Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(33)

Eve picked up her wine, studied it before she took a small sip. “People say raising kids. It’s weird to me because they say raising crops, right? But that’s the term.”

“I suppose because you plant, and tend, and protect, and take pride in watching what you tend grow.”

“Okay, well, people like Meg, like Stella, they’re not interested in raising anything or anyone. It’s about the pleasure in abusing the weaker, smaller. Neglect, that’s second nature. Why isn’t it first nature?” She frowned over it. “It’s their nature to neglect and abuse, so I’m saying first nature.”

He loved her mind. “As you like.”

“I’ve wondered if she—this mother figure—raised him, and if she raised him, if she was a major part of his life through adulthood, why would he hunt young women? If she recently died, or they had some sort of break, if—because he’s certainly capable—he killed the original, why the replication of the young mother?”

She looked out the open doors at the deepening sky, the ending of the day.

“It’s possible, sure. Possible he craves that return to the innocence of childhood, and I circle back to that. But if the timeline is accurate, if the look and the clothes he used weren’t just some whim or convenience, he’s old enough for Elder and Hobe to be his kids, not the other way around. But if he lost her during the timeline we believe, if she died, she left, went to prison, and he was taken away from her?”

“He could come to idolize her,” Roarke finished. “Or insist his image of her be perfect. That’s where you’re leaning.”

“Maybe. Yes.” She rose to walk back to the board, and tapped the crime scene photo of the body on the bench, the swings and playground equipment in the background.

“This. He could’ve left her anywhere. He didn’t dump her. He placed her, and here. Laid her out, very tidily, on this bench, at this playground. He’s seen kids playing there, you bet your tight Irish ass, and mothers watching them. Happy place, family place. He was supposed to have happy family places like this, maybe did for a while. She was supposed to sit on a bench like this, watch him. I don’t know, applaud when he hung from the bars or whatever.”

He got up, picked up his wine and hers. He handed her the glass as he joined her at the board. “Keep going.”

“He didn’t beat her, torture her—or not physically, as being shackled for ten fucking days is plenty of torture. But he fed her, drugged her—you can bet your ass on that again—but he didn’t starve her. He branded her, and yeah, penetrated her. You could look at the piercings that way. But he didn’t rape her. He made her into the mother.

“And in the end, when she didn’t satisfy his ideal, or his sick need, he killed her. But quickly—didn’t draw it out. He used a sharp, but he didn’t go into a rage and stab her, slice her up, mutilate her.”

“A clean kill.”

“Yeah, clean. Then he sewed up the wound. Look here.” She tapped the autopsy photo of the neck wound. “Morris thinks maybe an upholstery needle and thread—lab to confirm. But look how careful and precise the stitching. Nothing sloppy there. That took time and care. Then he washed the body, dressed her, did the hair, the makeup, put perfume on her. He covered the wound with a ribbon, added the jewelry. He painted her nails.”

“All how he remembered her, and how, wouldn’t you say, he thought she looked her best?”

Now she poked a finger at his chest. “I would. I would say that exactly. The note? Kid’s paper, crayon? You can see some of the anger there. That’s not neat, but childish printing.”

“You’re seeing him as two aspects of one person.”

“I damn well am. He’s shithouse crazy. We get him, he’s probably going in a mentally deficient max security facility. I can live with that. But he has to make a mistake—they always do, but I don’t know if Hobe has time for that mistake. I don’t know how to find him until he does, or until we find the woman, the mother, who he wants.”

“Isn’t it possible Hobe will find a way to satisfy him, to keep him using her, until he makes that mistake or you find the mother figure?”

“Sure. She’d have to be damn smart and even more self-possessed.”

Shake it off, she reminded herself. For a minute.

“I’ll take care of the dishes. No, I’ll do it,” she insisted when she saw him start to object. “It’ll give me time to clear my head. I want to push some of this at Mira, see how she thinks. I need to tell Peabody to meet me at the lab, and I’m leaving a message for Harvo that I need some answers when I come in, first thing in the morning.”

“Again, what can I do to help?”

“Financials, at least right now, don’t play in.”

“And that’s a pity for me.”

“He has to have a place. He knew that playground, so I think he lives or works, owns or rents a property in that area. Close enough he’d pass by it often enough to target it. He needs a place private enough where he can take these women, hold them.”

She circled the board. “He wouldn’t keep them drugged out or gagged the whole time, right? What would be the point? And he fed Elder. She was awake enough to eat a meal before he killed her. He knew the bars—he had to spot them to want them. Lower West, Tribeca, Chelsea, maybe Little Italy. Maybe. It’s a big area. He has a vehicle. Doesn’t mean he owns it, but he has use of one.”