Witness in Death

CHAPTER SEVEN

Eve beat Peabody into Central. It was deliberate, and it cost her a full hour's sleep that morning. She hoped to file her updated report, then move on, before her aide showed up. If she was lucky, there would be no discussion involving Charles Monroe.

The detective's bullpen was buzzing. It turned out that Detective Zeno's wife had given birth to a baby girl the night before, and he'd celebrated by bringing in two dozen donuts. Knowing detectives, Eve snagged one before the unit fell on them like hyenas on scavenged meat.

"Who won the pool?"

"I did." Baxter grinned around a cinnamon twist with raspberry jelly. "Six hundred and thirty smackeroos."

"Damn it. I never win the baby pool." Consoling herself, Eve snagged a cruller. Taking the first bite, she grinned at him. Good old Baxter, she thought. He could be a pain in the ass, but he was meticulous and sharp with details.

He was just perfect. "Looks like this is your lucky day."

"No shit. I've had my eye on this new auto-entertainment system. The six bills plus is going to go a long way toward putting that baby in my ride."

"That's great, Baxter, but I mean it's really your lucky day." She pulled a clear file of discs out of her bag, those gathered from the uniforms and detectives who'd logged witness names the night of the Draco homicide. "You get the grand prize. Run standard backgrounds and probabilities on these individuals, re Draco. We got close to three thousand names here. Grab a couple of detectives, a few uniforms if you need them, and get statements. Let's see if you can cut that number in half by the end of the week."

He snorted. "Very funny, Dallas."

"I have orders from Whitney to tag somebody for this duty. Tag, Baxter. You're it."

"This is bullshit." When she dropped the file on his desk, his eyes wheeled. "You can't dump this nightmare on me, Dallas."

"Can, have, did. You're dropping crumbs, Baxter. You should remember to always keep your area clean."

Pleased with the morning's work, she headed for her office with his curses following her.

The door was open, and the sounds of riffling came clearly into the hall. Eve pressed her back to the wall, danced her fingers over her weapon. The son of a bitch. She had him this time. The sneaking candy thief's ass was hers at last.

She charged into the room, leading with her fist, and caught the intruder by the scruff of the neck. "Gotcha!"

"Hey, lady!"

She had six inches and a good twenty pounds on him. Eve calculated she could squeeze him through her skinny window without too much trouble. He'd make an interesting smear on the pavement below.

"I'm not going to read you your rights," she said as she bounced him against the file cabinets. "You won't need them where you're going."

"Call Lieutenant Dallas!" His voice piped out like a rusty flute. "Call Lieutenant Dallas."

She hauled him around, stared into his jittery eyes, doubled in size behind microgoggles. "I am Dallas, you candy-stealing putz."

"Well, jeez. Jeez. I'm Lewis. Tomjohn Lewis, from Maintenance. I got your new equipment."

"What the hell are you talking about? Let me smell your breath. You got candy breath, I'm going to pull out your tongue and strangle you with it."

With his feet dangling an inch from the floor, he puffed out his cheeks and blew explosive air in her face. "Cracked wheat waffles down to the Eatery, and – and the fruit cup. I ain't had candy. Swear to God."

"No, but you might want to consider a stronger mouthwash. What's this about new equipment?"

"There. Right there. I was just finishing the transfer."

Still holding him off the floor, she turned her head. Her mouth fell open seconds before she dropped Lewis in a heap and leaped on the industrial gray shell of the computer. "Mine. It's mine."

"Yes, sir, Lieutenant sir. She's all yours."

With her arms possessively circled around the unit, she looked back at him. "Look, maintenance boy, if you're toying with me, I'll bite your ears off and make them into stew."

"I got the order right here." Moving cautiously, he reached in his pocket for his logbook, punched in the code. "See, here, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, Homicide Division. You got yourself a new XE-5000. You requisitioned it yourself."

"I requisitioned it two goddamn years ago."

"Yeah. Well." He smiled hopefully. "Here she is. I was just hooking her to the mainframe. You want I should finish?"

"Yeah, I want you should finish."

"Okay. Have it done in a wink, then get right out of your way." He all but dived under the desk.

"What the hell kind of name is Tomjohn?"

"It's my name, Lieutenant. You got your complete owner's manual and user's guide in that box over there."

She looked over, snorted at the foot-high box. "I know how it works. I have this model at home."

"It's a good machine. Once you're linked to the main, all we gotta do is transfer your code and data from your old equipment. Take about thirty minutes, tops."

"I got time." She skimmed her eyes over her old unit, dented, battered, despised. Some of the dents had been put into it by her own frustrated fist. "What happens to my old equipment?"

"I can haul it out for you, take it down to recycle."

"Fine – no. No, I want it. I want to take it home." She'd perform a ritual extermination, she decided. She hoped it suffered.

"Okay by me." Since he figured his tongue and his ears were safe again, he began to whistle with his work. "That thing's been obsolete for five years. Don't know how you managed to get anything done with it."

Her only response to that was a low, throaty growl.

When Peabody came in an hour later, Eve was sitting at her crowded desk, grinning. "Look, Peabody. It's Christmas."

"Whoa." Peabody came in, circled around. "Whoa squared. It's beautiful."

"Yeah. It's mine. Tomjohn Lewis, my new best friend, hooked it up for me. It listens to me, Peabody. It does what I tell it to do."

"That's great, sir. I know you'll be very happy together."

"Okay, fun's over." She picked up her coffee, jerking her thumb toward the AutoChef so Peabody knew she was welcome to a cup of her own. "I did a run-through on Draco's apartment last night."

"I didn't know you planned to do that. I would have adjusted my personal time."

"It wasn't necessary." Eve had a nasty image of the scene in Areena's apartment if Peabody had come along.

"Draco kept a stash of illegals in his penthouse. A variety pack that included nearly an ounce of pure Wild Rabbit."

"Creep."

"You bet. Also a number of inventive sex toys, some of which were out of the scope of even my wide range of experience. He had a collection of video discs, and a large percentage of them are personal sexual encounters."

"So we have a dead sexual deviant."

"The toys and the discs are personal choice, but the Rabbit shuffles him over into SD territory. It could go to motive, or motives, since they're piling up like Free-Agers at a protest rally. No offense."

"None taken."

"We've got, as potentials, ambition, personal gain, money, sex, illegals, woman or women scorned, and all-around general dislike. He enjoyed preying on women, generally pushing members of both sexes around. He had a regular illegals habit. He was also an irritating son of a bitch, and had everyone who knew him wanting to string him up by his intestines. It doesn't cut the list by much. But."

She shifted in her chair. "I started running probabilities last night. Made some headway. My handy new XE-5000 will copy that data to you so you can continue to run scans. I have a consult with Mira shortly. That may help shave the working list down. Set up a conference with our pals in EDD for eleven."

"And the interviews this afternoon?"

"Go as scheduled. I'll be back in an hour, two at most." She pushed away from her desk. "If I get held up, contact the lab and nag Dickhead into verifying the illegals I sent down this morning."

"A pleasure. Bribe or threat?"

"How long have you worked with me now, Peabody?"

"Almost a year, sir."

Eve nodded as she strode out. "Long enough. Use your own judgment."

Mira's area was more civilized – Eve imagined that was the word – compared with the warrens and hives of the majority of Cop Central. A bubble of calm, she supposed, especially if you didn't know what went on behind the doors of Testing.

Eve knew, and she hoped eons passed before she was forced to step through them again.

But Mira's individual space was a world away from the depersonalizing and demoralizing cage of Testing. She favored shades of blues in her cozy scoop chairs, in the soothing ocean waves she often set on her mood screen.

Today she was dressed in one of her soft and snazzy pastel suits. A hopeful green, the color of spring leaf buds. Her hair waved back from a face of composed beauty Eve constantly admired. There were teardrop pearls at her ears that matched the single dangle on a gold-linked chain at her throat.

She was, to Eve's mind, the perfect example of gracious femininity.

"I appreciate you fitting me in this morning."

"I feel a vested interest," Mira began as she programmed her AutoChef for tea. "Being a witness. In all my years attached to the NYPSD, I've never witnessed a murder." She turned with two cups of floral-scented tea in her hand and caught the dark flicker in Eve's eyes. "Richard Draco was not a murder, Eve. It was an execution. An entirely different matter."

She took her seat, handing Eve the tea they both knew she'd barely sip. "I study murder. Murderers. I listen to them, and I analyze them. I profile them. And as a doctor, I know, understand, and respect death. But, having a murder take place right in front of my eyes, not to know it was real. Well, it's given me some bad moments. It's difficult."

"I was thinking ingenious."

"Well." A ghost of a smile curved Mira's lips. "Your viewpoint and mine come from different angles, I suppose."

"Yeah." And Eve's angle was often standing over the dead with blood on her boots. It occurred to her now she hadn't taken Mira's state of mind into consideration that night at the theater. She had simply drafted her onto the team and used her as it seemed most efficient.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think of it. I never gave you a choice."

"You had no reason to think of it. And at the time, neither did I." She shook it off, lifted her tea. "You were backstage and at work very quickly. How soon did you realize the knife was real?"

"Not soon enough to stop it. That's what counts. I've started my interviews, concentrating on the actors first."

"Yes, the crime's steeped in theatrics. The method, the timing, the staging." More comfortable with the analytical distance, Mira ran the scene in her mind. "An actor or someone who aspires or aspired to be one fits the profile. On the other hand, the murder was clean, well produced, carefully executed. Your killer is bold, Eve, but also cool-headed."

"Would they have needed to see it happen?"

"Yes, I think so. To see it, under the lights, on the stage, with the audience gasping in shock. That, in my opinion, was as important to this individual as Draco's death. The thrill of it and the ensuing act. Their own shock and horror, well rehearsed."

She considered. "It was too well staged not to have been rehearsed. Draco was touted as one of the greatest actors of our time. Killing him was one step. Replacing him, even if only in the killer's mind, was an essential second."

"You're saying it was professionally motivated."

"Yes, on one level. But it was also very personal. If we look at an actor, or an aspiring one, professional and personal motives could be easily blended."

"The only one to tangibly benefit from Draco's death, professionally, is Michael Proctor. The understudy."

"Logically, yes. Yet everyone onstage or attached to that performance benefits. The media attention, the names fixed in the minds of the public, that indelible moment in time. Isn't that what an actor aspires to? The indelible moment?"

"I don't know. I don't understand people who spend their lives being other people."

"The work, the skill, is in making the viewing audience believe they are other people. The theater is more than a job to those who do it well, who devote their life to it. It is, just as your job is to you, a way of life. And on the night Draco was murdered, the spotlight shone a little brighter for everyone in that play."

"In the play, or involved with the play. Not in the audience."

"With current data, I can't eliminate audience members, but am more inclined toward a person or persons closer to the stage." Mira set her cup aside, laid a hand over Eve's. "You're concerned about Nadine."

Eve opened her mouth, shut it again.

"Nadine's a patient, and she's very open with me. I'm fully aware of her history with the victim, and I'm fully prepared, should it become necessary, to give my professional opinion that she isn't capable of planning and executing a violent crime. If she'd wanted to punish Draco, she would have found a way to do so through the media. She's capable of that, very capable."

"Okay, good."

"I've spoken with her," Mira went on. "I know you're interviewing her formally today."

"After I leave here. Just me, Nadine, and her lawyer. I want it on record that she came to me with the information. I can bury the statement for a few days, give her some breathing room."

"That will help." But Mira scanned Eve's face, saw more. "What else?"

"Off the record?"

"Of course."

Eve took a sip of the tea, then told Mira about the video disc in Draco's penthouse.

"She doesn't know," Mira said immediately. "She would have told me. It would have troubled and infuriated her. Embarrassed her. He must have taped it without her knowledge."

"Then the next line would be: What if he showed it to her when she went to see him the day he was murdered?"

"Housekeeping would have reported considerable damage to the suite, and Draco would have been forced to seek emergency medical care before his performance." Mira sat back. "It's good to see you smile. I'm sorry you've been worried about her."

"She was shook when we had our meet. Really shook." Eve pushed out of the chair, wandered to the mood screen, and watched the waves ebb and flow. "I've got too many people buzzing in my ears. It's distracting."

"Would you go back to your life as it was a year ago, Eve? Two years ago?"

"Parts of it were easier. I got up in the morning and did my job. Maybe hung out with Mavis a couple of times a week." She blew out a breath. "No, I wouldn't go back. Doesn't matter anyway. I'm where I am. So… back to Draco."

Eve continued. "He was a sexual predator."

"Yes, I read your updated report just before you arrived. I will agree that sex was one of his favored weapons. But it wasn't the sex itself that fulfilled him. It was the control, the package of his looks, his style, his talent, and sexuality used to control women. Women whom he considered his playthings. And through them, showing his superiority to other men. He was obsessed with being the center."

"And the illegal? A guy uses Rabbit on a woman because he doesn't think he's going to score with her. It takes away her right to choose."

"Agreed, but in this case, I would say it was just another prop to him. No different in his mind than candlelight and romantic music. He believed himself a great lover, just as he knew himself to be a great actor. His indulgences, in his mind, were no more than his right as a star. I'm not saying that sex doesn't play a part in the motive, Eve. I believe, in this case, you have layers and layers of motives, and a very complex killer. Very likely every bit as egocentric as the victim."

"Two of a kind," Eve murmured.

He had it figured. Actors, they thought they were so fucking brilliant, so special, so important. Well, he could've been an actor if he'd really wanted. But it was just like his father had always told him. You work backstage, you work forever.

Actors, they came and they went, but a good stagehand never had to go looking for work.

Linus Quim had been a stagehand for thirty years. For the last ten, he'd been top dog. That's why he'd been offered the head job at the New Globe, that's why he pulled in the highest wage the union could squeeze out of the stingy bastards of management.

And even then, his pay didn't come close to what the actors raked in.

And where would they be without him?

That was going to change now. Because he had it figured.

Pretty shortly the New Globe was going to be looking for a new head stagehand. Linus Quim was going to retire in style.

When he worked, he kept his eyes and his ears open. He studied. Nobody knew what was what and who was what to who in a theater company the way Linus Quim knew.

Above all, he was an expert on timing. Cues were never missed when Linus was in charge.

He knew the last time he'd seen the prop knife. Exactly when and where. And knowing that left only one window of opportunity for the switch. And only one person, to Linus's thinking, who could have managed it so slick. Could have had just enough time to stick the dummy knife in Areena Mansfield's dressing room.

It had taken guts, he'd give 'em that.

Linus stopped by a corner glide-cart for a late-morning snack, loading down a pretzel with bright yellow mustard.

"Hey!" The operator snatched at the tube with a hand protected with ratty, fingerless gloves. "You gonna use that much, you gonna pay extra."

"Up yours, wigwam." Linus added another blob for the hell of it.

"You use twice too much." The operator, a battle-scarred Asian with less than three months on the corner, danced in place on tiny feet. "You pay extra."

Linus considered squirting what was left in the tube in the man's pruney face, then remembered his upcoming fortune. It made him feel generous. He dug a fifty-cent credit out of his pocket, flipped it in the air.

"Now you can retire," he said as the operator snagged it on the downward arc.

He sucked at the mustard-drowned pretzel as he strolled away.

He was a little man, and skinny, too, but for the soccer ball-sized potbelly over his belt. His arms were long for his height, and ropey with muscle. His face was like a smashed dish badly glued back together, flat and round and cracked with lines. His ex-wife had often urged him to spend a little of his hoarded savings on some simple cosmetic repair.

Linus didn't see the point. What did it matter how he looked when his job was, essentially, not to be seen?

But he thought he might spring for some work now. He was going to take himself off to Tahiti, or Bali, or maybe even to one of the resort satellites. Bask in sun and sand and women.

The half million he'd be paid to keep his little observations to himself would pump up his life's savings nicely.

He wondered if he should have asked for more. He'd kept the payoff on the low end – nothing an actor couldn't scrape up, in Linus's opinion. He'd even be willing to take it in installments. He could be reasonable. And the fact was, he had to admire the guts and skill involved here, and the choice of target.

He'd never met an actor he'd despised more than Draco, and Linus hated actors with almost religious equality.

He stuffed the rest of the pretzel in his mouth, wiped mustard from his chin. The letter he'd sent would have been delivered first thing that morning. He'd paid the extra freight for that. An investment.

The letter was better than a 'link call or a personal visit. Those sorts of things could be traced. Cops might have everybody's 'links bugged. He wouldn't put it past the cops, who he distrusted nearly as much as actors.

He'd kept the note simple and direct, he recalled.

I know what you did and how you did it. good job. meet me at the theater, backstage, lower level. eleven o'clock. I want $500,000. I won't go to the cops. He was a son of a bitch anyway.

He hadn't signed it. Everyone who worked with him knew his square block printing. He'd had some bad moments worrying that the note would be passed to the cops, and he'd be arrested for attempted blackmail. But he'd put that possibility away.

What was half a million to an actor?

He used the stage door, keying in his code. His palms were a little sweaty. Nerves and excitement. The door closed behind him with a metallic, echoing clang. Then he breathed in the scent of the theater, drew in the glorious silence of it. He felt a tug at his heart, sharp and unexpected.

After today, he'd be giving this up. The smells, the sounds, the lights, and lines. It was all he'd really ever known, and the sudden realization of love for it rocked him.

Didn't matter a damn, he reminded himself, and turned to the stairs that led below the stage. They had theaters on Tahiti if he wanted a busman's holiday. He could even maybe open his own little regional place. A theater-casino palace.

That was a thought.

The Linus Quim Theater. Had a ring to it.

At the base of the stairs, he turned right, down the twisty corridor. He was humming now, happy in his own space, bubbling lightly with anticipation of what was to come.

An arm snaked out, hooked around his neck. He yelped, more in surprise than fear, started to turn.

Fumes poured into his mouth and nose. His vision blurred, his head rang. He couldn't feel his extremities.

"What? What?"

"You need a drink." The voice whispered in his ear, friendly, comforting. "Come on, Linus, you need a drink. I got the bottle out of your locker."

His head drooped down, weighing like a stone on his skinny neck. All he could see behind his eyelids were bleeding colors. His feet shuffled over the floor as he was gently led to a seat. He swallowed obediently when a glass was held to his lips.

"There, that's better, isn't it?"

"Dizzy."

"That'll pass." The voice stayed soft and soothing. "You'll just feel very calm. The tranq's mild. Hardly more than a kiss. You just sit there. I'll take care of everything."

"Okay." He smiled vaguely. "Thanks."

"Oh, it's no trouble."

The noose had already been prepared from a long length of rope culled from the fly floor. Gloved hands slipped it smoothly around Linus's neck, snugged and straightened it.

"How do you feel now, Linus?"

"Pretty good. Pretty damn good. I thought you'd be pissed."

"No." But there was a sigh that might have been regret.

"I'm taking the money and going to Tahiti."

"Are you? I'm sure you'll enjoy that. Linus, I want you to write something for me. Here's your pen. That's the way. Here's the pad you always use to make your notes. You never use an e-pad, do you?"

"Paper's good enough for me, goddamn it." He hiccupped, grinned.

"Of course. Write this down, would you? 'I did it.' That's all you have to say. Just write 'I did it,' then sign your name. Perfect. That's just perfect."

"I did it." He signed his name in a stingy little scrawl. "I figured it out."

"Yes, you did. That was very clever of you, Linus. Are you still dizzy?"

"Nope. I feel okay. I feel fine. Did you bring money? I'm going to Tahiti. You did everybody a favor by wasting that stupid bastard."

"Thank you. I thought so, too, Let's stand up now. Steady?"

"As a rock."

"Good. Would you do me a favor? Could you climb up the ladder here? I'd like you to loop this end of the rope over that pole and tie it off. Nice and snug. Nobody ties knots like a veteran stagehand."

"Sure thing." He went up, humming.

On the ground, his killer watched with heart-thrumming anticipation. There had been fear when the note had arrived. Tidal waves of fear and panic and despair.

Those were done now. Had to be done. Only mild irritation and the spur of challenge remained.

How to deal with it? The answer had come so smoothly, so clearly. Eliminate the threat, give the police their killer. All in one stroke.

In moments, only moments now, it would all be done.

"All tied off!" Linus called. "She'll hold."

"I'm sure. Oh no, Linus, don't walk back down."

Confused, he shifted on the ladder, looked down at the smiling face below. "Don't walk down?"

"No. Jump. Jump off the ladder, Linus. Won't that be fun? Just like jumping into the pretty blue water in Tahiti."

"Like in Tahiti? That's where I'm going once I'm flush."

"Yes, like Tahiti." The laughter was delighted, encouraging. A careful ear might have heard the strain beneath it, but Linus only laughed in return. "Come on, Linus. Dive right in! The water's fine."

He grinned, held his nose. And jumped.

This time death wasn't quiet. The panicked, kicking feet knocked the ladder down with a thunderous clatter. It hit the bottle of brew in an explosion of glass. Choked gasps forced their way through the tightened noose, became rattles. For seconds, only seconds, but the air seemed to scream with them.

And then there was only the faint creak of the rope swinging. Like the creak of a mast in high seas, it was curiously romantic.