Innocent in Death (14 page)

Allika was blonde like her daughter, but with highlights expertly streaked through the short swing of hair. She had eyes the color of ripe blueberries and skin as white and soft as milk. She wore a trim sweater set to match her eyes, and stone-gray pants that showed off long legs.

She held her daughter’s hand.

Rayleen’s face was bright and eager. “Mom, these are the police who came to school. This is Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody. Did you come to tell us you found out what happened to Mr. Foster?”

“We’re still working on that.”

“Rayleen, you need to go with Cora now and get your coat. You don’t want to be late for school.”

“Couldn’t I stay and talk, too? It would be an excused absence, like a doctor’s appointment, and wouldn’t count against my attendance.”

“Not today.”

“But I’m the one who found him. I’m a witness.” Even as Rayleen pouted, Allika took her daughter’s face in her hands, kissed both her cheeks.

“Be my good girl now and go with Cora. I’ll see you when you get home from school.”

Rayleen let out a heavy sigh. “I wish I could stay and talk,” she said to Eve, but went obediently with Cora.

“She’s handling this horrible thing so well, really. Still, she had nightmares last night. It’s terrible of me, I suppose, but all I keep wishing is that it had been another child to find him with Melodie. Is there anything more? Something you didn’t want to say in front of Rayleen?”

“Can you tell us if you, your daughter, or your husband had any trouble with Mr. Foster?’

“Trouble? No. He was Rayleen’s favorite teacher, really. Top marks across the board in his class. Rayleen’s an exceptional student. Craig made her class leader. She’s also class leader in her Literature class and in Computer Sciences. She loves school.”

“When was the last time you saw Mr. Foster?”

“At the last parent-teacher conference in, hmmm, November. No, no, I’m sorry, that’s wrong. It would’ve been at the holiday party in December. The school suspends the last two classes of the day, and the parents or guardians are invited. The school orchestra and choral group play, and that can be interesting,” she added with a quick laugh. “There’re refreshments after the program. I saw him there, spoke with him. Rayleen gave him a little gift. A coffee mug she’d made in pottery class. This is all so tragic. I wish I could keep her home.”

She kneaded her fingers on her thighs. “Ray’s determined not to miss school, and my husband’s very firm about her continuing classes, the normalcy. I’m outvoted,” she said with a quick smile. “I suppose they’re both right, but it’s hard to send her there after this.”

“Did Mr. Foster ever speak to you about Mr. Williams?”

“Mr. Williams?” There it was—that flicker over the face that was shock and guilt and a little bit of fear. “Not that I can recall. Why would he?”

“You and Mr. Williams are friendly.”

“I try to be friendly with all the staff at Sarah Child.”

“More friendly with some than others.”

“I don’t like your implication, and I don’t understand it.” She got to her feet, but the gesture was one of panic rather than authority. “I think you should go now.”

“Sure, we can do that. We’ll just go by your husband’s office, discuss this with him.”

“Wait.” Allika held up a hand as Eve started to rise. “Wait. I don’t know what you’ve heard or what you believe, but…” She glanced toward the foyer, took a quiet breath as she heard Rayleen chattering with Cora as they left for school. “It’s not your concern, it’s not your business.”

“Anything that touches on Craig Foster is our business.”

“My personal life…You have no reason to talk to Oliver about…about gossip.”

“Did Foster know about you and Reed Williams? Did he tell you, tell Williams he would report your affair?”

“It wasn’t an affair! It was…it was a lapse, a momentary lapse. I broke it off weeks ago.”

“Why?”

“Because I came to my senses.” She pushed at her hair. “I have…with the holidays coming, I have trouble with depression. Our son, our Trev, died three years ago, Christmas morning.”

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Straffo,” Peabody put in. “How did he die?”

“He…” Allika sank down again. “We were spending the holiday at our home…We had a home in Connecticut. He, he wasn’t quite two. Trev. And he was so excited about Santa. He got out of bed early. It was still dark when…He fell, he fell down the stairs. Such a long way, such a little boy. He must have been running, they said, running down to see what Santa had brought, and he fell and his neck…”

“I’m very sorry,” Peabody repeated. “I don’t think anything can be more difficult for a parent.”

“I broke to pieces. It took months of treatment to put me back together. I don’t think I’ll ever be completely back, or that I should be back. But we had Rayleen. We had another child, and she needed us. We don’t have the house in Connecticut, but we have Ray, and she deserves a normal life.”

“You became involved with Reed Williams,” Eve prompted, “because you were depressed.”

“I know it’s not an excuse; I knew it as it was happening. As Christmas gets close, I hurt, and when I hurt, I shut down some part of me. Reed—it helped block it out, that’s all. It was exciting, and it was foolish. My husband and I, we aren’t the same people we were before Trevor died. But we’re trying, we keep trying. I was stupid and selfish, and if he finds out, it will hurt him. I don’t want that.”

“And if Foster had reported it?”

“He didn’t know.” She laid a hand on her throat, rubbing, rubbing as if at an ache. “I don’t see how he could have. He never said anything to me, and we talked—I told you—at the holiday party. It was a mistake, yes, but it was just sex. Only twice. Only twice. It didn’t mean anything more than that to me or to Reed.”

“Did Williams say anything to you about Foster?”

“We didn’t do a lot of talking. It was physical, it was shallow, then it was over.”

“Was he upset that you ended it?”

“Not at all, which—I admit—only made me feel more stupid.” She closed her eyes, straightened her shoulders, opened them again. “If for some reason you need to tell Oliver about this, I’d like to speak with him first. I’d like to try to explain before he hears it from the police.”

“I don’t, at this time, see any reason to discuss it with him. If that changes, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you.”

They managed to pigeonhole the others who’d signed in on the day of Foster’s death, but had nothing solid after the interviews. Eve headed back downtown.

“How many times do you think Allika Straffo’s been stupid during her marriage?”

“I think this is the first. She seemed too nervous, too guilty, too remorseful for it to be a habit. You ask me? Williams scented vulnerability and moved in. And I don’t think Foster knew.”

Eve glanced over. “Why?”

“Because from everything we know about him, he comes over as a really straight shooter. I can’t see him having a casual, normal party conversation with Allika if he’d seen her doing the deed with Williams. And she’d have sensed his knowledge. High sexual levels increase instinct, I think. She’d have been excited, and guilty, and she’d have known if he knew. I think she just made a mistake.”

“Is that what adultery is?” Eve asked.

Peabody squirmed a little. “Okay, it’s a betrayal, and it’s an insult. She betrayed and insulted her husband with Williams. Now she has to live with it. And Roarke isn’t about to betray or insult you in that way.”

“This isn’t about me.”

“No, but there’s some overlap in your mind. There shouldn’t be.”

Should or shouldn’t, it was there, and she didn’t like it. But she did her job. The lab found no trace of ricin in the mix or liquid Eve had taken from the Foster apartment. That confirmed the poison was introduced on scene.

She went back to her time line, adding details from the morning interviews. In and out, she thought. People in and out, lingering, wandering, passing each other.

She needed a link to the poison.

She wandered around her board, sat back at her desk. Closed her eyes. Leaned up again and reread her own notes and reports. Got up, paced.

But her mind just wouldn’t stick. Thinking to give it a boost, she opened the back of her computer, reached in to where she’d taped a candy bar to the inside of the case.

And it was gone.

“This is fucked up.” She could see a trace of the tape where it had stuck when the candy had been yanked out. The insidious candy thief had struck again.

Not for the first time she considered putting eyes and ears in her office. A little surveillance, a little chocolate, and she’d bust the thieving bastard.

But that wasn’t the way she wanted to win. This, she thought, was a battle of wills and intellect, not technology.

Her disgust with having her chocolate fix nipped out from under her nose kept her occupied for the next few minutes. Then she gave up, contacted Dr. Mira’s office, and browbeat Mira’s admin into an appointment.

She shot down copies of the files, shot another set to her commander, with a memo to Whitney that she was consulting the profiler.

She closed her eyes again, thought about coffee. And fell asleep.

She was in the room in Dallas. Icy cold, with the dirty red light from the sex club across the street blinking. The knife was in her hands, and her hands were drenched in blood. He lay there, the man who’d given her life. The man who’d raped her, beat her, tormented her.

Done now, she thought, a grown woman holding the knife instead of a child. Done now, what had to be done. A grown woman whose arm screamed with pain from the child’s broken bone.

She could smell the blood, smell the death.

Cradling her broken arm, she stepped back from the scene, turned to escape.

The bedroom door was open, and inside two figures moved fluidly, somehow beautifully on the bed. The light flashed over them, off them, over. His hair was dark and gleaming, his eyes brilliant. She knew the curve of his face, his shoulders, the line of his back, the ripple of muscle in it.

The woman he was inside moaned out her pleasure, and her gilded hair shone in the ugly light.

The pain was worse than the broken bone, worse than the rape. It vibrated through her every cell, every muscle, every pore.

Behind her, Eve’s dead father chuckled. “You didn’t really expect him to stay with you? Look at him, look at her. You don’t even come close. Everybody cheats, little girl.”

And she was a little girl again, trembling with sickness, with pain, with helplessness.

“Go ahead, pay them back. You know how.”

When she looked down, the knife was in her hand, its blade wet and red.

9

IF LOOKS COULD KILL, THE STARE MIRA’S OVERPROTECTIVE admin aimed would have dropped Eve on the spot. She managed to survive it, and went in to find Mira at her desk.

As always, Mira looked calm and collected. Her sable hair had grown longer, and was sassily waved today in a style Eve hadn’t seen on her before. It always gave Eve a jolt when people changed that sort of thing. Put them out of context, she decided.

It was a younger, sportier style and rippled back from Mira’s lovely face. She wore one of her pretty suits in a color Eve supposed was gray but looked to her like shimmering fog, and somehow made Mira’s eyes, a soft blue, look deeper.

She wore it with silver; spirals at her ears, a braided chain with a pendant that had a clear stone centered in an etched setting around her neck.

Eve wondered if Roarke would have considered it screen-friendly, and decided that what it was was somehow perfect.

“Eve.” Mira smiled. “I’m sorry, I haven’t had a chance to read the file.”

“Squeezed into your schedule.”

“There’s always a little wiggle room. You’ll give me the gist,” she continued as she rose to go to her office AutoChef. “Tough case?”

“Mostly they are.”

“You look especially tired.”

“Getting nowhere. The vic was a teacher. History. Private school,” she began and filled in the blanks while Mira programmed the flower tea she liked.

Mira gestured to a chair as Eve spoke, then took one herself as she handed Eve one of the tea cups.

“Poisoning is remote,” Mira commented as she sipped. “Keeps the hands clean. No physical contact necessary. Passionless, most usually. Often a female mode. Not exclusively, of course, but often a choice.”

“I can’t pin down a motive. Highest on the list is murder to silence him. He was, allegedly, aware that one of his fellow teachers liked to rack up affairs with faculty members, mothers of students.”

“Which, potentially, would be grounds for disciplinary action, even dismissal. Ricin poisoning,” Mira mused. “A little old-fashioned, even exotic. And not as efficient as other options, but easier to come by if you’ve any knowledge of the science.”

“Worked pretty damn well.”

“Yes, it certainly can. So the murder was planned, timed, executed. Not impulse, not in the heat of the moment. Calculated.”

Balancing the saucer on her knee in a way Eve found both baffling and admirable, Mira continued. “It’s possible, of course, that the poison was already in the killer’s milieu, and that easy access made it the method chosen. From what you’ve told me, the victim was unaware he was in any danger, was under any threat, had incurred anyone’s anger.”

“He was going about his routine,” Eve confirmed. “No one close to him reports any hitch in his stride.”

“I would say that the killer harbored this resentment, this anger, or this motive while continuing to go about his business. Planned the details, accessed the method. The killing was simply something that needed to be done. He didn’t need to watch the victim die, or touch him, speak to him. He wasn’t concerned that, in all likelihood, it would be a child or children who discovered the body.”

Mira considered it another minute. “If it was a parent, I would have to say it’s one who puts his own needs and desires above that of his child. A teacher? One who sees the children as a job, as units rather than children. This was means to an end. Efficiently done, with a bare minimum of involvement.”

“He’s not looking for attention or for glory. He’s not crazy.”

“I would say not. But someone who can follow a timetable, and works in an orderly fashion.”

“I’m going to look at the faculty again, the support staff. Timetables are the bedrock of school systems, the way I remember it. And someone inside the system would have a better, and clearer, knowledge of the vic’s schedule.”

She pushed up and paced a little. “Besides, they’re supposed to be there. Required. Nothing suspicious about showing up for work, doing your job. Some of the parents, the guardians come in with a kid here and there, deliver something, hold a meeting, but the killer had to know that if his name was on the sign-in list when it generally wasn’t, we’d take a good look.”

“Would it be possible for someone to have accessed the building without signing in?”

“There’s always a way, and it’s going to be checked out. But I don’t like it.” Eve sat again, pushed up again in a restless way that had Mira watching her. “It keeps the name out of the loop—potentially—but it’s not as efficient as just signing in as usual. Riskier than needed. The murder was risky, but like you said, calculated. Times. I bet the son of a bitch practiced.”

She stuffed her hands in her pockets, absently toyed with loose credits. “Anyway, thanks for the time.”

“I’ll read the file, give you a more formal profile and opinion.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I just did. Dead guy. No solid leads.”

“Don’t you trust me, Eve?”

It was what Roarke had asked her the night before, in nearly the same patient tone. And it broke her. Her breath hitched in and out once before she controlled it. “There’s a woman,” she managed.

Mira knew Eve’s heart and mind well enough to understand it was very personal, and nothing to do with murder. “Sit down.”

“I can’t. I can’t. There’s a woman he used to know, used to be with. He might’ve loved her. I think he did. God. She’s back, and he’s…I don’t know what to do. I’m messing it up. I can’t stop messing it up.”

“Do you think he’s been unfaithful?”

“No.” Undone, she pressed her fingers to her eyes. “See, part of me wants to say, ‘Not yet.’ And the rest of me says, ‘That’s bullshit.’ It’s not his way. But she’s here, and she’s—she’s not like the others.”

“Let me say first that in my personal, and my professional opinion, Roarke loves you to the point where there isn’t room for anyone else. And I agree, being unfaithful to you isn’t his way. Not only because of that love, but because he respects you—and himself—far too much. Now. Tell me about the woman.”

“She’s beautiful. Seriously beautiful. She’s younger, prettier, and classier than me. She has bigger tits. I know that sounds ridiculous.”

“It certainly doesn’t. I dislike her intensely.”

Eve laughed even as a tear escaped and was dashed away. “Yeah. Thanks. Her name’s Magdelana. He calls her Maggie sometimes.” She pressed a hand to her belly. “I feel sick. I can’t really eat, can’t really sleep.”

“Eve, you need to talk to him about this.”

“I did. We did, and all we did was circle and piss each other off. I don’t know how to work this way.” Torn between frustration and fear, Eve dragged her hands through her hair. “I just don’t know the ropes. Summerset told me she’s dangerous.”

“Summerset?”

“Yeah.” There was—almost—amusement at the surprise in Mira’s tone. “Kick in the head, right? He actually prefers me over her, for Roarke. Right now, anyway.”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the least. Why does he say she’s dangerous?”

“She’s a user, he says. Left Roarke flat about a dozen years ago.”

“A long time. He’d have been very young.”

“Yeah.” She nodded, seeing Mira understood. “It cuts deeper when you’re young, before you really build up the skin for being hurt that way. See, she left him. That’s worse. It’s worse because it’s unfinished business to him, because it didn’t just come to its natural conclusion or whatever. She walked out on him. And then, she walked back in.”

She sat now, on the edge of the chair. “We were in this fancy restaurant. Business dinner, and I was late. Caught this case, and I didn’t change, so I was, you know. And then she said his name. He looked over, and she was an eyeful. Red dress, blonde. It was there, just for an instant, it was there in his eyes. He doesn’t look at anyone but me like that, but he looked at her. Just for a second. Not even a second, half a heartbeat. But it was there. I saw it.”

“I don’t doubt you.”

“There’s heat between them. I can feel it.”

“Memories, Eve, are powerful forces. You know that. But remembering feelings doesn’t make them viable.”

“He had lunch with her.”

“Hmm.”

“He was all open about it and everything. No sneaking around behind my back, no sir. And he said she asked him for some business advice. But she said—She came to my office.”

“She came to see you?”

Eve had to stand again, had to move again. “She said she wanted to buy me a drink, have a chat. All smiles and let’s-be-buddies. But what she said wasn’t what she was thinking, not what she had in mind. God, that sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t,” Mira disagreed in that same calm tone. “You’re trained to hear what’s not said. And even when it’s this intensely personal, you’d hear.”

“Okay.” Eve let out a breath. “Okay. She was scoping me out, dropping little tidbits. She made it sound as if she and Roarke were going to work together. She’s playing me, and I can’t find the rhythm to kick her the hell off the field.”

“However satisfying that might be, kicking her off the field won’t solve this for you. He has to do that. Have you told him this is hurting you?”

“I feel stupid enough. He hasn’t done anything. The fact that they have this heat and history between them, well, he can’t do anything about that. It is. She knows it, and she’ll use it. Then…I guess he’ll have to make a choice.”

“Do you doubt he loves you?”

“No. But he loved her first.”

“Do you want my advice?”

“I guess I must, since I dumped all this on you.”

Mira rose, took Eve’s arms. “Go home, get some sleep. Take something if you must, but get a couple of hours of sleep. Then tell Roarke how you feel. Tell him you feel stupid, that you feel hurt, that you know he hasn’t done anything. Feelings aren’t always rational and reasonable. That’s why they’re feelings. You’re entitled to yours, and he’s entitled to know what yours are.”

“Sounds good in theory. Even if I could work up the chops for that, I can’t do it. I have that goddamn deal with Nadine tonight.”

“Oh, of course.Now ’s premiere. Dennis and I will both be watching.” She did something then she rarely did, or Eve would rarely allow. Mira brushed her hand over Eve’s hair, then leaned in, kissed her cheek. “You’ll be wonderful, and when it’s done, when you’ve had a decent night’s sleep, you’ll talk to Roarke. Maybe he does have a choice to make, but everything I feel, everything I know, says absolutely that choice will always be you.”

“She speaks French and Italian.”

“That bitch.”

Eve managed a laugh, then did something she’d never done. She simply lowered her brow to Mira’s and closed her eyes. “Okay,” she said quietly. “Okay.”

The churning and airing of all those emotions might have given her a drilling headache, but despite it, she felt better.

When she walked back into her division, she saw Peabody sitting at her desk in the bull pen talking to a small, dark-haired woman. Peabody patted the woman on the arm, rose.

“Here’s the lieutenant now. Dallas, this is Laina Sanchez. We’ve been talking. Maybe we can use the lounge?”

“Sure.” She saw now, as Laina levered to her feet, that the woman was several months into gestation.

“I thought I should come in.” Laina’s voice was faintly accented and throaty. “I talked with Hallie after you interviewed her. Detective Peabody interviewed me at the school the day…the day Craig died. So I came in to see her.”

“Fine.” In the lounge she saw Baxter and Trueheart—the slick and the innocent—at a table in a corner with a skinny, jittery guy wearing sunshades.

Funky-junkie, Eve decided. Probably one of Baxter’s weasels. She flipped through her mental files to try to pin down what cases the pair was working while Peabody offered Laina a drink.

Underground homicide, she remembered. Dead tourist who, it appeared, had been trying to score in one of the nasty holes under New York’s streets.

Baxter’s gaze flicked to hers too briefly to measure, but in the look she saw that the junkie had something that was heating up the investigation.

At least somebody had a decent lead.

She went for water because the coffee in the lounge was revolting. And settling down, let Peabody run it.

“We really appreciate you coming in like this, Laina. Lieutenant, Laina came down on the subway. I told her we’d have her driven home. That’s all right, isn’t it?”

“No problem.”

“Laina, would you like to tell Lieutenant Dallas what you told me?”

“All right. I moonlight for Hallie sometimes. I know she told you, and that I’m not really supposed to. But the money helps, and Hallie’s been very good to me. She told me you’d spoken to her, and what was said.”

“Why don’t you tell me, Mrs. Sanchez?”

“Yes.” Laina nodded. “First I wanted to tell you that we did meet in the kitchen that morning. We had coffee, talked awhile about some menu changes, and just…well, we just talked, as friends do.”

Now she shifted, laying a hand on her bump of belly. “Hallie told me you’d asked about Mr. Williams, and if he’d…if there had been anything personal between them. Of course Hallie’s not interested in men in that way. But we also talked about what she didn’t tell you, because she’s my friend.”

“There was something personal between you and Mr. Williams?”

“No.” Laina flushed and closed a hand over the little silver cross she wore around her neck. “No, no. I’m married. This means there are lines that aren’t crossed. For me and my husband, this means there are lines. For Mr. Williams, the lines are less defined. He flirted with me. It was uncomfortable because of our positions, but, I thought, harmless. Then he touched me. He put his hand on my breast.”

Eve waited a beat. “And?”

“I hit his hand with a spoon,” Laina snapped out, full of indignation. “Very hard. He thought it was funny. I didn’t tell my husband. He wouldn’t have thought it was funny. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want to lose my job.”

“Did he continue to harass you?”

“Mr. Williams asked me to dinner, and asked me for drinks, and asked me to bed. He touched me again, and that time I slapped his face. He wasn’t discouraged. I should’ve reported him, I know, but when I said if he didn’t stop, I would, he just shrugged. He’d been there a lot longer than I had, and he’d be believed before I would. He’d say that I approached him, and I’d be fired.”