Imitation in Death

  “I told you never to come in here. I told you never to touch my things.”

  The mommy’s hands were white, so white, and painted red on the nails like they were bleeding. She used one to slap, and it stung the little painted cheek.

  The girl opened her mouth to wail as the hand raised up to strike again.

  “Goddamn it, Stel.” The daddy burst in, grabbing the mommy, shoving her away and onto the bed. “The soundproofing in here’s next to nothing. You want to bring the fucking social workers down on us again?”

  “The little shit’s been into my things.” The mommy jumped off the bed, curling those bloody fingertips into claws. “Look at the mess she made! I’m sick and tired of having to clean up after her and listening to her whine.”

  On the floor, curled up tight with her arms over her head, the child struggled not to make a sound. Not any sound at all so they’d forget she was there, so she’d be invisible.

  “I never wanted the brat in the first place.” There was a bite in the mommy’s voice, like sharp teeth snapping. The child imagined them snapping down on her fingers, her toes. Terror made her mewl like a cornered kitten and press her hands to her ears to block the sound.

  “Having her was your idea. You deal with her.”

  “I’ll deal with her.” He scooped the child up, and though she feared him, feared him on a deep and instinctual level, at the moment she feared the mommy more with her words that bit and her white hands that slapped.

  So she curled herself into him, and shuddered when he stroked a hand over the wig that had fallen over her eyes, and down her back, over her rump.

  “Have a hit, Stella,” he said. “You’ll feel better. I get this deal through, we’ll buy a droid to look after the kid.”

  “Yeah, right. About the same time we’ll have that big house and the fleet of fancy cars and all the other shit you promised me. The only thing I got out of you so far, Rich, is that whiny brat.”

  “An investment in the future. She’s going to pay off for us one day. Aren’t you, little girl? Have a hit, Stella,” he said again as he started out of the room with the child on his hip. “I’ll clean the kid up.”

  The last thing the child saw as he left the room with her was the mommy’s face. And the eyes, brown eyes painted gold on the lids that were, like the words, full of teeth and hate.

  Eve woke, not with the strangled panic of the nightmares that plagued her, but with a kind of cold, dull shock. The room was dark, and she realized she’d rolled herself to the far edge of the bed, as if she’d needed privacy for the dream.

  Shaken, vaguely ill, she rolled back, curled herself against Roarke. His arm came around her, drawing her in. Circled in his warmth, she pretended to sleep again.

  She said nothing to Roarke of the dream the next morning. Didn’t know if she should, or could. She wanted to lock it away, but she felt it pushing at her as she went through her morning routine.

  It was a relief that Roarke had a morning full of meetings and she could slip around him and out of the house with little conversation.

  He read her too well and too easily—a talent that was both a wonder and an irritation to her—and she wasn’t ready to explore what she’d remembered.

  Her mother was a whore and a junkie, and had never wanted the child she’d made. More than not wanted. Had despised and abhorred.

  What difference did it make? Eve asked herself as she drove downtown. Her father had been a monster. Was it any worse to know her mother had been the same? It changed nothing.

  She parked at Central, made her way up to her office. With every step inside the busy hive of Central, she felt more herself. The weight of her weapon comforted her, as did the knowledge that her badge was in her pocket.

  Roarke had called them her symbols once, and so they were. Symbols of who and what she was.

  She walked through the bull pen where the morning shift was settling in. She detoured by Peabody’s cube just as her aide was knocking back the last of a glide-cart coffee.

  “Thomas A. Breen,” Eve began, and rattled off an East Village address. “Contact him, set up a meeting ASAP. We’ll go to him.”

  “Yes, sir. Rough night?” At Eve’s silent stare Peabody shrugged. “Don’t look like you got much sleep, that’s all. Neither did I. Cramming for the exam. It’s coming up soon.”

  “You want regular eight straights, you don’t pick up the badge. Set up the interview. Then we’re doing follow-ups on the list, starting with Fortney.” She started to walk away, then turned back. “You can overstudy, you know.”

  “I know, but I was really blowing the sims. I nailed two last night. That’s the first time I felt like I had a handle.”

  “Good.” Eve stuck her thumbs in her pockets, drummed her fingers. “Good,” she repeated and headed to her office to nag the lab for updates on Gregg.

  The bickering with Dickhead put her in a cheerier mood as she read over the ME’s reports. Morris was going with surgical grade on the weapons used on Wooton. Her tox screen confirmed that her system was clear of chemicals.

  Since she wasn’t using, spending time trying to find her former dealer wasn’t priority.

  The canvasses of Chinatown and the surrounding areas had come up zero, one more time.

  “No trace of semen with Gregg,” Eve told Peabody as they headed to the Village. “ME findings indicate she was raped and sodomized, with the broomstick only. No prints on-scene other than hers, family members, and two neighbors who’re clear. Hair fibers, man-made. Dickhead thinks wig and mustache, but isn’t ready to commit.”

  “So we think he wore a disguise.”

  “In case he was seen around the neighborhood. He had to keep tabs on her, a few weeks, I’d say. Solidify her Sunday routine. How’d he pick her, though? Out of a fucking hat? How does he target this particular LC, this particular woman?”

  “Maybe there’s some connection. A place they shopped, ate, did business. A doctor, a bank.”

  “Possible, and it’s a good line for you to tug. I’m more inclined to think it was the area first. Neighborhood. Select the setting, then the character, then put on your play.”

  “Speaking of neighborhoods, this is really nice.” Peabody gazed out at shady sidewalks, large old houses, pretty urban gardens planted in window boxes or pots. “I could go for this one day. You know, when I settle down, start thinking family and stuff. You ever think about that? Kids and all.”

  Eve thought of the hate-filled eyes, staring at her out of a dream. “No.”

  “Tons of time and all. I figure maybe to think about it in six, eight years anyway. Definitely going to be taking McNab on a long test drive before I commit to more than cohabbing. Hey, your eye didn’t twitch.”

  “Because I’m not listening to you.”

  “Are, too,” Peabody muttered when Eve pulled to the curb. “He’s been really great working with me for the exam. It makes a difference having somebody rooting for me. He really wants it for me because I want it. That’s . . . well, that’s just solid.”

  “McNab’s a moron the majority of the time, but he’s in love with you.”

  “Dallas!” Peabody shifted in her seat so sharply her cap tipped over one eye. “You said the ‘L’ word and ‘McNab’ in the same sentence. Voluntarily.”

  “Just shut up.”

  “Happy to.” With a happy smile, she squared her cap. “I’m just going to savor in silence.”

  They walked three houses down to a three-story home that Eve imagined had once been a multifamily dwelling. Writing about killers was obviously profitable if Breen could afford something this up-market.

  She went up a short flight of flagstoned steps to the main entrance, noted the full security system that must have made the man confident enough to keep the etched glass panes on either side of the front door.

  There was a wife as well, she knew from her quick background check, and a two-year-old boy. Breen collected partial professional father pay from the government as primar
y at-home parent while his wife earned a substantial salary as a VP and managing editor of a fashion rag called Outre.

  A nice, tidy setup, Eve mused, as she rang the bell and held up her badge for scan.

  Breen answered the door himself with his son sitting astride his shoulders. The boy was holding on to Breen’s blond hair like the reins on a horse.

  “Go, ride!” the boy shouted and kicked his feet.

  “Only this far, partner.” Breen hooked his hands around the boy’s ankles, either to anchor him, Eve thought, or to stop the busy little heels from digging holes in his armpits. “Lieutenant Dallas?”

  “That’s right. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me, Mr. Breen.”

  “No problem. Always happy to talk to the cops, and I’ve followed your work. I’m hoping to do a book on New York murders eventually, and figure you’ll be one of my prime sources.”

  “You’ll have to talk to public relations at Central about that. Can we come in?”

  “Oh yeah, sure. Sorry.”

  He stepped back. He was in his thirties, of strong, medium build. From the definition in his arms, Eve doubted he sat at a computer all day. He had a good face, handsome without being soft.

  “Blaster!” the boy called out as he spotted Eve’s weapon under her jacket. “Zappit!”

  Breen laughed, flipped the child off his shoulders in a rapid and smooth move that had the kid squealing in delight. “Jed here’s a little bloodthirsty. Runs in the family. I’m just going to set him up with the droid, then we can talk.”

  “No droid!” The kid’s face went from angelic to mutinous in a heartbeat. “Stay with Daddy!”

  “Just for a little while, champ; then we’ll go out to the park.” He tickled the boy into giggles as he charged up the steps with him.

  “Nice to see a guy handle a kid that way, and enjoy it,” Peabody commented.

  “Yeah. Wonder what a guy, a successful guy, thinks about pulling in a professional father stipend, dealing with an offspring, while the mother’s being a busy exec at a major firm every day. Some guys would resent that. Some might think the little lady’s pushy, domineering. Maybe his mother was the same—Breen’s mother is a neurologist and his father went the professional parent route. You know,” Eve added, looking up the stairs, “some guys would build up a nasty little resentment of women over that kind of setup.”

  “That’s really sexist.”

  “Yeah, it is. Some people are.”

  Peabody frowned up the steps. “It’s some brain that could take a nice, homey scene like we just witnessed and turn it on its head into a motive for murder.”

  “Just one of my natural-born talents, Peabody.”

  Chapter 9

  Breen set them up in a roomy office just off the kitchen. Two large windows faced the rear, where they could see a kind of tidy patio skirted by a low wall. Behind the wall were leafy trees. With the view, they might have been in some quiet suburb rather than the city.

  Someone had put pots of flowers on the patio, along with a couple of loungers. There was a small table shaded by a jaunty blue-and-white striped umbrella.

  A couple of big plastic trucks lay on their sides, along with their colorful plastic occupants, as if there had been a terrible vehicular accident.

  Why, Eve wondered, were kids always bashing toys together? Maybe it was some sort of primitive cave-dweller instinct that, if things went well, the kid outgrew or at least restrained into adulthood.

  Jed’s father looked civilized enough, sitting in his rolly chair that he’d scooted around from his workstation. Then again, he made the bulk of his living writing about people who restrained nothing, and rather than outgrowing any destructive instincts, had bumped it up from plastic toys to flesh and blood.

  It took, Eve was very aware, all kinds.

  “So, how can I help?”

  “You’ve done considerable research into serial killers,” Eve began.

  “Historical figures, primarily. Though I have interviewed a few contemporary subjects.”

  “Why is that, Mr. Breen?”

  “Tom. Why?” He looked surprised for a moment. “It’s fascinating. You’ve been up close and personal with the breed. Don’t you find them fascinating?”

  “I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use.”

  He leaned forward. “But you have to wonder what makes them who they are, don’t you? What separates them from the rest of us? Is it something more or something less? Are they born to kill, or does that need evolve in them? Is it a single instance that turns them, or a series of events? And really, the answer isn’t always the same, and that’s fascinating. One guy spends his childhood in poverty and abuse”—he tapped his index fingers together—“and becomes a productive member of society. A bank president, faithful husband, good father, loyal friend. Plays golf on the weekend and walks his pet schnauzer every night. He uses his background to springboard himself into something better, higher, right?”

  “And another uses it as an excuse to dive into the muck. Yeah, I get it. Why do you write about the muck?”

  He sat back again. “Well, I could give you a lot of jive about how studying the killer and the muck he wades in gives society insight into how and why. And understanding, information, is power against fear. It would be true,” he added with his quick and boyish smile. “But on another level entirely, it’s just fun. I’ve been into it since I was a kid. Jack the Ripper was the big one for me. I read everything about him, watched every vid ever produced, surfed the Web sites, made up stories where I was a cop back then and tracked him down. Along the way I expanded, studied up on profiling and types, the steps and the stages—you know, trolling, hunting, the rush and the lull.”

  He shrugged now. “I went through a phase where I thought I’d be a cop, chase the bad guys. But I got over that one. Considered going into psychology, but it just didn’t suit me. What I really wanted to do was write, and that’s what I was good at. So I write about my lifelong interest.”

  “I hear some writers need to experience the subject they’re writing about. Need that hands-on approach before they can put it down in words.”

  Amusement bloomed on his face. “So, you’re asking if I’ve gone out and carved up a couple of street LCs in the name of research?” His laughter rolled out, then stopped, like a wave hitting a wall as Eve only continued to watch him.

  He blinked, several times, then swallowed audibly. “Holy shit, you really are. I’m a suspect?” The healthy color in his face had drained away to leave it pale and shiny. “For real?”

  “I’d like to know where you were on September second, between midnight and three A.M.”

  “I was home, probably. I don’t . . .” He lifted both hands, rubbed the sides of his head. “Man, my brain’s gone fuzzy. I figured you wanted me to consult. Was pretty juiced about it. Ah . . . I was here. Jule—Julietta, my wife—had a late meeting, and didn’t get home until about ten. She was whipped and went straight up to bed. I put in some writing time. With Jed, the only time the house is really quiet is the middle of the night. I worked until one, maybe a little after. I can check my disc log.”

  He opened drawers in his workstation, began to root around. “I, ah, Jesus, did the man of the house routine. I go through it every night before I turn in. Check the security, make sure everything’s locked up. Look in on Jed. That’s it.”

  “How about Sunday morning?”

  “This Sunday?” He glanced up, over. “My wife got up with Jed.”

  He paused, and Eve could see the change taking place. The shock was ebbing and the interest, the enjoyment, even the pride in being considered a murder subject was rolling in.

  “Most Sundays I sleep in and she takes over. She doesn’t get as much one-on-one time with him as I do. She took him to the park. They go out early and have a picnic breakfast if the weather’s good. Jed loves that. I didn’t surface till close to noon. What’s Sunday? I’m not following . . .”

  Then he did. She cou
ld see it click. “The woman who was found strangled in her apartment on Sunday. Middle-aged woman, living alone. Sexual assault and strangulation.”

  His eyes were narrowed now, his color back. “The media reports were sketchy, but strangulation and sexual assault, that’s not Ripper style. An older woman, at home in her apartment, that’s not Ripper style either. What’s the connection?”

  At Eve’s steady stare, he scooted forward in the chair. “Listen, if I’m moonlighting as a killer, I already know so you won’t be telling me anything. If I’m just an expert on serial killers, giving me some details might let me help. Either way, how can you lose?”

  She’d already decided what she would and wouldn’t tell him, but held his gaze another moment. “The sash of the victim’s lounge robe was used as the murder weapon, and tied in a bow under the chin.”

  “Boston Strangler. That was his signature.” He snapped his fingers, and began to push through the piles of discs and files on his desk. “I’ve got considerable notes on him. Wow. You’ve got two killers imitating the famous? Teamwork, like Leopold and Loeb? Or . . .” He paused, took a long breath. “Not two, just one. One killer working his way down a list of his heroes. That’s why you’re looking at me. You’re wondering if the people I write about are heroes to me, and if I’m mixing up my work and my life. If I want to be one of them.”

  He pushed to his feet, pacing with what looked to Eve to be energy rather than nerves. “This is fucking amazing. He’s probably read my books. That’s sort of creepy, but icy in a strange way, too. DeSalvo, DeSalvo. Different type from Jack,” Breen mumbled. “Blue collar, family man, a sad sap. Jack was probably educated, likely a member of the upper class.”

  “If the information I just gave you finds its way to the media, I’ll know where it came from.” Eve paused until Breen stopped pacing and looked at her. “I’ll make your life hell.”

  “Why would I give it to the media, and let somebody write about it first?” He sat again. “This has best-seller written all over it. I know that sounds cold, but in my line of work I have to be as detached as you do in yours. I’ll help however I can. I’ve got mountains of research and data accumulated on every major serial killer since the Ripper started it all, and a few interesting minor ones. I’ll make it all available to you, pitch in as a civilian consultant, and waive the fee. And when it’s over, I’ll write it.”