Innocent in Death (25 page)

Why?

She went through it all, every piece. Then replaced it and put the box back.

When she finished with the room, she stepped over to where Peabody was just winding up with Straffo’s home office.

“Nearly done here. McNab started on the master bedroom up here so we wouldn’t get in each other’s way. Boxed a lot of discs and files. Nothing’s popped out though.”

“You find anything on the kid? Their dead kid?”

“Who? Oh, oh, right. Forgot. No, nothing here on their son.” Peabody stopped, frowned. “Nothing,” she repeated. “That’s kind of odd, really.”

“One more thing. There’s a stash of decorating clippings in Allika’s sitting room. Lissette had some in her cube.”

“Yeah, she did. So maybe they crossed there?” Peabody frowned, shrugged. “Maybe. But I’ve got a stash of my own, and a bunch of decorating sites bookmarked on my home comp. Don’t you ever…Forget I nearly asked,” Peabody said when Eve stared at her.

“It’s worth checking out. Running the name by Lissette, showing her Allika’s picture.”

“Okay. Do you want me to tag her now, ask her?”

“Yeah, let’s cross that off the list, then take the master bedroom next.” She walked over. McNab turned. “Anything shaking?” she asked him.

“Steady as they go. A lot of incomings and outgoings, but nothing that pops. Mostly personal data—banking, marketing, schedules, and like that on the main-level units. Nanny’s unit more of the same. Talks to family and pals back in Ireland a couple times a week, e-mails regular. All chatty, little bits on the Straffos and the kid, but nothing that’d make you jump.”

“Keep looking.”

It didn’t take long for Eve to discern that both Straffos preferred good fabrics in classic cuts—and plenty of it. The his and hers closets were spacious and pristine, and loaded.

Shoes were organized according to type and tone and all in clear protective boxes. Wardrobe was color-coordinated into groupings. Casual, work, cocktail, black-tie. The more formal wear hung with ID tags that described the outfit, when and where it had been worn.

If they liked sex toys, those playthings had been smuggled out before the warrant was executed. The nightstand drawers held book discs, memo cubes, minilights.

But there was some very provocative lingerie in Allika’s dresser, and a varied selection of body creams and oils. Since there’d been a reminder in Allika’s date book to renew her semiannual birth control, sex was likely part of the regularly scheduled events.

She found antianxiety and antidepression medication, and sleeping pills in Allika’s underwear drawer.

Eve took a sample of each medication, bagged it.

“Lissette didn’t recognize Allika’s name or image,” Peabody reported.

“Long shot.”

“Yeah. Dallas, I know we’re not supposed to get wound up in the personal areas of an investigation, but that woman, Lissette, just breaks my heart. She asked, the way they do, if we had anything new, anything we could tell her. I had to give her the standard line. She took it.” Sympathy, all those personal feelings an investigator is supposed to block out, resonated in her voice, on her face. “Held on to it like it was the only thing keeping her head above water right now.”

“Then we’d better follow through on the line, Peabody, and give her the answers she needs.”

Leaving Peabody, Eve headed down to find either one of the Straffos. He was pacing, talking on a headset, while she pretended to be absorbed in a magazine. The minute he spotted Eve, Straffo ended the transmission.

“Finished?”

“No. You’ve got a big place. Takes time. There’s a safe in the master bedroom closet. I need it opened.”

His lips tightened, just a little, and before Allika could rise, he waved her down. “I’ll see to it,” he told her. Then looked at Eve again. “Have you completed your business on the third floor?”

“It’s clear.”

“Allika, why don’t you have Cora take Rayleen up to the family room when they get back?”

“All right.”

He stopped, and Eve saw something in him soften as he touched a hand to her shoulder. She thought, Okay, he loves his wife. What does that mean?

He didn’t speak until they were far enough up the steps to be out of his wife’s hearing. “How would you feel, I wonder, to have your home turned inside out this way, your personal things pawed over?”

“We try not to paw. We’ve got two bodies, Straffo, both of whom you knew, one of whom was your client.” She sent him a look, let a little sarcasm leak into it. “Tough way to lose a client, by the way.”

“A foolish way to dismiss one,” he countered. “And yes, I knew them both—casually. Maybe you’re theorizing that I’m annoyed with Rayleen’s academic program, and I’m working my way one by one through her instructors.”

“Maybe I’m wondering why you took a lowlife like Williams as a client. If I knew that, we might have avoided this.”

“I’m a defense attorney.” His tone was as cool and flat as hers. “My client list isn’t always the bright lights of the city.”

“You got that. We all do what we do, Straffo.”

“Yes, we all do what we do.” He went into the bedroom, ignored Peabody, and went straight to the closet safe. “I opened the one in the study downstairs for your associates,” he said as he plugged in the combination, finished with his thumbprint.

“Appreciate it.”

It was jewelry—his and hers. Pricey wrist units, some antique wristwatches, glittering stones, gleaming pearls. While he stood watch, Eve went through it, checked for false bottoms, compartments.

When she was satisfied, she stepped back. “You can lock her up.”

He did so. “How much longer?”

“Couple hours, at a guess. I want to ask one question. Lot of family photographs around the house. I haven’t seen one out of your son. Why is that?”

There was a look in his eye, for only a moment, and the look was bleak. “It’s painful. And it’s private.” He turned and left.

Questions and possibilities circled in Eve’s mind as she watched him go. “Have Baxter and Trueheart take the guest room up here, Peabody. You handle the bathrooms to start. I’m taking the kid’s room.”

What was interesting, Eve thought, was that with the kid’s schedule, Rayleen had time to use the elaborate space. But it was obvious she did from the art projects in progress, the schoolwork discs filed in her pink, monogrammed case. A paper desk calendar with a pair of insanely adorable puppies was turned to the correct date.

She had photos as well. One which had to be her classmates at Sarah Child all lined up by height, facing the camera in their spiffy uniforms. Another of a vacation shot with Rayleen flanked by her parents, all looking sun-kissed and windblown. Her own solo school picture, and another solo of her in a pink party dress.

There were a couple of thriving live green plants on her windowsill in pink and white pots. Obviously Rayleen didn’t tire of the color scheme. Or had no choice in it.

Eve was voting for the former.

The kid had more clothes than Eve could have claimed for all the years of her own childhood put together. All as neat and organized as her parents’ had been. There were dance clothes, dance shoes, a soccer uniform, soccer shoes. Three identical school uniforms, dressy clothes, casual clothes, and play clothes, all with appropriate shoes.

There was a forest of hair ties, bands, clips, pins, and ribbons, all meticulously kept in a designated drawer.

At least nothing was tagged to indicate where and when she’d worn anything. But a lot of items—notebooks, bags, stickers, writing tools, art cases, and so on—were labeled with her name.

A big decorative pillow on her bed had PRINCESS RAYLEEN splashed across it, as did a fluffy pink bathrobe and the matching slippers.

She had her own date book, with all of her activities and appointments plugged in, her own address book with the names of schoolmates, relatives, her father’s various ’link numbers.

Eve bagged them.

“How come you’re allowed to take that?”

Eve turned, though she’d known Rayleen was there. “Aren’t you supposed to be someplace else?”

“Yes.” A smile curved, charming, conspiratorial. “Don’t tell. Please? I just wanted to watch how you searched. I think maybe I’ll work in crime investigation one day.”

“Is that so?”

“Daddy thinks I’d make a good lawyer, and Mom hopes I’ll go into art, or dance. I like to dance. But I like to figure things out more. I think maybe I’ll study to be a criminalist. That’s the right word, because I looked it up. It’s somebody who studies evidence. You gather it, but then other people study it. Is that right?”

“More or less.”

“I think anyone can gather it, but studying it and analyzing it would be
important
. But I don’t understand how come my address book and stuff could be evidence.”

“That’s why I’m the cop, and you’re not.”

The smile turned right down into a pout. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

“I’m not very nice. I take things because I need to look at them when I have more time. Your father will get receipts for anything that leaves the premises.”

“I don’t care. It’s just a stupid book.” Rayleen shrugged. “I remember everyone’s numbers and codes anyway. I have an excellent head for numbers.”

“Good for you.”

“I looked you up and you’ve solved lots of cases.”

“It’s ‘closed.’ If you’re going to work with cops, you have to use the right term. We close cases.”

“Closed,” Rayleen repeated. “I’ll remember. You closed the one where those men broke into a house and killed everyone in it but a girl, younger than me. Her name was Nixie.”

“Still is.”

“Did she give you clues? To help you close the case?”

“As a matter of fact. Shouldn’t you go find your mother or something?”

“I’ve been trying to think of clues for this one.” She wandered to a mirror, studied her own reflection, fluffed her curls. “Because I was right there and everything. I saw, and I’m very, very observant. So I could help close the case.”

“If you think of anything, be sure to let me know. Now scram.”

Her eyes met Eve’s in the mirror, a quick flash, then Rayleen turned. “It’smy room.”

“It’s my warrant. Beat it.”

Rayleen narrowed her eyes, folded her arms. “Will not.”

The kid’s face was a study of defiance, arrogance, confidence, temper. And Eve noted, challenge.
Make me
.

Eve took her time absorbing it all as she crossed over. Then she took Rayleen by the arm, pulled her out of the room.

“Taking me on’s a mistake.” Eve said it quietly, then closed the door. Locked it.

In case Rayleen got ideas, Eve strode down to the bedroom door, closed and locked that as well.

Then she went back to work.

She was undisturbed until Peabody knocked. “Why’d you lock the door?”

“Kid got under my feet.”

“Oh. Well. I had the guys haul some of the boxes we’re taking out. They’re labeled, receipts done. Unfortunately, we didn’t come across any poison in the spice cabinet or blackmail notes in the library. But we’ve got some shit to cull over once we log it in at Central. You get anything in here?”

“This and that. Here’s what I haven’t got. Her diary.”

“Maybe she doesn’t keep one.”

“She mentioned she did when Foster was killed. I’m not finding it.”

“They can hide them good.”

“I can find them good, when they’re here.”

“Yeah.” Peabody pursed her lips, looked around. “Maybe she doesn’t keep one after all. Ten’s a pretty much between-age for boys, and boys are the big topic of diaries.”

“She’s got an active, busy brain for any age. So where’s the ‘Mom and Dad won’t let me have a tattoo. It’s so bogus!’ Or ‘Johnnie Dreamboat looked at me in the hall today!’”

“Can’t say, and can’t think what that would tell us if she had a journal going and we found it.”

“Daily stuff—what Mommy said to Daddy, what this teacher did, and so on. The kid notices things. Got a snotty streak, too.”

Peabody grinned. “You think all kids are snots.”

“Goes without saying. But this one’s got something in there.” Eve glanced back at the mirror, saw again the way Rayleen had looked at herself, then the flash in her eyes. “If something pissed her off or hurt her tender feelings, you bet your ass she’d document. Where’s her documentation?”

“Well…Maybe McNab will find something buried on her comp. She’s smart enough, she’d want to keep her observations and bitches where Mommy and Daddy and the au pair wouldn’t find them if they poked around.”

“Put a flag on that.”

“Sure. Seems a little out there, Dallas.”

“Maybe.” She turned, studied the vacation shot again. “Maybe not.”

17

WHEN THE ITEMS FROM THE STRAFFO RESIDENCE were logged, Eve commandeered a conference room. There, she and Peabody spread everything out, grouping according to area, subgrouping by person or persons who owned or used the item.

She dragged in her murder board, clipping up pictures of various items or groupings.

She studied, she circled, she paced.

“Please, sir, I must have food.”

Distracted, Eve glanced over. “What?”

“Food, Dallas. I gotta eat something or I’m going to start gnawing on my own tongue. I can order something in or run down to the Eatery.”

“Go ahead.”

“Mag-o. What do you want?”

“To nail this bastard down.”

“To eat, Dallas. Food.”

“Doesn’t matter, as long as it comes with caffeine. She had a box full of pictures.”

“Sorry?”

“Allika, in her sitting room. A big pretty box, up in her closet, not quite hidden, but not out in the open. It was full of pictures of the dead kid, had a lock of his hair, some of his toys, a piece of his blanket.”

“Jeez.” Peabody’s tender heart ached a little. “Poor woman. It must be awful.”

“Not one picture of the kid anywhere in the open, but bunches of them in her box. Hers.” Eve moved around the groupings again, stopped by the section taken or copied from Oliver Straffo’s office. “Nothing like that in Straffo’s office or in the bedroom or any of the family areas.”

Peabody moved over to stand by Eve, tried to see what her lieutenant might be seeing. “I had a second cousin who drowned when he was a kid. His mother got rid of all his things. All of them except this one shirt. She kept it in her sewing basket. I guess you can’t predict how anyone’s going to handle the death of their kid. I’ll bring food and caffeine.”

She zipped out before Eve could delay her.

Alone, Eve circled the table, the board. And thought about the dead.

The boy had been good-looking, fun-looking, she added. Big, goofy grin on his face in most of the pictures that weren’t taken in infancy. Happy, healthy family, she mused, studying the picture she’d copied of one in Allika’s box—the four Straffos grinning at the camera. Kids in the middle, parents flanking them.

Everyone touching some part of someone else. An attractive unit. Somehow complete.

She compared it to the one she’d copied from Rayleen’s room. One kid now framed by mom and dad. And yeah, even though Allika grinned into the camera there was a hollowness around her eyes, a hint of strain around her mouth.

Something missing.

Did she try to fill that void with social functions, routines, appointments, structure? Medications and men?

Don’t be sad, Mommy!

Bright kid, that Rayleen. Smart, perceptive, pissy. Eve couldn’t hold the pissy against her. So Rayleen had looked up her data, her service record, her cases. Easy enough to do, Eve mused, but interesting work for a ten-year-old.

Nixie, she remembered. Nixie had been another bright, perceptive kid. Courageous kid. One who’d lost a brother, too—and her entire family, her entire world, in one horrible night.

Nixie’d been full of questions, as Rayleen seemed to be. Maybe they just popped out smarter and more full of curiosity now.

At their age, Eve had barely started real school. Had she been curious? she wondered. Maybe, maybe, but she hadn’t been one to ask questions. Not then, not for quite a while. For the first eight years of her life asking too many questions meant a fist in the face. Maybe worse.

Better to stay quiet, watch, figure it out than to ask and end up bloody.

Something was going on in that house, Eve thought. Something was just a little tilted in that perfect space. She wasn’t afraid to ask questions anymore. But she needed to figure out the right ones to ask.

She ate something that might have once wished to be chicken inside cardboard pretending to be bread. And ran a series of probabilities.

She was fishing and knew it, following various lines of logic—and one knotted string of pure instinct.

The computer told her that her instinct was crap, but that didn’t surprise her. Then she ran a hypothetical, omitting certain details, and the computer called her a genius.

“Yeah, wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass?”

She sat back. It was, of course, bullshit to run a hypothetical or probability without including known details or evidence. But she’d satisfied her curiosity.

Intrigued, she copied it all to Mira and asked for an opinion. She sent copies to her home unit, then gathered what she wanted to take home before she headed out to the bull pen and Peabody’s desk.

“I’m going to work from home.”

“It’s nearly end of shift.”

“And your point is?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“I’m swinging by the school on the way. Just want another feel of the place. Tell McNab I want individual D-and-C’s from the Straffos’ dug deep. Any shadow, any smudges, I want to know.”

“Um, day off tomorrow. Yours, mine, and ours. Valentine’s Day, too.”

“Jesus. Consider yourself on call, Detective. So be prepared to throw something over whatever embarrassing outfit you’re going to put yourself into for McNab’s perverted delight if and when I tag you.”

Peabody gave a sober nod. “I have a trench coat reserved for that purpose, sir.”

Eve considered it. “I’m forced to say: Ick. You don’t head out until you get your report written and copied to my unit here and at home. I want your notes, too. Impressions, opinions.”

“You’ve got something.”

“Dunno. Between bouts of physical expression I can’t bear thinking about, take another look at both vic’s student files—grades, discussions, parental meetings, the works.”

“And I’d be looking for?”

“Let me know when you find it,” Eve said as she strode out.

She took the glides down to the main level, cast a couple of wistful glances at the vending machine. She wanted a Pepsi, but didn’t want to interact with the damn machines.

They hated her.

Rather than squeeze onto the elevator, she jogged down the steps to the garage, pulling out her ’link as she went.

She hit Caro first, and Roarke’s ever-efficient admin sent out a warm smile. “Lieutenant, how are you?”

“Good enough. Can—” She stopped herself from shooting right to the point. How-are-yous required a how-are-you-doing back. She kept forgetting those sort of details. “How’re you doing?”

“Just fine. I want to thank you for the use of your house in Mexico. Reva and I had a lovely mother and daughter weekend there. It’s just beautiful, and the weather couldn’t have been better. It was a perfect break from the winter for both of us.”

“Ah.” She didn’t know Roarke had given Caro and her daughter a couple of days in Mexico. “That’s good.” Now she had to ask about Reva, didn’t she? “So, how’s Reva doing?”

“Really well, thank you. She’s dating again—casually. It’s nice to see her enjoying herself again. I’m sure you’d like to speak to Roarke.”

Whew, she thought, navigated the chatty session of the program with no casualties. “If he’s tied up, you could just pass him a message whenever.”

“I’ll check.”

Just a little worn out by the ’link socializing, Eve got into her vehicle as Caro switched her to blue screen hold. Moments later, it was Roarke’s blue eyes that blazed on screen.

“Lieutenant.”

God, he was pretty. “Sorry to interrupt any world domination meeting.”

“That was this morning. We’re finishing up satellite and planetoid dominations just now.”

“Okay, then. I’m just heading out, going to swing by the school.”

“For?”

“Not sure. I just want another run-through on scene.”

His smile was easy and still made her insides curl. “Would you like some company?”

“What about satellite and planetoid domination?”

“I believe we have that under control. I’ll meet you there.”

“Good. Great.” In fact, it was perfect. “See you.”

“Lieutenant?”

“Damn stupid traffic,” she muttered as she fought her way into it. “What?”

“I love you.”

Okay,that was perfect. “I heard that somewhere. There’s a rumor going around I love you, too. Goddamn maxibus. Gotta go.”

She stuffed her ’link back in her pocket and enjoyed the armed combat of driving uptown. Once there, she scouted out then fought for a parking spot, another type of warfare, then walked the block and a half to the school.

He was getting out of a car when she was half a block away. Tall and rangy, long black coat billowing in the wind. As the car cruised off—he’d have arranged that so they could drive home together—he turned. Just as he’d done the very first time. Turned as if he sensed her, knew she was there, and latched those wild blue eyes on her face.

Just like the first time, the very first time, something inside her leaped.

It wasn’t her style, it wasn’t her way, but there were times, she thought, you just went with the moment. She strode right up to him, gripped the front of his coat in her fists and took his mouth with hers. Strong and hot and real.

He drew her in. He always drew her in. So they stood, drenched in the heat of the kiss while the cold blew around them, and New York’s irritable traffic bitched and complained.

“There she is,” he murmured.

“Yeah, here I am.” She drew back. “You’ve got a great mouth, ace. I happen to know your hands are pretty damn good, too. Get us in.”

He lifted his brow. “Are you suggesting I break into the school, Lieutenant?”

“I’m ordering it, if you’re standing as expert consultant, civilian.”

“I love when you pull rank. Stirs me up.”

“A wink and a smile stirs you up, pal. Give it a shot.”

He strolled up to the door, removing a small palm device from his inside coat pocket. After keying in a code, he aimed it at the security plate, engaged.

The locks gave up without a whimper of protest.

“Showoff.”

“Well, I did have a minute or so to look over the system last night. And in anticipation of orders, programmed a little bypass.” He opened the door, gestured smoothly. “After you.”

“Security?”

“Please.”

She shrugged, stepped in. “Interior security? Log-in scan?”

He glanced up at the scanner, keyed another code into his palm unit. “There you go. As you could have done the same with your master, I assume you wanted to test how simple it might be to slide into the place without authorization or detection.”

“Something like that. Say someone didn’t have your sort of education. How much trouble would it be to do what you just did?”

“More, certainly, as I was top of my class, so to speak. But it’s not a complicated system. Your average going-out-of-business-endlessly sale shop on Fifth would have better.”

He tapped her side and her sidearm under the coat. “However, the fact that you’re carrying is a bit more problematic. I’ll need a minute to shut down the weapon scan.”

“Go ahead.” That was just for convenience, she thought. It wasn’t smuggling in a stunner or blaster that concerned her.

“Scanner wouldn’t detect poison. Why should it?” she mused. “Pressure syringe, same thing. Killer or killers could have walked right in, at any time, with both.”

“You’re clear.” He stood a moment, scanning the area. “So what are we doing here?”

“Not sure.”

“Not, I imagine—unfortunately—to play teacher-keeps-the-naughty-student-after-school.”

“No,” she agreed. “Empty schools are even creepier than when they’re otherwise.” She slid her hands into her pockets as she walked.

“The ghosts of students past. Bloody prisons, really.”

She laughed, gave him a friendly elbow bump. “Yes!”

“Not that I spent a great deal of time inside places like this. At least not until Summerset took charge of me. He was rather insistent about attendance.”

“The state-run schools I was stuck in weren’t like this. None of this air of privilege, and the security was a hell of a lot tighter. I hated them.”

She stopped by an open classroom door. One of the cells—or so it had seemed to her—of the prison. “First few years I just felt scared and stupid, then later it was ‘Okay I get all this. When can I get out?’”

“And once you did, you jumped right into the police academy.”

“That was different.”

“Because it was a choice.” He touched her arm, just a brush of understanding. “And a need.”

“Yeah. And nobody in the academy gave a shit if you recognized a dangling participle or could write a brilliant essay on the sociopolitical ramifications of the Urban Wars. Then there was geometry. That’s sort of the thing, though.”

“Geometry’s the thing?”

“Lines and spaces and crap. Area, radius, blah, blah. It gave me a headache. But I’m thinking geometry. The distance, the angles, the shortest route between two points.” She started up the stairs.

“First vic’s classroom. That’s the—Shit, what’s the middle of the thing.”

“Which thing?”

“The middle of the space.” She lifted her hand, fashioned a space in the air.

“Well, that would depend, wouldn’t it? If you’re meaning a circle, it might be simply the center. Or, staying with a circle as the space, you may mean the central angle, and that’s the angle whose vertex is at the center.”

She stopped walking atvertex to stare at him.

“Then, as every central angle cuts the circle in two arcs, there’d be the minor arc—the smaller, which would be less than one hundred and eighty degrees, and the major, the larger, which is always more.”

“Jesus.”

He grinned, shrugged. “I always liked geometry.”

“Geek.” She scowled down the hallway. “Now I forgot what I was doing.”

“Or you may be after the tangent,” he said, unconcerned. “The point of tangency would be the point where a line intersects the circle at precisely one point, and one only.”

“Shut up.”

“You asked. Of course, your shape might be a triangle, say, and in that case—”

“I’m going to draw down on you in five flat seconds and stun you senseless.”

“You know what I liked even more than geometry? Finding the blind spots on the security cams,” he said. “Which, in fact, geometry helped me with. Then snagging some sweet young thing, and—”