of the animals with really big teeth go hunting.”

“What are the locals calling it?”

“Death by misadventure. Her neck was broken. Apparently lions go for the throat, rip it open, and/or break the neck of their prey. Mama lions with young cubs will drag the prey back to the den or lair or the old homestead so the kids can eat.”

“A mile’s a considerable clip, even if she panicked—and who wouldn’t?—and ran away from camp rather than to it.”

“And in a footrace, I’m betting on the lion. Now, maybe she was stupid, maybe she was, but I’m reading her data, and she doesn’t strike me as stupid. She spent time in the Australian bush, did another stint at some preserve in Alaska, hit India. She had experience, and knew how to handle herself.

“Look at her.” She ordered the ID shot onto the wall screen.

“Very attractive,” Roarke remarked. “Very.”

“It could be one of them felt he was entitled to her, and she didn’t agree. Or she did and it got too rough. Got a dead woman on your hands, what do you do now? You call in your best pal, and you figure it out.”

“They work together well,” Roarke commented, thinking of the golf outing.

“Same side of the same coin. That’s how Moriarity’s ex described them. Partner up. Get her dressed, get her stuff. They knew where the pride was, and the basic hunting ground of the female because they’d seen it the day before, and the guide gave a spiel on it. Carrying deadweight a mile’s not easy, but not so bad if you’re taking turns. Dump the body, maybe slice it up a little hoping the cat scents the blood and comes to chow down. Toss her camera, toss her ’link, go back to camp. If the cat doesn’t cooperate, well, you alibi each other. It still looks like she went out on her own and got attacked. Just by a two-legged animal.”

She picked up her coffee mug, scowled when she found it empty. “Anyway, this could be where it started. It’s all there. Or possibly there. A kill—an accident or impulse—the cover-up, working together. The excitement of that, then the aftermath. The search, and you two are the only ones who know—more excitement. Then, wow, it worked just as you’d hoped. You’re untouchable, and wasn’t that fun?”

“How long had they been out?”

“Three days. This would have been day four.”

“Had they had a kill?”

“Ah . . .” She turned back to her comp screen, scrolled through statements and reports. “No.”

“Then it might be even more than you’ve laid out. They paid to kill, and hadn’t.”

She said nothing for a moment. “What time is it in Africa?”

“That would depend on which part. It’s a big continent.”

“Zimbabwe.”

“Well . . .” He glanced at the time. “About five in the morning.”

“How do you just know that?”

“It’s math, darling. You don’t worry your pretty head about it.”

“Bite me.”

“Considering the topic of conversation, that was in poor taste. Hmm. So was that. And before you call the hunting club trying to dig out more, I might have another for you.”

“Where?”

“Naples, Italy, or off the coast of. They were in a sailing tournament, and in and around that area for a couple weeks. During that time Sofia Ricci, age twenty-three, went missing. She’d been at a club, and had been drinking, as one would. She had a row with her boyfriend, and left.”

“Alone?”

“Alone,” Roarke confirmed. “Under quite a head of steam according to witnesses. The last anyone remembers seeing her was about half-midnight. She didn’t make it home, and her roommate didn’t worry, as she assumed she was at the boyfriend’s. She didn’t work the next day, so again, no one noticed she was missing. Until Sunday when the boyfriend went by her flat to make amends. He told the police, who looked at him hard and long, that he’d gone home about a half hour after she had, and he’d tried her ’link twice the next day—which was verified on his own outgoings—and assumed she was still not speaking to him. They’ve never found her. That was seven months ago.”

“It’s a big ocean,” Eve commented.

“It is, yes. Your suspects stayed on Dudley’s yacht or in Moriarity’s villa during that period. Both of them, along with several others from their sailing club, joined in the initial search.”

“More of a thrill. Another woman,” she considered, “on the young side. Could’ve started that way figuring women are easier game—two men, one woman. Most women wouldn’t stand much of a chance.”

“The police cleared the boyfriend, but he was their focus for the first seventy-two hours. They’re looking at it as an abduction. She had friends, family, stability, no major troubles, a good job, and so on.”

“Two months between. Peabody tossed out they might have practiced on people no one would miss, but I think no. It’s a bigger rush if there’s an alarm, a search, media reports. Ricci might be their second. Two months gives them time to congratulate each other on getting away with murder, ride on the juice, lose the juice. Want that again.”

“Time to plan,” Roarke agreed. “Working together requires deciding who’s responsible for what, coordinating schedules.”

“Time to talk it through, work it out, pump it up. Away from their base again,” Eve noted. “And they either figure out they don’t want to be involved with another dead body or decide to switch it up, so they can use the location to dump it where it won’t likely be found, at least not while they’re in the area. Maybe they trolled awhile, and they got themselves a pissed-off, little-bit-drunk woman.”

“A very pretty one,” Roarke added and put the image on-screen.

“Yeah, that might’ve been part of it at first. Use her, share her, kill her. But they didn’t need the sex. It was the kill that got them both off. They’d need to do it again, maybe mix it up a little, see what happens.”

“Was it already a game, do you think? Already a competition between them?”

“It’s intimacy. It’s . . .” She shifted to look over at him, to meet his eye. “It’s what we’re doing here, looking for the missing and the dead. It’s you and your aunt saying a few words—words that matter—in Irish. It’s Charles making omelets for Louise when she’s pulled the night shift.”

She stopped, hesitated. “That sounds lame. I don’t know how—”

“No, it’s perfectly clear. It’s more than teamwork, shared interests, partnership. You see it as a terrible kind of love.”

“I guess I do. If I was going to pull a Mira, I’d say they found each other, recognized each other. Maybe if they hadn’t . . .” She shrugged. “But they did. And in that terrible way, they complete each other.”

“Yes, I see. There might have been others, Eve. Before Africa. Others, who as Peabody theorized, wouldn’t have been noticed.”

“Easing into it,” she considered even as her stomach tightened at the idea. “Perfecting that teamwork before they tried someone who’d show, who could even be connected to them.” She raked a hand through her hair. “Let’s work from here, sticking with victims who show. Let’s start with six to eight from Italy. These kinds of killers generally start to escalate. They need their fix.”

She ordered the computer to factor in her suspects’ whereabouts for that time frame, and refined the search.

“Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. I knew it! Data on-screen, goddamn bastards. Look at that,” she snapped at Roarke. “Seven weeks almost to the damn day after the woman in Italy. Quick gambling trip, Vegas. Closer to home now. They don’t travel together, but meet up there. Dudley arrives a day ahead. Big baccarat tourney, which is a stupid game.”

“Actually, it’s—”

“Don’t interrupt.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Smart-ass,” she muttered. “Twenty-nine-year-old female, found dead in her own car on the side of the road in the desert north of Vegas. Stun marks on her chest. Beaten to death with a tire iron left at the scene. No defensive wounds, no sexual assault. Put her out first, then killed her. No bag, no jewelry. Played at making it look like robbery. Smashed her car up, too. Cops look at that, think illegals. Some chemi-heads, drifters with bad attitudes, along those lines. Get her to pull over, stun her and the rest.

“But here’s the kicker. Our vic, Linette Jones, tended bar at the casino holding the tourney. She had the next two days off, her pay, and a boat-load of tips, and was heading off to Tahoe to meet up with her boyfriend. Everyone within hearing distance knew where she was going and when because it was like an anniversary thing, and she had this ring she was going to give him—also not found at the scene. She was going to propose.”

“They gave statements,” Roarke observed, reading the data.

“Fucking A. I bet they couldn’t wait. Just loved watching the cops go off in the wrong direction. Here’s where they started getting more and more full of themselves, put the connection back between them and the vic. I’m going to tie them up with this, tie them up and choke them.”

“I don’t doubt it, but it’s all what you people insist on calling circumstantial.”

“As you people say, bollocks to that.”

He let out a delighted laugh that only got a snarl from her. “I wonder how it is that hearing your use of the idiom of my youth makes me both sentimental and aroused at the same time.”

“Idiom-smidiom. It’s to the point. I can put this together, show a pattern. I just have to make it shiny enough to convince a judge to give me a search warrant. I need the next. Three to four months out now.”

She found the next, three and a half months out. A male this time, older than the other victims.

“An architect,” Eve read, “considered one of the best in his field, killed while vacationing at his secondary home on the Côte d’Azur. Found floating in his swimming pool by his wife the next morning. He’d been stunned, then garroted—weapon left on the body—before falling into or being dumped in the pool.”

“And the wife?” Roarke asked when Eve ran it through.

“Heard nothing. They had a kid, six, and he’d been restless and feverish, so it says—and medical confirms—so she bunked down in the kid’s room. No motive for the wife they could find. No trouble in the marriage, no outside affairs unearthed. She has money of her own and plenty of it. She cooperated fully, including opening all financials without a blink. She wouldn’t have had the strength to do what was done to him with that wire, even with him stunned. And there’s no evidence she bought a hit.”

“The first male victim you’ve found,” Roarke observed. “And a family man, one who left a wife and a son.”

“I know her—the wife.” Eve narrowed her eyes as she searched her memory. “How do I know her? Carmandy Dewar. I know that damn name. Computer, search for Carmandy Dewar in files and notes on Dudley/Moriarity.”

Acknowledged. Working...

“Both of them were there at the time?”

“Yeah they were.” Juiced up, she thought. Completing each other. “Hanging out with a bunch of people who hang out at places like that. I’ve got media reports, gossip—That’s it,” she said even as the computer responded.

Task complete. Carmandy Dewar appears in files from society articles involving Dudley and Moriarity. Most specifically Moriarity, who escorted her a number of times to—

“I got it, cancel task. He dated her,” she said to Roarke. “Before she married the architect, Moriarity dated her. She’s old money, runs with that crowd. Or did before the kid. You can bet your ass they went to her to offer support and condolence, went to the funeral looking shocked and sad. Cocksuckers. Smug, self-important cocksuckers.”

“You’ll want this one then, though it breaks the pattern. Two months ago,” Roarke told her. “Another woman. Larinda Villi, considered in her day the greatest mezzo-soprano of her generation, and others come to that. A luminary, and at seventy-eight one of the most important and influential patrons of the arts in the world. She was found at the doors of the opera house in London, stabbed through the heart. While they were both there—Moriarity purportedly on business, and Dudley to attend the London premiere of a major vid he’d invested in—neither of them had a connection with Villi or any association.”

“That showed,” Eve corrected. “It’s not breaking pattern. It’s establishing the current one—and just what I’m looking for. We dig, there’ll be something. One of their grandfathers boned her, or their mothers made them go to the opera to hear her sing when they wanted to play slap the monkey. There’ll be something.”

She paced back and forth, remembered she hadn’t had coffee in much too long. “I need a hit.”

“I’ll get it. I could use one myself.”

“What time is it in Africa now?”

“An hour later than the first time you asked,” he called back.

“I could contact them now.” She paced again. “No, write it up, shine it up, get it all down to the steps, the patterns.” Add onto the board, she thought. All the other victims, the data on them. Then she’d start with Africa, expand the picture, and work her way right up to now.

“Thanks.” She took the coffee Roarke offered, gulped some down. “I’ve got them. It’s going to take some work, some finessing, but I’ve got enough to start pushing. You saved me a lot of time tonight.”

He skimmed his knuckles down her cheek. Pale with fatigue, he thought. “And you’ll thank me for that by working several more hours.”

“I’ve got to lay it all out so I can pull it all in, so I can talk Reo into talking a judge into giving me search warrants on two really rich men from really important families who have alibis on alternate homicides. I have to convince her, and Whitney, that all this plays—and that I can make it stick. If I can’t make it stick, we can’t go with it. Not yet. And—”

“Someone’s clock is ticking down.” He leaned in to brush her lips with his. “I know. I can update your board with these new victims. Don’t look so surprised. I know how your mind works.”

“I guess you do. But . . . I have to do it.”

“Superstitious, are you then?”

“No. Maybe. Probably. Anyway, I have to do it. It’ll help me get it set in my head.”

Because they were hers now, too, he thought. That was yet another kind of intimacy.

“I’ll tackle some work of my own for a bit.”

“This is going to take a couple hours. You should go to bed whenever you—”

“I like going to bed with my wife, whenever possible. I can fill a couple hours.”

Though he expected, as he went into his own office, she would be longer than that.

She forgot what time it was in Africa by the time she contacted the hunting club, but she knew damn well she’d hit two in the morning in New York.

She considered finessing—lying—then decided against. If one of the guides or the owners or anyone else chose to contact Dudley or Moriarity and tell them of her interest, that was fine.

She was ready to give them something to worry about.

When she’d finished, she looked down at her notes. The guide had been cautious at first, then more and more open. He’d been fond of Bristow, and that had come across clearly.

Never understood how or why she would stray so far from camp.

Never understood how or why she would cross into known hunting territory for the female lion.

Could never reconcile in his mind why she would have been so careless or why she would have set out before light.

Dudley a braggart, rude to staff. Demanding, impatient. Suspected he’d brought illegals into camp.

Moriarity cold, aloof. Rarely spoke to staff except to order or demand.

She tried her luck with the local investigators next, and managed to flesh out—a little—what she’d pulled out of media reports.

She worked her way forward in the time line, to Naples, to Vegas, to France, to London, gathering crumbs and bits, putting those slivers and pieces in place with the whole.

She used the back of her board, making a chart of that time line, pin-pointing locations, adding each victim’s photo, linking all with more notes. With fact and with supposition.

Seven dead, she thought as she stepped back from the board. She knew those two pair of hands carried the blood of seven people.

Maybe more.

She continued to stare at those faces as Roarke stepped behind her, laid his hands on her shoulders, rubbed at the aches there.

“All those lives cut off. An adventurous woman, girl with a boyfriend who wanted to make up, a husband and father, a woman about to start the next phase of her life, an old woman who’d spread beauty and culture around the world. And then to another husband and father who’d turned a bad beginning into a solid now, and a woman who’d once given another woman the chance to escape a monster.

“All on this board because they decided they wanted a new thrill. A new form of entertainment. The same as somebody else turning on the screen or going to a vid.”

“No. It’s like a new, stronger drug.”

“Yeah.” Exhausted, sickened, she rubbed her eyes. “You’re right, it’s more that. And that’s going to help me stop them. That need, that addiction, it’ll push them.”

“Come to bed now. You need to sleep.” He turned her, slid an arm around her. “Let it rest a few hours, Eve, so you can.”

“Can’t think anymore, anyway.” She walked out with him.

It was after three hundred hours, she realized, and no call from Dispatch. Maybe she wouldn’t be too late. Maybe she wouldn’t put another face on her board.