Ceremony in Death

  “Oh.”

  “It’s not my fault if some big-nosed reporter finds out I’m questioning Selina Cross, knows I’m primary on two recent homicides, then puts two and two together.”

  “And goes on air with it.”

  “Might shake up some of these fine, upstanding Satanists. Some people get real chatty when they’re shook. Get me that data, and I can shake them harder.”

  “I bow to you.”

  “Save it until we see if it works. You use this unit. I can use one of Roarke’s to make the first pass. Computer, copy disc, print out hard copy.” She glanced up at the movement in the doorway, went very still. “Abort,” she murmured and braced to take the next hit from Feeney.

  “Peabody.” He sent her a quiet look out of sleep-starved eyes. “I need a moment with your lieutenant.”

  “Sir?” Though she rose, Peabody waited for Eve’s signal.

  “Take a break, Peabody. Get yourself some coffee.”

  “Yes, sir.” She headed out, feeling the needles of edgy tension prickling the air.

  Eve didn’t speak, simply stood. Her body was set, he noted, not to defend, but to absorb the next blow. Her eyes were carefully empty. But her hand that she braced on the desk shook. He stared at it a moment, amazed and ashamed that he’d caused that.

  “Your, ah, Summerset said I should just come up.” It was warm in the room, but he didn’t remove his rumpled overcoat. Instead, he shoved his hands in the pockets. “I was off yesterday. Coming down on you was off. You were doing your job.”

  He saw her lip tremble, as if she would speak or make some sound. Then she firmed it again and said nothing. She looked, he realized, whipped.

  “You broke her heart.”

  “Her father beat her, tortured her, raped her.”

  “You’ve been her father for ten years.”

  How the hell was he supposed to deal with that? And how could he possibly ignore it?

  “The things I said—I shouldn’t have.” He pulled his hands free to scrub them hard over his face. “Jesus, Dallas. I’m sorry.”

  “Did you mean them?” It was out before she could stop it. She held up a hand, turned away, stared blindly out the window.

  “I wanted to mean them. I was pissed.” He crossed to her, his hands flapping uselessly. “I got no excuse,” he began. He touched her, then snatched his fingers away from her shoulder when she cringed. “I got no excuse,” he said again after a steadying breath. “And you got a right to step back from me. I jumped hard where I shouldn’t have jumped.”

  “You don’t trust me now.” She skimmed the back of her hand over her cheek, ashamed the single tear had gotten past her guard.

  “That’s bullshit, Dallas. There’s nobody I trust more. Look, goddamn it, it takes a laser hit to get me to apologize to my own wife. I’m telling you I’m sorry.” Impatient now, he grabbed her arm, pulled her around. She froze. Her eyes were bright, tears sheening them but not, thank Christ, falling. “Don’t go female on me, Dallas. I can’t kick myself in the ass much harder than I already am.”

  He jerked up his chin, tapped a finger on it. “Go ahead. Free shot. We won’t say anything about you punching out a superior officer.”

  “I don’t want to hit you.”

  “Goddamn it, I outrank you. I said take your shot.”

  A ghost of a smile flitted around her mouth. He looked so fierce, she thought, those drooping camel eyes sparking with temper and frustration. “Maybe after you shave. That stubble’d skin my knuckles.”

  Relief flooded through him at the slight curve of her lips. “You’re going soft. Living the high life with that rich Irish son of a bitch.”

  “I beat hell out of a sparring droid last night. One of Roarke’s finest.”

  “Yeah?” Pride swelled in him, ridiculously.

  She tucked her tongue in her cheek. “I pretended it was you.”

  He grinned, took out the bag of candied almonds from his pocket, offered it. “E-detectives don’t have to use their fists. They use their brains.”

  “You taught me to use both.”

  “And to follow orders,” he added, his eyes resting on hers again. “I’d have been ashamed of you if you’d forgotten that. You did right, Dallas, for Frank, for the department. For me,” he said and watched her eyes swim again. “Don’t do that.” His voice shook with the plea. “Don’t start that shit. That’s an order.”

  She swiped the back of her hand under her nose. “I’m not doing anything.”

  He waited a moment, just to be sure she wasn’t going to lose it and embarrass them both. When her eyes cleared, he nodded in both relief and approval. “Good.” He jiggled the bag in his hand. “Now, are you going to let me in?”

  She opened her mouth, shut it.

  “I’ve seen Whitney,” he told her. Feeney found he wanted to smile. This was the cop he’d trained. Solid, sturdy, and straight. “Chewed him out in his own kitchen.”

  “Did you?” She lifted her brows. “I’d like to have seen it.”

  “Trouble was, once it was over, I had to agree with him. He’d picked the best cop for the job. I know you’ve been busting ass to push IAD out of the picture, clear Frank. Me,” he added. “And I know you’ve been working on finding out who did him and Alice.” He had to take a breath because it hurt, still hurt. “I want in, Dallas. I’m going to tell you straight, I need in to clear this out of my gut. Whitney said it was up to you.”

  The tension seeped out of her. She could give him this, give both of them this. “Let’s get to work.”

  Eve was so pleased to have Selina Cross in Interview, she’d missed anticipating the obvious bonus of having her represented by Louis Trivane. She flashed grins at both of them as she secured the door to Interview Room A.

  “Ms. Cross, I appreciate your cooperation. Mr. Trivane.”

  “Eve—”

  “Lieutenant Dallas,” she corrected, snapping off the grin. “We’re not socializing here.”

  “You know each other.” Selina’s eyes went icy, pinned her lawyer.

  “Your representative knows my husband on a social level. I’m acquainted with a number of attorneys in the city, Ms. Cross. This doesn’t affect my or their job performance. We’ll go on record.”

  Eve engaged the recorder, recited the pertinent data. After reading the revised Miranda, she sat. “You’ve exercised your right to an attorney, Ms. Cross.”

  “I certainly have. I’ve already been harassed by you twice, Lieutenant Dallas. I prefer that this continued harassment go on record.”

  “Me, too.” Eve smiled. “You were acquainted with Robert Mathias, also known as Lobar.”

  “He was Lobar,” Selina corrected. “It was his chosen name.”

  “Was is the operative word, seeing as he’s in a refrigerated unit at the morgue. And so is Thomas Wineburg. Are you acquainted with him?”

  “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “Well, that’s interesting. He was a member of your cult.”

  Selina set her chin, waved away Trivane as he leaned forward to speak to her. “I can’t be expected to recognize the name of every member of my church, Dallas. We are…” She spread her hands on the small table. “Legion.”

  “Maybe this will refresh your memory.” Eve opened a file, took a still out, and slid it across the table. Death shots were always ugly.

  Selina studied it with a small smile tugging at her mouth. A finger of the hand she wore webbed again today traced the spread of harsh red blood. “I can’t say for certain. We meet in the dark.” Her gaze lifted to Eve. “It’s our way.”

  “I can say for certain. Both he and Lobar were yours, and both were murdered with a style of knife used in your rituals.”

  “An athame, yes. We are not the only religion who uses such an instrument in ceremony. I feel, after this violence, this persecution of members of my church, the police should be concerned with protecting us rather than pointing fingers. Obviously, there is a person or per
sons determined to eliminate us.”

  “I figured you had your own protection. Doesn’t your master look out for his own?”

  “Your mockery only shows your ignorance.”

  “Having sex with an eighteen-year-old delinquent shows yours. Did you have sex with Wineburg, too?”

  “I said I can’t be sure I knew him. But if I did, I very likely had sex with him.”

  “Selina.” Trivane cut her off, his voice firm. “You’re goading my client, Lieutenant. She’s stated she can’t positively identify this victim.”

  “She knew him. Both of you did. He was a weasel. Do you know what a weasel is in cop-speak, Ms. Cross? An informant.” Eve rose, leaned over, bending her body close to Selina’s. “Were you worried about how much he’d told me? Is that why you arranged for him to die? Were you having him followed?” She slanted her gaze toward Trivane briefly. “Maybe you have all your…faithful followed.”

  “I see whatever I need to see in the smoke.”

  “Yeah, in the smoke. The psychic’s version of the Peeping Tom. It was risky for Wineburg to come by the viewing room. Why do you suppose he wanted a look at Alice? Had he been there the night she was drugged, raped? Did you let him have her?”

  “Alice was an initiate. A willing one.”

  “She was a child, a confused one. You like luring the young, don’t you? They’re so much more interesting than stubby fools like Wineburg. With their firm bodies, their malleable minds. People like Wineburg and the distinguished counsel here, they’re just for the money, and the cachet. But those like Alice, they’re so tender. So tasty.”

  Selina looked up smugly through her thick, dark lashes. “She was. She enjoyed and was enjoyed. She didn’t have to be lured, Dallas. She came to me.”

  “Now she’s dead. Three deaths. Your members must be getting nervous.” Eve smiled thinly at Trivane. “I would be.”

  “Martyrdom isn’t new, Dallas. People have been killed because of their faith for centuries. And still, the faith survives. We’ll survive. We’ll triumph.”

  Eve took out another still, slapped it on the table. “He didn’t.”

  It was Lobar, his mutilated body caught it the garish lights of the crime scene. The wound on his throat gaped open like a scream.

  It was Trivane who Eve watched. His eyes blinked rapidly, horror flickering through. His skin went pasty, and his chest rose and fell in jerks.

  “He didn’t survive,” Eve said softly, “did he, Selina?”

  “His death is a symbol. He will not be forgotten.”

  “Do you own an athame?”

  “I own several, naturally.”

  “Like this?” She took out another photo, this one a close-up of the weapon left pinned into Lobar. Blood crusted the blade.

  “I have several,” Selina repeated. “Some similar to this, as one might expect. But I don’t recognize this particular one.”

  “Hallucinogens were found in Lobar’s system. You use drugs during rituals.”

  “Herbals, and some chemicals. All legal.”

  “Not everything found in Lobar’s system was on the legal list.”

  “I can’t be responsible for the choices other people make.”

  “He was with you the night he died. Was he using?”

  “He had taken the ritual wine. If he took something otherwise, it was without my knowledge.”

  “You have priors as a chemi-dealer.”

  “And paid my debt to so-called society. You have nothing on me, Lieutenant.”

  “I have three bodies. And they’re yours. I’ve got a dead cop, and he’s on you, too. I’m closing in on you, Selina. Step by step.”

  “Keep out of my face.”

  “Or?”

  “Do you know pain, Dallas?” Selina’s voice went low and thick. “Do you know the pain that eats at the stomach like drops of acid spreading? You beg for relief, but none comes. The pain becomes agony, and agony almost pleasure. The pain becomes so intense, so unspeakable that if a knife came to your hand, you would gladly slice through your own guts to cut out the source of it.”

  “Would I,” Eve said coolly. “Would I really?”

  “I can offer you that. I can offer you pain.”

  Eve smiled, and her smile was slow and humorless. “That slips into the area of threatening a police officer. And that’ll get you some time in a cage until your lawyer finesses you out again.”

  “You bitch.” Furious that she’d been trapped so neatly and with so little effort, Selina sprang to her feet. “You can’t hold me for that.”

  “Sure, I can. Selina Cross, you’re under arrest for verbal threat to physically harm a police officer.”

  She was fast, but Eve’s reflexes were sharp. She blocked the first blow as Selina flew at her. But the second rapid swipe caught her along the throat with those lethal dark nails. She smelled her own blood and indulged herself by bringing her elbow up to ram Selina’s chin.

  The dark eyes rolled back, went glassy. “Looks like we add resisting arrest. You’re going to have your hands full for the next couple hours, counselor.”

  He hadn’t moved, not a muscle. Trivane continued to sit, staring at the photos of the dead. When Feeney opened the door, a uniform behind him, Eve nodded. “Book her,” she ordered. “Verbal threat and resisting.”

  Selina staggered as Eve passed her to the uniform. But her eyes cleared and fixed on Eve’s face with bubbling malice. She began to speak softly, in a chant that rose and fell almost musically. She swiveled her head, looking over her shoulder as the uniform took her out.

  Eve dabbed fingers on her throat, disgusted when they came away smeared with blood. “Did you catch what she was saying there?”

  Feeney took out a handkerchief, handed it to her. “Sounded like Latin, bastardized some. My mother made me learn when I was a kid. Had delusions about me becoming a priest.”

  “See if you can make any of it out from the record. We may be able to add to the charges. Shit, this burns. Interview is concluded,” she added and logged the time and date. “Trivane, you want to talk to me?”

  “What?” He looked over, swallowed, shook his head. “I’ll see my client, Lieutenant, as soon as she’s booked. These charges won’t hold.”

  Eve held out her bloody fingers. “Oh, I think they will. Take a good look, Louis.” She stepped closer, jammed her fingers under his nose. “It could be yours next time.”

  “I’ll see my client,” he repeated, and his face was still white as death as he hurried from the room.

  “That bitch is loony,” Feeney commented.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “She hates your ever fucking guts,” he said pleasantly, happy to be in tandem again. “But you knew that, too. Put the hoodoo on you.”

  “Huh?”

  “Cursed you.” He winked at her. “Let me know if you start getting stomach cramps. You’re starting to get to her.”

  “Not enough,” Eve murmured. “But my money’s on the lawyer. Let’s keep a man on him, Feeney. I don’t want him ending up dead before he breaks. It was the way he looked at the shot of Lobar. Shock, then something like recognition.” She shook her head. “Let’s not lose him.” She glanced at her watch, hummed with satisfaction. “Just in time to make my nooner with Nadine.”

  “You want to have that neck looked after. Nasty.”

  “Later.” She headed out, moving fast. Nadine wouldn’t miss the injury. Nor, Eve thought, would the all-seeing eye of the camera.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Nadine demanded. She stopped pacing, stopped looking at her watch.

  “Little problem in Interview.”

  “You cut it close, Dallas, we got two minutes before air. You don’t have time to clean up.”

  “Fine, we’ll go like we are.”

  “Get a voice and light level,” Nadine told her camera operator. She took out a mirrored compact, polishing up her face when she sat. “Looks like female,” she added. “Long, nasty nails
, four separate grooves.”

  “Yeah.” Eve patted the already stained handkerchief against the wound. “Somebody was curious, they could check booking, get the data.”

  Nadine’s eyes went sharp. “I imagine someone could,” she purred. “You didn’t do anything with your hair.”

  “I cut it.”

  “I meant anything constructive. Coming up in thirty. Set, Suzanna?”

  The operator made a circle of forefinger and thumb. “The fresh blood shows up real good. Nice touch.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Eve settled back, hooked one booted foot over her knee. “Let’s keep this short, Nadine. I haven’t seen yours yet.”

  “Here’s a preview then. What local white witch is the son of infamous mass murderer David Baines Conroy, who is currently doing five separate life stretches, no parole options, in maximum lockup on Penal Station Omega?”

  “Who—”

  “In five,” Nadine said sweetly, delighted to have snagged Eve’s full attention. “Four, three…” She signaled the last of the countdown with her fingers, below camera level. On cue, she stared into the camera with sober eyes. “Good afternoon, this is Nadine Furst, leading off the noon hour with an exclusive interview with homicide Lieutenant Eve Dallas in her office at Cop Central…”

  Eve was prepared for the questions. She knew Nadine’s style well, too well to allow herself to be rattled by the information that had been dumped on her seconds before air time. As, she imagined, Nadine had hoped. She answered briefly, carefully, and knew she was bumping up Channel 75’s and Nadine’s rating points with every on-the-air second.

  “The department is proceeding with the belief that the cases are connected as evidence indicates. Though different weapons were left at the scene of each murder, they are of similar style.”

  “Can you describe the weapons?”

  “I can’t comment on that.”

  “But they were knives.”

  “They were sharp instruments. I’m not at liberty to go into any more detail. Doing so would jeopardize our investigation at this point.”

  “The second victim. You were pursuing him at the time of his death. Why?”

  She was ready for this, had already decided to exploit the question for her own benefit. “Thomas Wineburg had indicated he had information which would be useful to my investigation.”