Indulgence in Death (16 page)

A tall, drawered case was locked and bolted to the floor. Jewelry, she decided. She’d get to that.

For now, she took a look at the bathroom, decided Crampton might just out-Roarke Roarke in some areas, then wandered the second floor.

Two guest suites, both generous and well outfitted, a second lounging area with a small, efficient kitchen . . . and an equally well-outfitted S&M room. Plenty of black leather, velvet ropes, a selection of whips and crops, restraints. Another bed, this one draped in black satin, a jeweled case of small knives with ornate handles.

She went to the third level. Here, she mused, was the business center. A CEO’s office, luxurious certainly, but designed for serious business. A full wall of screens, organized file discs, a muscular data-and-communications center. It boasted another small kitchen with a stocked AutoChef and full-sized fridge, a bar holding several bottles of good wine, liquor, mixers.

She expected the computer to be secured and passcoded, and it was. Leaving that for the moment, she rifled through drawers until she found the appointment book. She found the entries both businesslike and discreet.

On the day she died, Ava Crampton spent the afternoon in her salon for what Eve assumed was the works. At five she’d scheduled a Catrina Bigelo for two hours at the Palace. Roarke’s hotel, Eve thought. Why not fuck in the best?

She had Foster Urich listed, with a ten-thirty P.M. pickup by Elegant Transportation, for the meet at Coney Island. A four-hour date, with the option for overnight held open.

Costly, she mused.

Ava had a notation after his name. New Client, vetted and cleared.

Eve used her com to schedule an EDD team to pick up the electronics, but there was little else. The answers, she thought, weren’t here in the victim’s space. Still, they’d have to look through that space, at her, at all of her secrets.

She pressed her fingers to her eyes, rubbed hard, tried to will her second wind to kick in. She glanced with longing at the AutoChef thinking of coffee. She’d bet the vic sprang for real.

But copping a cup was disrespectful.

She pushed herself to her feet. She’d just have to choke down whatever she could find on the street, get the boost if not the flavor.

By the time she came out of the building, New York was changing shifts. Those who played or worked by night started home, or to wherever they hoped to flop for the night. Those who lived by day switched on lights in their apartments, hurried to catch the early train or tram. Sanitation crawled down the streets, clanging dully about its work.

But along with the scent of garbage she caught the perfume of bakeries, pushing the sugary, yeasty smells outside through their venting to lure in that change of shift.

She remembered the chips she’d tossed on the passenger seat, and had them for breakfast as she drove to the morgue. There, she settled on a tube of cold caffeine, much safer than what passed as coffee.

She didn’t expect anyone to have started the PM on Crampton. She simply wanted another look at her victim before she went back to Central.

 

 

S
he walked into Morris’s suite, and there he was, putting on his protective gear with the body already prepped and on his table.

“Did you catch the night shift?” she asked. Then she saw it, the sadness, the signs of a sleepless night.

He wore black again, stark and unrelieved.

“No. But I see you did.” He sealed his hands as he studied the body. “She was particularly beautiful.”

“Yeah. Top-tier LC.”

“So I saw in your report. I don’t have anything for you. I haven’t started.”

“I was in the field, and wanted another look at her before I went in.” She hesitated, but the unhappiness on his face twisted her up. “Bad night?”

He looked up, met her eyes. “Yes.” Now he hesitated while she tried to figure out what to say, or if to say anything.

“There are times I miss her more than seems possible, or bearable. It’s better. I know it’s better because it’s not every moment of every day, or even every day, every night. But there are times I realize, again, there is no Amaryllis Coltraine in the world, in my life, and it chokes me.”

She didn’t think about what she could or should say now, but only said what came through the heart and into her mind. “I don’t know how much better it gets, Morris, or how long it takes. I don’t know how people get through it.”

“Minute by minute, then hour by hour, then day by day. Work is solace,” he said, “friends are comfort. Life is for the living. You and I know that, even though we spend so much time with the dead—maybe because of that we know we have to live. Chale has been a great help to me.”

“That’s good,” she said, thinking of the priest she’d suggested Morris talk to. “You can . . . you know, anytime.”

“Yes.” His lips curved. “I know. You’re work, and a friend, so have been both solace and comfort.” He sighed, looked at the body again. “So.”

“I’ll let you work.”

“Tell me about her,” he said before she turned away. “What’s not in your report.”

“She lived well. She took care of herself, of her business. I think she was smart, and I think she took pride in her work, and I think she must have enjoyed it. I don’t think you can be really good at something, not for the long haul, if you don’t enjoy it. I guess she liked people, and making them feel important and desirable, and she knew how to do it. Not just the sex, I don’t see how that’s enough. She was a native New Yorker, working-class family, parents split when she was a kid. She got her first-level license at nineteen, kept her record clean, took the classes and tests for higher levels, worked her way up. I think she lived just the way she wanted to live, for as long as she had.”

“What else is there? Thank you.”

“I’ve got to get back.” She started for the door, stopped when she reached it. “Listen, Morris, maybe you could come over for dinner or something.” When he simply watched her, smiling, she shrugged. “You know, Roarke could play with that grill he got last year. We could do a summer deal, some friends, some cow meat.”

“I’d like that.”

“Well, I’ll fix it up, let you know.”

As she walked out, she heard him speak into the record. “Victim is mixed-race female.”

She pulled out her ’link as she walked outside, and set for message only on the tag.

Even so, Charles Monroe answered. “Good morning, Lieutenant Sugar.”

“What, is everybody up at dawn today?”

“We are. Louise had night duty at the clinic and just got home. I’m making breakfast. Want an omelet?”

“I was going to leave you a message, see if you could give me a little time today.”

“For you, any . . .” The smile faded from his face. “I wasn’t thinking. You call at this hour, someone’s dead. Someone I know?”

“I’m not sure. Ava Crampton.”

“Ava?” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Yes, I know her. What happened? Can you tell me?”

“I’d rather not over my pocket ’link. I’m out in the field, not that far away. I could—”

“Come over.”

“On my way.”

 

 

T
he garden Louise had planted in the days before she and Charles married thrived. More sweet than elegant, with just a touch of wild, it added another layer of personality to the townhouse they shared.

Louise met her at the door, her blond curls still a little damp from her shower. She took Eve’s hand, drew her in to kiss her cheek. “I wish somebody didn’t have to die for you to come by.”

“You look good.” Still sun-kissed from the honeymoon, Eve thought, and still glowing from the happiness marriage brought her. “Sorry to cut in on your personal time.”

“We’re having breakfast. Charles is cooking—really cooking. His omelets are incredible. So you’ll eat with us while you talk to Charles.”

Louise walked her back to the kitchen as she spoke. Charles stood over the stove, shaking a skillet back and forth. “Just in time,” he said. “Have a seat.”

“Is your AutoChef broken?”

“I like to cook when there’s time and a reason.”

“It smells good.” Louise put a mug in her hand, and Eve drank automatically. “Oh, this is real coffee. This alone is a reason to believe in God.”

“Wait till you taste my omelet. You’ll testify. What happened to Ava?”

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

“We were friendly, but not really close. I liked her, you had to. She was charming and bright and just interesting. I can’t believe it was a client. She was so careful.”

“It was and it wasn’t. He set her up, used false ID, covered himself thoroughly from the way it looks. She met him at the amusement park on Coney Island. Public place. She’d vetted him. I don’t see she’d have had anything to question.”

“You’re saying she didn’t even know him?”

“It looks that way. Like I said, she vetted him—or so it reads in her appointment book. How would she go about that?” With a skill that surprised Eve, Charles slid a fluffy omelet onto a plate, then poured more egg mixture into the skillet.

“Eat that while it’s hot,” he told her. “She’d have done a background check, similar to what police or private investigators would do. She’d access his criminal record, if he had one, his employment, his marital status.”

“Basic data?”

“Yeah. Then she’d do a search for articles on or by him, mentions in the media. Then, I have to assume she’d run a program that would extrapolate all the information she’d gathered and give him a rating. By the time she met him, she’d have a good idea who he was, what his habits were, his lifestyle. It’s a matter of protecting yourself, but also a method to give the LC a sense of what the client may be looking for.”

“So she’d be careful,” Eve said, “but at the same time, she was a risk taker. I saw the S&M room in her place.”

“I worked with her once or twice.” He completed another omelet. “But not in that area.”

Eve drank her coffee, and wondered how Louise could sit, eating an omelet, while her husband talked about his experiences in group sex.

When he finished the last omelet, he sat to join them.

“Charles, this is wonderful.” Smiling at him, Louise topped off his coffee from the pot on the counter. “You never said how she was killed, Dallas.”

“She was stabbed,” Eve said and left it at that for now.

“And her killer was masquerading as this other man, the man she vetted?”

“That’s right.”

“He must have looked enough like him to fool her.”

“Yeah, we’re working on that. Would she have kept the appointment, gone on with it, if she’d known this wasn’t the man who’d booked?”

“No.” Charles shook his head. “She’d have risked her license, and that she’d never have done. And going with someone you haven’t checked out is just too dangerous. She did like the edge, but not enough to put herself in that kind of situation. She liked variety in the work, but she followed the rules. When a client hires someone at Ava’s level, he or she—or they—aren’t just paying for sex. They’re paying for an experience relatively few can afford. She’d provide that, but she’d stay within the law and she’d have taken every reasonable precaution to protect herself.”

Maybe, Eve thought, but it hadn’t been enough.

 

 

W
hen Eve got back to Central, Peabody wasn’t at her desk, but most of her detectives were. Baxter, looking sleek as a fashion vid, glanced up from his.

“Took her crash time,” Baxter told her. “She’s been down about fifteen.”

“Fine.”

“Mira’s in your office.”

“Oh.”

“My boy and I are heading out. Got a floater in the pond in Central Park. Couple of kids found it.”

“Nice way to start the day.”

“Fun never ends.”

Mira sat in Eve’s ugly visitor’s chair in her pretty pale pink suit. She’d matched the suit with heels several shades deeper and a multi-chain necklace with tiny little pearls and colored stones. Her rich brown hair curled around her lovely face in a way both stylish and flattering.

Her quiet blue eyes tracked up from the screen of her PPC to meet Eve’s.

“I was just rereading your data. I had some time now so thought I’d wait for you here.”

“I appreciate you getting to it so fast.” It threw her off, just a little. Consults were usually in Mira’s airy office, and included cups of flowery tea Eve pretended to drink.

Which reminded her to offer.

“You want some tea or something?”

“Actually, I’d love some of your coffee. Dennis and I were out late last night with friends. I could use the boost.”

“Sure.”

“Have you slept?”

“Not yet. I’ll get some in when I can.” Sometime between the vic’s apartment and Central her second wind had settled in.

Maybe it was the omelets.

“He’s hit fast,” Eve said as she took the steaming mugs from the AutoChef. “Two for two. Both risky, organized, and planned.”

“Yes. He’s organized, controlled enough to spend time with, and interact with, his victims and maintain his prepared persona. Clients, both times.”

Eve turned with the coffee in her hand. “He buys his kill.”

The smile lit Mira’s face. “You could have gone into my line of work.”

“No thanks. You have to be nice to the whacked. Buys his kill,” she repeated. “That’s an interesting angle. Does he figure since he’s paid for them, they’re his to bag? Like a hunter. But you don’t hunt with a bayonet, so the hunting thing’s thin.”

“I’m not sure. We think of a bayonet as a wartime weapon, when man certainly hunts man. The killer has chosen the ground, established the rules—his—selected the weapon. All in advance.”

“But in Houston’s case, he couldn’t know, not for certain, who he’d get for prey. No, that’s not right,” Eve corrected. “You don’t know which furry animal you’re going to shoot in the woods. It’s just the species—the type. You go after a type. He likes the rush.”