Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(95)

“Okay.” She ate a fry, decided it was a potato miracle, so ate another. “How about you, Reineke?”

“First two are taken, so I’m saying exacting. Couldn’t rush the guy, but when he finished, you had it all spelled out.”

“And Reo said he’s a stellar witness in court. Peabody?”

Peabody paused over her own fish and chips. “I only met him those couple of times, but I’m saying soft.”

“Soft?”

“Soft eyes, soft smile, soft voice, kind of a soft manner. And no accent. He’s from the South, but not a trace of it.”

“You don’t blend as well with an accent.”

“I guess you don’t. Have you got a word?”

“Alone. The way he got flustered when Harvo went into his space in her Harvo way. He’s used to being alone. So … a soft, nebbishy, precise, reliable loner.”

“He has to keep them in a separate space.” Jamie had nearly polished off a burger the size of Kansas and seriously depleted his mountain of fries. “You put all those words together like you did? He can’t have them in his space—he needs his own. He probably has a routine worked out with them. Feeding times and all that. He’d need to spend time with them, or what’s the point? But they’re not in his space, his area.

“Basement’s still the best bet.”

Feeney smiled a proud smile over his chips.

“Agreed. It’s a damn house with a damn basement and damn good security.”

Roarke picked up the PPC he’d set on the table, studied it. “I believe it is, yes. And we’ve a solid hit.”

“You found him.”

“I have. I agreed with your conclusion that someone so obsessed would have to use his mother’s name, or some derivative of it, but found nothing there. Then it occurred to me,” he continued, rising to set up the screen, “that someone like him, as you all just described, might be clever enough to hide that. An anagram. I ran for anagrams of his mother’s birth name.”

“Anagram? Mixing up words to make other words?”

“And Lisa McKinney becomes Cami and Ken Snily—so a couple, rather than a single.” He brought up the map. “Cami and Ken Snily are the owners of record, as the property transferred into those names on September twenty-fifth from a trust held by the law firm of—ha—McKinney and Son.”

“He did the anagram, and one of them made up the name of the law firm—likely him again.” Eve studied the map. “Highlight the other areas—crime scenes, residences. She wanted to make it up to him, somehow. She came to New York, bought the house for him, and sent him the paperwork before she took the pills. I’m betting Cami and Ken also have a fat bank account, opened around the same time. She’d want to give him money to maintain the house, to make up for all those years.”

“Already looking for that,” Feeney told her. “Didn’t want him to have to pay estate taxes,” he continued as he worked, “or wait to claim the house until the estate settled. That’s my guess.”

“And didn’t want her other children to know,” Eve finished. “Couldn’t face that, even at the end. Can you get blueprints?”

Roarke sent Reineke a put-upon look. “And listen how she insults me after we’ve had such a pleasant meal.”

“No permits applied for,” Jamie said, “not for that property. Roarke probably hit that one. He slid around permits.”

Moments later, the blueprints flashed on-screen.

“Fucking A, look at the size of that basement! What’s the date on these?”

“March of last year, when they were generated for a rehab. A house sale, I’m thinking. And on the market, I’ll wager we’ll find, just in time for his mother to buy it. You see there’s a small kitchen on the basement level, and two full and two half baths as well. One of the baths to make a master’s suite. No windows but for this eastmost wall in that suite area—must have that for code, you see. There’s your way out in case of fire, for instance—and I expect your way in.”

“He may have blocked it off, or it’s something she can’t reach, something she can’t get to. Blocked off, maybe, privacy screened absolutely. Don’t want anyone getting nosy enough to look in. Stairs leading up, almost center of the big-ass basement. Doors on the main level, front, back, both sides, another door second level to a porch thing, deck thing, stairs down to what looks like a little walled-off courtyard.”

“Yes, it’s a very nice property.”

“Okay, okay, he’s going to have cams, solid security. He’s crazy, but he’s not stupid.”

She stood a moment, hands in pockets, studying the blueprints, working it out in her head.

“All right, here’s how we take him down.”





20





BEFORE


She couldn’t sleep, not with the bed so empty beside her.

She was a doctor’s wife, and had often slept alone when Joe’s duties had kept him late into the night.

But he’d always come home, and she’d always waked, at least enough to turn to him, to reach for his hand.

He’d always come home.

Until that horrible night.