Kindred in Death

  “Do the math. Seventy years into the marriage deal, and she’s ninety. Twenty when she stepped into the deal, started popping out kids. Seven decades later, and it’s still there. It’s what Pauley wants to destroy. Not just the person, but the connection. Strangle them with their own family ties.”

  A slow sip of wine went down smoothly. “If we don’t take him tomorrow, she’ll hold up. She’ll stand to it.

  “I don’t want to screw up the wedding,” she said suddenly. “I don’t want to mess this up, but if—”

  “One step at a time.”

  She let out a huff of breath. “Yeah. One step at a time.”

  In the morning, Eve stood in the conference room outlining positioning and strategy for her team. Using a remote, she highlighted specific areas of the blueprint on screen.

  “The ten-story building holds bereavement facilities on floors one through three, offices and counseling centers for same, four and five, ah, showrooms and retail spaces on six and seven. Eight through ten are hotel facilities offered to families and other attendants of the memorials and funerals held on site.”

  “One-stop shopping,” Baxter commented.

  “Yeah.” And, well, creepy to her mind. “Moreover, their preparation facilities in the basement comprise over four thousand square feet, and two outside entrances. There are four banks of elevators for a total of twelve cars, a glide between the hotel floors and the retail areas. Stairs, here, here, here, and here.” She highlighted. “Serving all floors.”

  “Lots of ins, lots of outs,” Feeney added.

  “Plus, you have the main doors here, facing south, additional entrances west and east, and two egresses north. Both the size and the position of the building add complexity. The MacMasters memorial is being held on level two, southwest corner, which includes a large, open terrace facing the park, as do all rooms on the west side. Three other memorials and two viewings overlap the time frame of the MacMasterses. Twenty of the twenty-two hotel rooms are occupied. All offices, chapels, counseling centers, and retail markets will be open.”

  “Place’ll be jammed,” McNab pointed out. “That could give him an advantage.”

  “We weren’t able to persuade the owners or various managers to cooperate, and have no authority to compel them to do so. We’ll focus on entrances and egresses, concentrating on the memorial areas. They consist of this room where the formal memorial will take place, and these two smaller parlors, all with access to the terrace and the corridor.”

  She switched to a view of the memorial areas, with points already highlighted and numbered. “We cover the exits, as assigned here, with rovers continually sweeping point to point. If and when he’s spotted, we close off the exits, box him in. Those positioned at exits remain at their stations while those roving move in. I want him taken fast and clean.”

  “Lieutenant.” One of the uniforms from MacMasters’s squad signaled. “The place is going to be jammed, but the memorial’s going to be jammed with cops. That’s an advantage for us, if we get the suspect’s picture out, put the full blue on it.”

  “Making the picture department-wide gives us more eyes, and no control or focus. I want this tight, and I don’t want the suspect tipped off because a cop gives him the hard eye. He’s been on the grift all his life. He’ll know what to look for. I don’t want it there for him to find. Feeney.”

  “We have an e-team monitoring the security cams. The building has cameras at every entrance, on all elevators, and in their retail areas. Any sighting’ll be relayed.”

  “If and when that happens, everyone is to remain at post,” Eve continued. “We want to lure him in, not scare him off. Now, any questions about the overview?” She waited, scanned the room. “All right, specific assignments.”

  When she’d dismissed the team, Eve continued to study the screen, searching for flaws. “A lot of ins and outs,” she said, echoing Feeney.

  “We’ll have them all covered.” Still Peabody studied the screen as well. “It’s a good point about all the cops that’ll be there, at some time during the two hours. If we broadcast the sketch through the department, it would be like a rabbit walking into the wolf den.”

  “Too many opportunities for leaks and hotheads and mistakes. I thought rabbits hopped.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “And if we’re going to use that kind of analogy, bringing the department in would be like all those cooks burning the pie or whatever it is.”

  “I think it’s spoiling the broth.”

  “Who eats broth?”

  “Sick people, maybe.”

  “Burning the pie makes more sense, because then nobody can eat it, sick or healthy. A small, tight team,” she continued while Peabody puzzled over pie. “Then when he’s in, we box and close. He’s got no reason to be worried. He thinks we’re chasing our tails.”

  “Yeah, we’re getting hammered by the media. Even knowing it’s for the good of the cause, it’s an ouch.”

  “Suck it up,” Eve ordered. “He can walk right in, go right up to MacMasters, look him in the eye, and see the result of his work. Then that task is complete. Multitasking, that’s what he does. He figures he’ll have the third on his list, the judge’s mother, Friday or Saturday, and the Robins memorial Monday. He’s free to move on to the next.”

  She shut down the comp and screen, gathered the discs.

  “Let’s head over there now. I want to go through the place, top to bottom, before the team assembles.”

  Not for the first time Eve wished the MacMasterses had chosen a smaller, less complex venue for their daughter’s memorial. She stood in the large entrance foyer, all but smothered by the scent of lilies, and studied the various escape routes.

  Up, down, in, out, sideways, she thought. The place was a hive, and the staff a swarm of quiet bees in black suits. She crossed the slick marble floor toward the first bank of elevators.

  “Excuse me. Is there any way I might help you?”

  Eve looked at the sober face of the woman who stepped toward her.

  “Security detail for the MacMasters family.” Eve pulled out her badge.

  “Of course.” The woman consulted a mini e-board. “The MacMasters memorial service will be held in Suite two hundred. That’s the second floor. Would you like me to escort you?”

  “I think we can find the second floor.”

  “Of course.” Sarcasm slid off her well-oiled composure, as her eyes, her voice, continued to radiate an oddly efficient sympathy. “Nicholas Cates is managing that program. I’ll notify him of your arrival. Is there anything else I might help you with today?”

  “No.”

  Eve stepped into the elevator, called for the second floor.

  “She was just creepy,” Peabody decided. “I know she’s supposed to be comforting or reassuring, but creepy is what she is with that whispering-in-the-graveyard voice. So’s this whole place creepy. It’s like the upscale death hotel.”

  Considering, Eve pursed her lips. “I was thinking it’s more like an exclusive spa of death. They give corpses manicures in the basement.”

  “Eeww.”

  “Don’t say ‘eeww.’ It’s wussy.”

  “Places like this make me feel wussy, especially now that I’m picturing some chatty death tech painting a DB’s fingernails.”

  “Maybe Trina should work here.”

  They stepped off into another wide corridor, with more rivers of marble, more elaborate banks of flowers. As they walked, Eve glanced into open doorways to see respectfully black-suited staff already setting up for services.

  More flowers, she noted, wall screens activated to do test runs of vids or photos the family of the dead chose.

  “Lieutenant Dallas.” A man with golden hair and an angelic face hurried toward her. He boasted the male version of the whispering-in-the-graveyard voice Peabody had coined. “I’m Nicholas Cates. My supervisor told me to expect you. I’m sorry I wasn’t downstairs to greet you. What can I do to help?”

&n
bsp; “You can cancel the other services and viewings this morning, and keep everyone not directly connected to the MacMasters memorial off this floor.”

  He smiled, sadly. “I’m afraid that’s just not possible.”

  “So I’m told.”

  “While we want to cooperate to the best of our ability, there are others, the departed and their loved ones, who must be considered.”

  “Right. You’ve verified your internal security, and all staff members on site?”

  “Of course. Everyone’s accounted for. We’ve accommodated your electronics teams. They’ll have use of my offices for the day.”

  She moved past him, into the main room of the suite. As with the others, preparations had begun. She ignored the flowers, the laughing young face of the dead on the wall screen, in images on easels, the glossy white coffin draped in pink and purple flowers—bold blossoms on ice.

  She checked the terraces, the parlors, the stairways, the restrooms, and the small meditation room across the corridor.

  All exits would be covered by electronic eyes and warm bodies. She and Peabody had completed runs of every staff member, and secondary runs on every staff member assigned to duty that day. She would have plainclothes officers, including herself, mingling with the mourners. And all of them would be wired.

  Every cop under her command had been briefed and rebriefed on operation procedure.

  Nothing to do, she thought, but to do it.

  20

  THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE THE MEMORIAL, THE team in place, Eve watched the MacMasterses and a small group of others file off the elevator. She moved aside as Cates led them toward the suite for their private viewing.

  But Carol MacMasters shook off her husband’s supporting arm and whirled on her.

  “Why are you here?” she demanded. “Why aren’t you out there doing your job? Do you think we want you here, want your condolences? My baby is dead, and the monster who killed her is still out there. What good are you to us? What good are you?”

  “Carol, stop. Stop now.”

  “I won’t stop. I’ll never stop. It’s just another case to you, isn’t it? Just another file. What good are you? It’s all over the media that you have nothing. Nothing. What good are you?”

  As she began to weep, the older man beside her pulled her to him. “Come on now, Carol, come on now. You need to sit down, you need to come with me.”

  When he led her away, the others followed while MacMasters looked helplessly after them. “I apologize, Lieutenant.”

  “Don’t.”

  “She wouldn’t take a soother. She wouldn’t take anything to help her get through. I didn’t know she’d been watching the media reports until it was too late to stop her, and she’s too . . . too upset to understand. It’s partially my fault. In trying to comfort her I told her you’d have him before today. I know better. I hoped you would, but I . . .” He shook his head, turned into the room.

  A moment later, Cates closed the double doors. Carol’s weeping battered against them like fists.

  “She was wrong, Dallas,” Peabody said. “She was unfair.”

  “Wrong maybe. Unfair’s a different thing.”

  “But—”

  “Focus on why we’re here.” She walked away from the door and the sound of weeping. “Feeney? Eyes on?”

  “Eyes on,” he said through her earpiece. “Peabody’s right, you’re wrong. That’s all on that. Your man’s coming in. Whitney and his missus, the commissioner, some brass from Illegals. We’re getting deliveries, north side, pretty regular. Flowers, messengers, what I take are blowups of dead people. Couple stiffs carted into the basement.”

  “Copy that. Keep me updated.” She waited until the elevator opened. “Commissioner Tibble, Commander, Mrs. Whitney. The MacMasterses are inside the suite for the family viewing.”

  “We’ll wait.” Dark eyes hard, Tibble nodded. “Anything to report?”

  “Not at this time, sir.”

  “I hope your strategy justifies the beating we’re taking in the media.” He looked toward the closed doors. “And results in some closure for the captain and his wife.”

  “We’ll take him if he shows, Commissioner, and I believe he will. Alternate plans are being formulated to apprehend him tomorrow if—”

  “I don’t want to hear about alternate plans, Lieutenant. Your suspect is in custody this afternoon or the sketch is released.”

  He turned and walked to the window at the end of the corridor.

  “Your plan to make the investigation appear stalled has worked better than we could have anticipated,” Whitney told her. “We’re under a lot of pressure, Lieutenant.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Whitney and his wife stepped away to speak to other arrivals.

  “That’s not—”

  Eve cut Peabody’s mutter off with a look. “Don’t say it’s unfair. I’m primary. I take the knock if there’s a knock coming. Check in with the rest of the team. We’re going to start filling up out here soon. I didn’t expect you to make it for this,” she said to Roarke.

  “I adjusted a few things.” He glanced toward her commander, and the city’s top cop. “I’m glad I did, and might have some part in helping you finish this.”

  “He’ll show. The probabilities say it, Mira says it, my gut says it. He’ll show, and we’ll box him in, take him down. Then while the department takes a short round of applause from the media god, I’ll have him in my box. And then . . .”

  She stopped, took a couple of quiet breaths. “Okay. Okay. I’m a little pissed off.”

  Roarke trailed a hand down her arm. “It looks good on you.”

  “No room for that. No room. One set of prints on the playbill, no match in any database. We get him, we’ll match them, but it doesn’t help us get him.” She jammed her hands into the pockets of her black jacket. “Nadine and her amazing research team haven’t hit on any likelies on the security system clients.”

  “I’ve got some ideas there I’m still working,” Roarke told her.

  “Time’s running. It needs to be today.” She spotted Cates coming out of the adjoining parlor to speak to Whitney and his wife, then lead them, along with Tibble, inside.

  “We’re green,” she announced.

  She’d expected a large crowd—a lot of cops stopping to pay respects, and neighbors, Deena’s school friends, their families. But there were more than she’d anticipated.

  She saw Jo Jennings and her family, the neighbor she’d spoken to on the morning of Deena’s murder. She saw cops she recognized, and many more she didn’t, but simply made as cops. Young, old, all in between. Dozens of teenagers mingled among the dress blues, the soft clothes.

  More than one burst into tears and had to be led away while images of Deena played over the wall screen. Eve exchanged a look with Nadine across the room, but kept her distance.

  She circled the room, again and again, studying faces, builds from different angles.

  “Got another group approaching the main entrance,” Feeney said in her ear. “Eight—no nine—mixed male, female, age range about sixteen to eighteen. Hold on, hold on, another one’s moving in with them. Male, ball cap, shades, dark hair, right build. It’s . . . No, it’s not him.”

  Whitney moved up beside her. “Students from Deena’s school were given permission to attend.” He answered Eve’s frustrated look with one of his own. “Jonah wasn’t aware Carol had arranged for it.”

  “He hasn’t come in any of the entrances. We’d have made him. We’re only into the first hour.”

  She watched Mira come in, then make her way through the crowd toward the grieving parents.

  Too many cops, she thought, too many kids. She tracked staff as they offered little cups of water, thimble-sized cups of coffee or tea, or brought in yet more flowers.

  The air in the room was overripe, a garden of grief.

  People spilled onto the terrace, into both parlors, and their voices ebbed and flowed into a sea of sound. Throu
gh it she listened to team members report status through her earbud.

  She started toward the terrace as much for some air as to do another sweep.

  As she reached the doorway a crash had her whirling around. Screams, shouts exploded as the sea of sound became a sea of panic. She pushed, shoved her way through, shouting for status, status, and yanked out her communicator. In front of her, people went down in an avalanche of flailing bodies. A shove from behind pitched her violently forward, slam ming her down to her hands and knees. The communicator shot out of her fingers on impact, crunched under stampeding feet as she swore.

  She took a blow to the eye, to the nose as she went down, another to the small of the back as she fought her way back to her feet in a tidal wave of people rushing for the exits.

  Through the gaps she saw a couple of uniforms muscling a male to the floor. The ball cap he wore fell off, and his shaggy brown hair flopped forward.

  Swiping blood off her face, she pushed forward again.

  And she saw him, standing at the edge of the chaos, looking across the tumult of panic to the glossy white coffin blanketed with pink and purple flowers. She saw the man who’d put Deena MacMasters in that cold white coffin smile as he stared at the man who held his weeping wife beside it.

  In seconds, the wall of people surged again, blocking both her view and her forward progress.

  “Second-floor suite entrance. Main. Confirmed sighting.” A woman fell into her. Eve simply pushed her aside, plowed on. “Suspect is wearing a black suit, white shirt, staff ID. Goddamn it, goddamn it, move in.”

  Only static sounded through her earpiece. And ahead of her, the doorway filled with fleeing people, forming a human barricade that cut her off.

  She pushed, dragged, bulled while behind her she heard Whitney’s commanding voice demand order. Too late, she thought, too fucking late. When she made the corridor, she searched right, left, spotted Trueheart helping an elderly woman into a chair.

  She reached over, grabbed him. “Suspect is wearing a black suit, white shirt, black tie, staff ID. Hair’s short, medium blond. Send it out. Now. Now. I want this building shut down. Nobody out.”