“Besides her ’link numbers and the fact she’s not in a relationship?” He grinned now. “I think I replicated the art, as close as I can without seeing it myself. Used a regular sketch pad. I was about to transfer it to the comp and send it.”
“Do that, but let’s see it now.”
He opened a pad, flipped up a page. “I started with the whole works, as that’s how she saw it. The five women together.”
“Says unity, doesn’t it?” Eve studied the portrait of the women, shoulder to shoulder. “Downing—the wit knew her. But those are decent sketches of MacKensie and of Su—and she didn’t know them. Makes me think we’ll have some luck with facial rec on the others.”
“Factoring in that this is an approximation of an artist’s interpretation. The two unidentified—this one’s young. Early twenties tops, to my eye. And the other more mature. Mid-forties or more.”
“The youngest in the middle. It’s . . . like they’re supporting her.”
“Might be.” He frowned, studying his own work. “Might be,” he repeated, “the way she’s centered. I did individuals of the faces, but Laurie was clearest on Downing. Like you said, she knew that one, saw her off and on, talked to her. I can run the face rec with them.”
Eve started to say she’d do it herself, then backtracked. More hands, quicker work. “Appreciate it.”
“All in a day’s. Now the other painting?”
He flipped through his sketches of the faces, stopped on a study of six male figures, faces masks of evil and agony, falling toward a sea of flame. More flames shot out of the house in the background.
“It’s dark work,” Yancy said.
Eve took the pad from him, studied it up close. He’d been able to draw more details out of Esty, she noted. The house stood three stories, and sprawled some. Flames striking out of the windows lit what looked like brick. It didn’t strike her as a contemporary structure, but, despite the fire, seemed old in that rich sense. A wealthy house.
One she thought she’d know when she saw it.
Just as she recognized the men behind the demonic faces.
“Edward Mira, Jonas Wymann, William Stevenson—all dead, though Stevenson’s been that way for a while. Ruled self-termination, but we’ll take another look. Frederick Betz, currently missing. Marshall Easterday, trembling in his house, and Ethan MacNamee, currently alive and well in Glasgow, with the locals keeping an eye out. This is good work, Yancy.”
“We do what we do. Laurie said I got it, and I don’t think it was just because she was hitting on me.”
Eve flipped back through, studied the individual sketches of the women, and thought they had a good shot at IDing them. Better than fifty-fifty.
“Send me everything. If you get any hits on the women, I know when you do.”
“You got it.”
Eve went back to Homicide, arriving in time to hear Baxter ragging Jenkinson over his choice of tie.
“How can you wear purple and gold with that shade of brown suit?”
“The tie says it all.”
“It says I left my taste at home. At least you could think about color families and proper contrast.”
“Gotta take some fashion risks,” Jenkinson said, just to rag back. “Yo, Trueheart, I got a source on these. He’ll make you a nice deal if you want to polish up your detective wardrobe.”
“Thanks, Jenkinson, but I’ve got the one your wife gave me last night as a thank-you gift.”
“Thinks he can be a smart-ass now. Hey, boss. What do you think of my tie?”
“Jenkinson, I try not to think about your new tie fetish.”
“Just adding color to a dark world. Show the LT your socks, Reineke.”
“I don’t want to see—” She broke off when Reineke shot his foot out from behind his desk and showed off red socks shocked with blue lightning bolts.
She had a terrible flashback to Juju’s airboots.
“There is no merciful God,” Eve muttered.
“I gotta keep up with my partner,” Reineke claimed. “Figured I’d go for the footwear, and shoes cost too much to play with.”
The best cops she knew, Eve thought as she escaped to her office. Her bullpen was stocked with the best cops she knew.
But there were times.
She contacted Reo, again, for another warrant to get her into Betz’s bank box.
She got coffee, updated her board and book. Then did what she’d wanted to do for hours. She put her boots up on her desk and let herself think.
Five women, with a mutual secret, a mutual goal. Downing hadn’t had those two pictures in her apartment studio by chance.
Painting out her issues. Painting out her feelings.
Love and hate? Yeah, it could play like that.
Five women, Eve thought. It took deep loyalty and determination to keep a secret.
Age ranges, if the portrait held true, went from early twenties to mid-forties. A solid twenty-year gap. That gap took the older woman out of the usual range as a sexual target for the men in the morgue.
Six men. Half of them dead, and none by natural causes or accident. Six men who’d shared a house in college—and, she was convinced, a great deal more. Powerful men, wealthy men. Her two dead known adulterers with a taste for young flesh.
Something brought them together in college, she thought. Six young men, with privileged backgrounds. Ivy league young men.
What brought young men together?
Young women—the desire for them, the attaining of them.
At a university like Yale, they’d have to work, study, produce, or—money or not—they’d get the boot. A lot of stress, particularly as there’d been a war brewing. And that brew was stirred with anger and resentment against all of that privilege.
More restrictions, she concluded, for security.
What did young men want—besides women—that college provided? Freedom from the parental locks. No parents clocking their time, their activities. But now those restrictions set in, squeezing at those freedoms.
Sex, drugs, drink. Isn’t that a way to celebrate breaking the parental lock? To flip the bird at rules? To prove yourself a man? An adult?
But with rebels outside the gates, shaking fists, throwing stones, the gates get locked. What do you do?
None of their records showed any bumps for illegals, for alcohol violations. Could have been covered up—war and money—but either way, that left sex.
And sex was the key.
Six young men. Had it started all the way back there?
Old keys in a hidden drawer. A rich old house symbolically—or literally—burning.
And six old men on their way to hell.
She shifted to glance at her comp when it signaled an incoming. And dropped her boots to the floor when she noted it was from Morse.
Analyzed tattoos on both victims. Fully scientific report to follow. Simplifying same, the tattoos are between forty and fifty years old—and I lean toward closer to fifty. Have sent samples to lab for further analysis and verification, but evidence indicates your victims were young men when inked.
Six young men, she thought again, forging a brotherhood.
And five women, bound together.
She took the next incoming—Yancy’s work.
“Computer, run a search for properties within twenty-five miles of Yale University that carry no less than an eighty percent match with the house in sketch two, and are no less than fifty years old. Identify same whether or not the house still exists. Copy to my home unit, all search results.”
Search parameters acknowledged. Working . . .
“You do that, and so will I.”
And rubbed the tension in her neck at yet another incoming.
“Eve,” Mira began. “I wish I could give you more.”
“Inner Peace?”
“In more ways than one. Privacy laws, even from medical to medical, are very strict, and very clear. But, as I could already verify Su and MacKensie were guests, that eased the way a bit. While their individual therapists and group leaders couldn’t give details, professional courtesy counts for some. We’ll say they alluded to certain information, and/or didn’t contradict my conclusions. Both women sought help for recurring nightmares. Violent ones. And both engaged in therapy to release repressed memories. These details are corroborated by the insomnia studies Su and Downing participated in.”
“Okay. Every details helps the whole.”
“I can tell you this. Both of them registered for women-only areas, and sessions. My research there indicates those areas are primarily focused on physical and sexual abuse victims. Some confidence building, yes, some spiritual searching. But the main focus of that area of the center is for abuse victims. Rape victims.”
“They’ve gone to ground.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The three of them, and at least one more. Gone to ground.”
“One more.”
“There are five. Su, MacKensie, and Downing packed some things and left their apartments this morning. I have one unidentified woman—as yet—on the security feed of Su’s building. And I have five sketches from a painting seen in Downing’s apartment. Ages range from mid-forties to early twenties.”
For a moment, Mira said nothing. “I would conclude, on the basis of known evidence, the killings are revenge for sexual abuse, rape, assaults, that have gone on for many years, involving many victims.”
“We agree. I have to keep on this. Anything else you can dig out, I want it.”
“Five, Eve. With that much of an age span. You have only to fill in the blanks to see the probability.”
“Yeah. There are a lot more than five. I’ll be in touch,” Eve said, and clicked off.
She rose, grabbed her coat, headed out.
“Baxter, Trueheart, everything you get copy to my office and my home comp. I may not make it back. Peabody, the same.”
“But—”
“I’m heading to the Bronx—Betz’s bank box—and unless I need to, I’m not coming back into Central. Yancy’s doing the face recognition on the two unknown women in Downing’s painting, and I’ve got one going on the house in the second painting. We get hits, I’ll pull you in, if necessary. Otherwise, I want you digging every byte of data there is to dig. These five women’s paths crossed somewhere—and we only have three of the five for certain. I want to know where and when on all of them.”
She headed for the glide—just couldn’t face the elevator all the way to the garage this time. And pulled out her signaling ’link.
“Dallas. Tell me you got the warrant.”
“I will have by the time you pick me up,” Reo told her.
“What? Why?”
“Because banks are notoriously fussy. You can use a lawyer. Plus when you have me wrangling this many warrants in one day, I deserve a field trip.”
“It’s the freaking Bronx.” Impatient, Eve wound through people content to just stand and ride down.
“Pick me up, courthouse. I’ll be outside Justice Hall.”
Before Eve could argue, Reo cut off.
Still weaving, Eve muttered. She’d intended to use the drive time as thinking time with some nagging mixed in. The lab, EDD, Yancy. Then there was the likelihood of tapping Roarke for some assistance.
By the time she got to the garage, she’d resigned herself to hauling a passenger. And, yeah, sometimes a lawyer came in handy.
At least this one was as good as her word and stood outside with a sassy red beret tipped over her blond hair. Her coat matched it, and hit mid-calf over a pair of black boots with a high-curving heel.
“How do you walk on those?” Eve demanded when APA Cher Reo hopped in.
“With grace and sex appeal.” She settled her trim briefcase and enormous handbag on the floor and, like Peabody, ordered the seat warmer.
“New York winters, I wonder if I’ll ever get used to them.”
“They come every year.”
“You’re irritated because I’m coming along. How many warrants was that today?”
“Okay, okay.”
“Same team, Dallas. I’m assuming Franklin Betz is still missing.”
“Unless they decided to wrap it up and run—and I don’t see it—he’s still alive. But he’ll be in a world of hurt, and he won’t be breathing too much longer.”
“Such cloying optimism.” At its signal, Reo pulled out her ’link, scanned the readout, hit ignore.
“Don’t you need to take that?”
“No. I’m all yours,” Reo said cheerfully. “I’ve got some details. What don’t I know?”
Eve ran it through. It never hurt to run it through step-by-step again, for herself as much as Reo.
“You believe these men, your two victims and the three—no, four with the suicide—others, raped these women.”
“Yes. And since one of them is about two decades older than their usual taste, I think they’ve been raping women for at least that long. Maybe a lot longer.”
“Because of the tats.”
At least she didn’t have to explain every damn point.
“If the woman running the crisis center recognized three of them—by your instincts,” Reo added, “maybe the five of them met there.”
“It’s hard for me to buy five victims of the same group just happened to use the same crisis center. And none of them reported a rape. Nothing on record.”
“A support group then, a therapist, something else that united them.”
“Even then, all of them, independently? It’s a stretch. But it’s what I’ve got. Easterday’s shaken up. If I don’t find Betz, I’m pulling Easterday into Interview. I need to scare it out of him.
She shot a glance at Reo—petite, pretty. And under it, fierce.
“I could use some weight there.”
“He’s a lawyer, so he’s going to have plenty of representation telling him to exercise his right to remain silent.”
“If I make him believe his life’s on the line, he’ll break. It damn well is on the line. The other thing is getting into Edward Mira’s place—his things—without his wife’s consent. She’s going to block me however she can.”
“So lawyers come in handy. When do you want to go?”
“Today’s best, tomorrow latest.” She scrubbed her hand over her face. “With everything else on the plate, it’ll probably be tomorrow. Morning. Early. His son and daughter would cooperate. They may even help. I’d tap that if you get me the warrant. I want to confiscate his electronics. I want a search and seizure.”
Now Reo took out her PPC, made some notes. “Do you think she knew? If this is what you think, and he was part of it, do you think she knew?”
“I think she’s the type who can know and tell herself she doesn’t. I think she’s the type, when it comes out, who’d say they all asked for it, they all were willing.”
“I know the type. We see it on our end as much as you do. What about Easterday’s wife?”
“She doesn’t know. She doesn’t strike me as someone who wears blinders or doesn’t give a rat’s ass as long as it doesn’t interfere with her social schedule. And that’s a lever I’ll use when I have him in the box. However I get him there.”
“Do you always drive this way?”
“What way?”
“As if we’re trying to outrun an earthquake.”
“Time’s running out. In fact.” She hit the sirens, hit vertical, and punched it. “FYI? This is how you outrun an earthquake.”
She made it from downtown Manhattan to the Bronx in record time, and gave Reo points for only squealing once.
But that damn Rapid Cab shouldn’
t have ignored the siren.
Eve squeezed into a No Parking area, flipped on her On Duty light.
Reo flipped down the vanity mirror, checked her face. “Just making sure my eyes aren’t bugging out.” But she fished some hot-red lip dye out of her purse. “It’s power,” she told Eve. “You’ve got the badge and the bad attitude, I’ve got the legal heft and Rock ’Em Red lip dye.”
Reo dropped the lip dye back in her bag, curved the Rock ’Em Red lips in a feral smile. “We’ve got this.”
Uniformed security stopped them at the door.
“Ma’am, you’re under surveillance. Please surrender your weapon immediately.”
“Lieutenant. NYPSD. Badge,” she said, and two fingered it out.
He scanned it, gave her the hard eye. “Bank policy requires you to secure your weapon before entering to do business.”
“I’m here on police business, and my weapon’s secure. On me. Reo?”
“Of course. Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Cher Reo.” Reo flashed a smile, opened her briefcase. “Warrant,” she said, offering it. “We’re duly authorized to enter the premises—and as we’re conducting police business, the lieutenant is under no obligation to remove her weapon—and access the safe-deposit box clearly listed on the warrant.”
“You need to wait here for the manager. Bank policy.”
“While this warrant trumps your bank policy, we’re happy to wait for precisely one minute.” Reo checked her wrist unit. “Beginning now.”
He gave her the hard eye, but hurried off.
“Nice,” Eve said. “The one-minute deal. Will that hold up?”
“If we don’t mind causing a scene.”
The bank was quiet as a church and ornate as a museum with fake marble columns pretending to hold up the sky-view ceiling. Tellers sat on stools behind blast shields and conducted business with patrons in hushed tones.
Eve decided she wouldn’t mind causing a scene.
A woman, long strides in skinny black heels, crossed the wide lobby. She had dark hair in a precise wedge and a stern expression on her face.