Echoes in Death (In Death #44)(62)

“Daphne’s mom and dad died when she was only nine, and she came to us. That’s what her mom and dad wanted. It’s not just blood that makes family. We’re her family. She’s my sister. Do you have a sister?”

“Not through the blood.”

“But you have a sister,” Tish said, eyes keen. “So you know. Please, tell me what happened to my sister.”

“She and her husband were assaulted physically. Daphne was assaulted sexually.”

“She was beaten and she was raped.” Tish’s eyes filled, a few tears spilled over, but she stayed steady.

“Yes.”

“She’s in St. Andrew’s Hospital, in New York, in good condition?”

“Yes.”

“Is she able to speak, to talk?”

“Yes.”

“And she asked you to contact us?”

“No, she didn’t.”

Tish closed her eyes, nodded, swiped at tears. “Okay, got it. I’ll give you my parents’ contact information, but I’d like to talk to them first. It’s going to— They love her, so much. Let me talk to them first, so they don’t hear this from a stranger. From the police.”

“Why do you think she didn’t ask me to contact you?”

“He poisoned her. It’s like he infected her, God knows he controlled her. There wasn’t anything we could do, or … we couldn’t figure out the right thing to do. Hang a second, will you?”

The screen bobbled, then settled on a tilted image of a ceiling, a corner of a wall. Eve clearly heard the sound of a nose being thoroughly blown, then two, quick, hitching breaths, a longer, smoother one.

The screen shifted again. Tish’s face, eyes fierce, glittering wet, came back.

“I’m glad he’s dead. If I knew how, I’d be doing fucking cartwheels. I’m glad because now we can do something, do something, to bring her back. He killed my sister, he turned her into a droid. I have to tell my parents. I have to get to New York.”

Eve wrote down the contact info as Tish rattled it off.

“She’s under police protection and medical care, Miss DeSilva. I can’t say if she’ll agree to see you. And we’re in the middle of a blizzard.”

“You don’t know from blizzards,” she said with frank and amused derision. “I’ll get there, and she’ll see me.”

Eve simply raised her eyebrows as the screen went blank.

She weighed the idea of contacting the parents immediately, decided to let their daughter relay the situation first. Thinking through the conversation, the reactions, she rose to update her board.

She added all three DeSilvas, connecting them to Daphne.

She wrote up the conversation, added it to her case notes. She sent a copy to Mira as she wanted a shrink’s take on the sister’s reaction and statements.

Poisoned, infected, controlled.

Clearly, the foster family had been cut loose, cut off. And, yeah, she could believe Strazza had manipulated that. Why? Likely for the same pathology as the killer. For control and power over another.

Though she’d set Peabody on the task, Eve took a good look at the bartender/actor. No violent incidents on record didn’t mean he didn’t have violence under the mask.

When Roarke came in, she was adding him to the board.

“You have a suspect?”

“I have a person to look at harder. Actor—that’s what he lists as his profession, though he makes his living tending bar at Jacko’s. He hits a couple notes.”

“So you’ll push buttons, see if he plays the whole tune.”

“Yeah. Nice colorful metaphor. I spoke with Daphne’s sister—the guardians’ daughter. She clearly despised Strazza, clearly blames him for them being out of touch with Daphne. Parents are in Fiji on a big vacation. I’m letting her contact them, tell them. If it wasn’t for the severity of the attack on Daphne, I’d actually look closer at the sister. Taking a look anyway.”

“As you will at the parents.”

“Yeah. Gotta cross the i’s, dot the t’s. I know it’s the other way around,” she said before Roarke could correct her. “But that gets boring.”

“Speaking of boring, Strazza’s financial didn’t present any challenge at all. He’s a cautious investor, has a few pet charities, though he’s a bit stingy even there. The house itself is worth what I estimated, but it’s mortgaged for a bit more than half of that.”

“So she won’t exactly be rolling in it.”

“Well now, it’s better than a poke in the eye—though a spouse might see it as one. His first walked away with five million, which—as I thought you might want to know, and I certainly did—she used to purchase a sheep station in Porongurup—that’s Australia.”

“Why do sheep need a station? Are they catching trains? Where are they going? Why do they have to go there?”

“I imagine they find themselves herded onto trains from time to time, but a sheep station’s a ranch.”

“Then why do they call it a station?”

“Blame the Aussies. In any case,” he continued before she could take him further into the weeds, “she invested a bit more than half of the settlement in the property and the sheep. Appears to be making it work well enough. I also found no travel out of Australia for her in more than three years. Absolutely none to New York.”