Echoes in Death (In Death #44)(27)

Eve arranged for them both to work with a police artist the next day. If anyone could draw more details out, it would be Yancy.

With the rental crew interviewed, and cleared to her satisfaction, she headed back to her office to—finally—put up her murder board, start her book.

She found Roarke in her office, his boots (no short, stubby heels required) up on her desk—as she was wont to do—working on his PPC.

He wore black trousers, a black jacket, a steel-gray sweater. Roarke’s version, she supposed, of casual office wear.

“Comfy?” she asked him.

“It’ll do. I’ve been up in EDD with McNab, and wish there was better news on that front.”

“I had a feeling.”

He slipped his PPC into his jacket pocket. “You won’t get a handy image of your suspect coming or going from the crime scene. He gutted, quite professionally, the security, and took the essentials with him. We can tell you the alarm wasn’t compromised. It was shut down from inside, as were the locks.”

“So you’d think an inside job. But it’s not.” Since it was there, she took the coffee he had set on her desk, drank it.

“Isn’t it?”

“No, because we have three—potentially more when I speak to the valets—who saw the suspect walk right into the house at approximately eight-forty last night.”

“Eyewitnesses? So your news is better. You’ll tell me about that while we have lunch.”

“I haven’t had time to put my board and book together,” she began when he swung his feet off her desk and rose.

“There’s pizza in the AutoChef.”

She stopped dead. “There is?”

“There is today.”

“I’d have sex with you for that alone,” she told him and smiled.

“I can lock the door.”

“Later.”

She started on her board as he programmed the pizza. The seductive scent of it struck her dead center when he pulled it out. That bubbling cheese, the spice of pepperoni.

She could have wept.

She ate one-handed—only one of the many advantages of pizza—while she arranged her board and filled him in.

“He’s got big brass ones, doesn’t he?”

“I think he likes the risk. It’s part of the fun.” Eve studied her board, grabbed a second slice. “He needed to know the timing, the routine. He had to know the targets were having a party. Figure there are, in addition to the hosts, forty-eight guests—and their staff, maybe hairdressers, and so on who knew. Add the caterer, and staff—and the people they might have mentioned it to, the rental place, and so on.”

Nodding, Roarke passed her a napkin. “Potentially a few hundred people knew the time, the place, the basic setup.”

“Not that hard to get the information. He plans. He gathers information on the targets. The first couple, out for the evening, he breaks in, disables security. Second couple returning from a few days away.”

She sat down now, put her boots up, while Roarke settled for the ass-pinching visitor’s chair. “His violence and lag time have escalated, but the Strazzas—that was the big one. Walking in while people were in the house, strolling right by staff and up the stairs to set the stage. I bet that added excitement. Possibly increased his violence due to same.”

“The theatrics, the folklore monsters. There are easier ways to disguise yourself, but he chooses the elaborate.”

“And it’s a sharp angle,” Eve agreed. “It’s like a performance, right? And he’s in character. He writes the script, sets the stage. But this time, he had to—what do you call it—ad lib. He didn’t go in there intending to kill. But now that he has…”

“You expect he might write that ending for the next performance.”

“I do. He will.” Of that she had no doubt. “He likes causing pain, suffering, fear, humiliation. In every case he choked the female victim to unconsciousness. Sooner or later he’d have gone too far there, either by accident or design. Now he’s crossed that line. He won’t go back.”

While he didn’t doubt her, Roarke studied the board as she did. “Yet, every time he released his victims before he left—and even after he killed, he released Daphne Strazza.”

“Yeah, well, show’s over, right?”

“Mmm. If you take your theory to the next step, does he release her because he wanted a review? Someone who’d lived through the performance, as you called it, and would speak of it. Even—to his deluded mind—praise it.”

“Like a critic?” Musing on it, Eve reached for her coffee, found the mug empty.

Roarke rose, got two tubes of water. “Switch it up,” he suggested as he handed her one. “Like a critic,” he confirmed, “or an audience review. Someone who’d relate how convincing his performance was.”

“I can see that.” After gulping down water, Eve gestured toward the board with the tube. “Daphne Strazza’s done just that because in her state of mind, she is convinced the devil attacked her.”

“Surely there’s no greater ego boost for a performer than having someone believe he was the character he portrayed. It’s a terrible sort of praise, isn’t it?”