Strangers in Death

  She looked at him in the stubbornly frigid, blowing wind. “Murder talk makes it worth the trip?”

  “As entertaining as that invariably is, no. This would make it worth the trip.”

  He grabbed her—she should’ve seen it coming—and his mouth covered hers. The instant blast of heat slammed right through such matters as late winter freezes and windchill factors. The sudden power and punch of the kiss rocked her back on her heels, and made her wonder if little beams of sunlight were shooting out of her fingertips.

  He caught her chin in his hand, smiled down at her. “Definitely worth it.”

  “Cut it out.”

  “Nice work, stud.”

  They both glanced over at the sidewalk sleeper huddled in a nearby doorway. The woman—or Eve thought it was a woman as she was bundled in so many mixing layers she resembled a small, patchwork mountain—offered a grin and a thumbs-up.

  Eve jammed a finger into Roarke’s chest to dismiss any notion of an encore. “Go away now.”

  “Absolutely worth the trip. Good hunting, Lieutenant.”

  He strolled off, and she peeled away to the entrance of the morgue. But when she couldn’t resist a glance back at him, she saw him stop and crouch down to speak to the sidewalk sleeper. Curious, she slowed her pace to keep him in view a moment longer, and wasn’t surprised to see him dig something out of his pocket and pass it over.

  Credits, she supposed, and probably more than the sleeper generally pulled in over the course of a week. She’d probably buy brew with it instead of a bed out of the cold, Eve thought. He had to know that, and still…

  And still, she thought, pleased to love a man who’d toss a handful of credits into the void, just in case. Thinking of that, she walked into the house where death always had a room.

  3

  IN A ROOM OF WHITE TILE AND BRIGHT STEEL, Chief Medical Examiner Morris stood unruffled and stylish over Thomas Anders’s corpse. He’d teamed a rust-colored shirt with a dull gold shirt, and mirrored those tones with the thin rope worked through his long, dark braid. His clever face with its long eyes and hard planes was half covered with goggles while his skilled fingers gently lifted out the liver Anders no longer had any use for.

  He set the organ aside on the scale, then offered Eve a welcoming smile. “A traveler stops by a farmhouse to ask for shelter for the night.”

  “Why?”

  Morris wagged a bloody finger. “The farmer tells the traveler he can share a room with the farmer’s daughter, if he keeps his hands to himself. The traveler agrees, goes into the room, and in the dark slips into bed beside the farmer’s daughter. And, of course, breaks his word. In the morning, guilty, the traveler offers to pay the farmer for the hospitality, but the farmer waves this off. So the traveler says he hopes he didn’t disturb the daughter in the night. ‘Unlikely,’ the farmer replies, ‘as we’re burying her today.’”

  Eve let out a snort. “Sick death humor.”

  “A specialty of the house. And it seemed apt under the circumstances.” He gestured toward Anders’s stubborn erection.

  “Yeah, how about that?”

  “Somehow sad and enviable at the same time. I’m running tox, but unless your dead is a medical marvel, we can presuppose he was loaded with happy cock aids. Then after he achieved liftoff, the strategically placed rings trapped the blood supply at the—sticking point.”

  “Gee, Morris, I’m just a cop. You’re confusing me with all these complicated medical terms.”

  He laughed, then removed a thin section of the liver. “We see death erections fairly routinely, particularly in stranglings or hangings, as the blood in the torso tries to obey the laws of gravity and travels down. The erectile tissue fills with it, and expands. But once the body’s moved, as our friend’s here was, it dissipates.”

  “Yeah, and people noticed guys got boners when they were publicly hanged, back in the good old days, and thought: Hey, maybe if I choke myself during sex I’ll make really good wood. People are really stupid.”

  “Difficult to argue that point, as you and I often see them at their most terminally stupid. So, as to our current guest: Erotic—or auto-erotic if you’re going solo—asphyxiation decreases oxygen, and pumps up the endorphins to heighten sexual pleasure. It’s responsible for a considerable number of accidental deaths annually, and many deaths that are officially termed suicide.”

  “This wasn’t suicide.”

  “No, indeed.” Morris looked down on Anders. “I believe it took him between fifteen and twenty minutes to die, slowly choking. Yet, there’s no bruising on his wrists or ankles. However cushioned the rope, when a man slowly chokes to death he’ll fight, he’ll struggle, and velvet restraints or not, there would be ligature marks. Even here.” He gestured again, then offered Eve a pair of microgoggles. “Here, where the rope tightened, cut in, cut off his oxygen, there’s no evidence he fought against it, writhed, strained. The bruising here is almost uniform.”

  “So he just lay there and died.”

  “Essentially.”

  “Even if a guy wants to self-terminate, the body fights it.”

  “Exactly so. Unless—”

  “It can’t. How long for the tox?”

  “I flagged it. But I can give you something now. Look here.”

  She bent over Anders again, scanning the bruising under the right ear until she saw it. The faint, circular mark was nearly obscured by the more traumatic bruising. “Pressure syringe.”

  “Yes, my bright young student. An odd place for self-medicating—especially by a right-hander—which he was.”

  Shoving up the goggles, Eve put herself back in Anders’s bedroom. “Killer comes in, crosses to the bed. Sealed up, all sealed up, booties over the feet to muffle any sound. Lots of thick carpet anyway. Tranqs Anders while he’s sleeping. Quick, clean. Guy could’ve slept right through that—even if he started to wake up, a good tranq would take him under in seconds. Then you truss him up, set the scene, walk out, and leave him to die. Pick up the security discs. You’ve already shut down the system, but you take the discs. You’re either anal or hoping we’re just incredibly stupid and that’ll throw us off and make us think it was an accident.”

  “Incredibly stupid we aren’t.”

  “Either way, he’s dead.” She paced away, among the steel and comps, back again. “If you’re going there to do the guy, why just tranq him? Why not load him up so he ODs? Okay, you don’t slit his throat or beat him to death with a bat because maybe you’re squeamish, or you prefer more passive methods. But why the elaborate and demeaning when a lethal dose of barbs or poison or any number of substances would’ve done the job?”

  “It was too personal for that.”

  She nodded, appreciating a like mind, and her grin was fierce. “See? Incredibly stupid we aren’t. As soon as you get the tox back, Morris.”

  “As soon as.”

  When she strode into the Homicide bullpen at Cop Central, Eve saw Peabody sucking down something from a mug the size of the Indian Ocean while she worked at her desk. It reminded Eve that she was probably about a quart low on coffee. She signaled her partner, jerked a thumb toward her office, and turning, nearly plowed into one of her detectives.

  “Make a hole, Baxter.”

  “Need a sec.”

  “Then fall in line.” She moved through to her office with its single, stingy window, battered desk, and sagging visitor’s chair. And hit the AutoChef for coffee.

  Taking the first slug, she studied Baxter over the rim. He was slick, savvy, and smart enough to wait to have his say until she’d kicked in some caffeine. “What’s your deal?”

  “Case I caught about a couple months ago, it’s stalled.”

  “Refresh me.”

  “Guy gets his throat slashed and his works sliced off in a rent-by-the-hour flop down on Avenue D.”

  “Yeah.” She flipped through the files in her head. “Came in with a woman nobody remembers, and nobody remembers seeing said woman leaving.”
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  “Maid service, and I use the term loosely, found him the next morning. Custer, Ned, age thirty-eight, worked in building maintenance for an office building downtown. Guy left a wife and two kids.”

  “Cherchez la femme,” Eve said, thinking of Peabody’s comment that morning.

  “I’ve been cherchezing the damn femme. Got zip. Nobody remembers her—not clearly. We dug, found the bar—using that term loosely, too, where they hooked up, but other than her being a redhead with a sense she was a pro, nobody can paint her picture. Guy was a player. A little pushing with his friends and associates got that much. He screwed around regular, cruised bars and clubs once or twice a week to score—usually paying for it. The kid and I,” he continued, speaking of his aide, Officer Troy Trueheart, “we’ve put in hours trolling dumps, dives, and dens of iniquity. We’re stalled, Dallas. It’s going stone-cold.”

  “What about the wife? Did she know he was dipping strange?”

  “Yeah.” Baxter blew out a breath. “It didn’t take more than a poke to get her to cop to it. And to admit they fought about it. He tuned her up now and then, too. She copped to that, and neighbors verified.”

  “Maybe she should’ve cut his dick off.”

  “Yeah, yeah, women always go for the jewels. She didn’t though. When he didn’t come home by midnight, she tried his ’link, left messages until nearly three. TOD was about one-thirty, and we’ve got her tagging him from her home unit at one-fifteen, again at one-forty. Pissed off, crying, and nowhere near Avenue D. She’s better off, seems to me. But I hate to lose one.”

  “Hit the flop again, push the street LCs who use it, or work the bars in the neighborhood. How about transpo?”

  “No cabs letting off fares on that block, and nothing popped on the underground surveillance. We figured they hoofed it, and that’s how we zeroed in on the bar.”

  “Make the rounds again, get meaner. Any chance he was into something nastier than banging strange?”

  “Nothing’s popped. Blue-collar asshole, pissing it away on cheap brew and loose women with a nice wife and a couple of cute kids at home. The thing is, Dallas, it was a cold kill. One slice.” Baxter mimed cutting his own throat. “From behind. Then the bastard drops, but he’s still alive, according to the ME, when she cuts off his dick. She had to be freaking covered with blood, but there’s no trail, not out the door, not out the window and fire escape. Not a drop.”

  “Cleaned up after.”

  “No blood in the sink, no trace in the tap, the pipes. It reads like she came prepared, like she maybe sealed up, or changed. Like she had this in mind from the jump. I’ve knocked on women he’s known to have dicked around with, who might be pissed off, but that’s nowhere.”

  “Give it another push. I’ll take a look at the file as soon as I get a chance. Fresh eyes.”

  “Appreciate that.”

  When he left, Eve stepped over to her desk. Her ’link indicated she had eight messages. A chunk of them, she knew, would be from media hounds. A rich guy buys it in his own home, it started the trickle that often became a flood. And the details of how would leak, she knew that, too. Nobody’s finger was big enough to plug the hole in the dike when the flood was that juicy.

  “All clear?” Peabody asked from the doorway.

  “Yeah.”

  “Baxter wanted to talk about the Avenue D case? Trueheart’s run some of it by me,” Peabody continued. “Nothing’s gelling.”

  “They’ll go back around, work it again. What’ve you got for me?”

  “Benedict Forrest—whose mother really was eaten by a shark. Or severely chewed on by one. He was six at the time, and living in New York under the care of a nanny and numerous servants. Mother was quite the adrenaline junkie, from what I’ve got. Name the life-threatening activity, she gave it a whirl. Thirty-five at TOD, twice divorced, one child. When she ended up the main course for Jaws, Anders applied for custody and guardianship, and as the biological father didn’t contest, same was granted.”

  “How much did Anders pay him? The bio dad?”

  “Five million, apparently. The guy spends most of his time cruising around hot spots in Europe, hadn’t seen the kid since the divorce—four years plus before the mother died. He’s been married three times since, and is currently living in the south of France. Just doesn’t feel like he plays into this.”

  “How much of a financial interest did the mother have in the company?”

  “None. She took a buyout from her father in lieu. And she was smart enough—or vindictive enough—to arrange her trust and assets so even if the father took the kid, after her death, he couldn’t touch a penny of the kid’s take. Anders took the kid, supported, educated, and housed him on his own nickel.”

  Pausing, Peabody glanced down at her notes. “Forrest came into a nice chunk of change when he turned twenty-one, another portion at twenty-five, another at thirty. He has an MBA from Harvard, where he also played baseball and lacrosse. He worked his way up the ranks at Anders from a junior exec to his current position as Chief Operating Officer.”

  “Any criminal?”

  “Nada. Pretty regular hits for speeding, and a shitload of parking tickets, all paid up.”

  Eve sat back, swiveled in her desk chair. “Give me the wife.”

  “Ava Montgomery Anders, who I confirmed was in her hotel suite on St. Lucia when contacted about trouble at home. She booked a shuttle after the transmission. There’s no record of her leaving the island by any mode prior. Born Portland, Oregon, in 2008, upper-middle-class all the way. Previous marriage to one Dirk Bronson in 2032, ended in divorce in 2035. No offspring. Earned degrees in business and public relations from Brown—scholarship—which she put to use as the PR rep for Anders Worldwide—Chicago base, where she relocated after her divorce. Then she transferred to the New York office in 2041. She and Anders married in ’44. She currently serves as the company’s goodwill ambassador, serving on the board of Everybody Plays, Anders Worldwide’s organization founded to provide facilities, training, and equipment for children, ah, worldwide. And serving as chairman of Moms, Too, a program that offers educational seminars, workshops, networking opportunities, and so on to mothers of kids in Everybody Plays. No criminal on her either, and she’s worth about ten million in her own right.”

  Peabody lowered her notebook. “I could give you Greta Horowitz, but everything she told us runs true. I was about to start on Leopold Walsh, but I must find food. I can find you food, too.” Peabody smiled hugely. “How about a nice sandwich?”

  “How about we find out where the hell some of the reports are, and why they’re not on my desk? I want—” Eve broke off as her computer signaled an incoming. “Morris comes through,” she murmured.

  “And while you’re singing the praises of our ME, I’ll go hunt and gather.”

  “Computer, display incoming on screen, copy to open file, and print.”

  Multitask acknowledged. Working…

  As the computer hummed, Eve scanned the toxicology report. “Well, Jesus, Tommy,” she stated, “you didn’t have a snowball’s chance, did you?”

  While it printed, she engaged her ’link to harass the sweepers for a preliminary, and because her mind was elsewhere, answered her ’link when it signaled a few minutes later.

  “Dallas.”

  “You don’t call, you don’t write.”

  “Nadine.” Eve didn’t bother to curse herself as she stared into the sharp green eyes of the city’s hottest reporter. The fact that they were friends made it convenient—or inconvenient, depending on the circumstances. “Gosh, I’d just love to chat, but I’m about to do lunch. Then maybe I’ll have a manicure.”

  “That’s so cute. You caught a hot one, Dallas, just the kind of case we love to spotlight on Now. Tomorrow night. You’ll lead off, a full ten-minute segment.”

  “Again, gosh, but I have to have my eyes put out with a hot poker tomorrow night. Otherwise…”

  “Thomas Anders’s murder is big news, Dallas.
”

  “We haven’t determined or announced the death as murder.”

  “That’s not what I hear. Strangled, in bed, with considerable kink attached. If not murder, was it accidental death during sex games?”

  So the trickle was already a flood, Eve thought. “You know better, Nadine.”

  “A girl’s gotta try. He was a nice guy, Dallas. I’d like to cover this right.”

  “You knew him?”

  “I did a few features on him, his wife, his nephew over the years. That’s not really knowing someone, but what I did know, I liked. Tabloid media—and a lot of other media—is going to pump up the sex, you know this. I can’t avoid it, but I want to be evenhanded. So help me.”

  “Not this time. But I’ll give you Peabody. You won’t screw with her, or the investigation. And she needs to develop her media chops. So you help her.”

  “That’s a deal. I’ll have my people get in touch with her, but tell her I need her here, at the studio, by five tomorrow.”

  “Nadine, in five words or less, sum up your take on the relationship between Anders and his wife, and Anders and his nephew.”

  “With the wife, affectionate and proud. The same for the nephew, but even more so. I remember asking Anders what he considered his finest accomplishment. He turned a photo around that he kept on his desk—one of his nephew. ‘You’re looking at him,’ is what he said. I ended the piece with it.”

  “Thanks.” Eve clicked off, glanced over as Peabody clomped in with an armload of food.

  “We got your pretend-I’m-turkey wraps, soy chips, and these cute little tubs of veggie hash. I got you a tube of Pepsi.”

  Eve watched while Peabody set food on her desk, tidily organizing debris to make room. “What are you angling for, Peabody?”

  “Angling? Just making sure you don’t forget to eat. You’re always forgetting to eat, which is why you’re skinny as a snake. Which looks great on you.” Peabody’s gaze darted up and away while she added a napkin and plastic fork. Then her breath huffed out as Eve continued to give her the fish-eye. “Okay, okay. Maybe I was hoping, if we’re not on the tail of some hot lead or whatever, you could find it in your big, generous heart to—”