Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(49)

“This morning, yeah. You keeping track?”

“We all are. And we’re all up for OT if you need it.”

“It’s appreciated. Count on me letting you know. Now go wrap this guy up.”

She walked out with him, signaled Peabody. “With me.”

“I’ve got next of kin on the last two vics. Freeman, father unknown, mother doing her second stint for assault, with a side of illegals. This one in Joliet. There’s an aunt in Queens, she’s the one who filed the report.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“The older sister filed the one on Bowen,” Peabody added as she struggled into her puffy coat.

“Both parents have been guests of the state,” Eve continued as they made their way down to the garage. “Older sister had filed for custody when she was only eighteen. It was working its way through the system, the kid in foster.”

“The sister runs a sandwich shop with her husband.” Now the scarf—a mile of bright green, wrapping, wrapping around Peabody’s neck, then tucking into some sort of complicated twist. “Midtown spot. Two kids. Sealed juvie record on her, and a minor bump for him. They’ve been clear for about fifteen years.”

“When her kid sister went missing. We’ll talk to them, and the aunt in Queens.”

“Sandwich shop would be an efficient stop—interview, lunch, all together.”

Eve calculated the timing. “You do that. I’ll drop you off at the sister’s place on my way to check out this Frester character. You can contact the aunt, and we’ll decide if it’s worth doing a linkup with the mother. We’ll hook up back at the crime scene. I want another walk-through.”

“I’ll pick you up some takeout. What do you want?”

“Surprise me.”

The doorman at the hotel had obviously gotten the memo. He might have given a cop a little grief about leaving her vehicle in front of the grand edifice of the premier hotel, but for Roarke’s wife, he rolled out the red carpet.

It was a little bit annoying.

Still it saved time, as did her stop at the front desk—memo also received. With a security guard as escort, she breezed through the checkpoints for the ballroom event, and straight inside.

Talk about grand. The glint of crystals dripping from chandeliers that managed to look Old World and futuristic at once, the gleam of white marble with silver veining, walls smoky gray to set off the black shine of trim and cornices.

About five hundred people at her estimate sat around big round tables draped in dark gray cloth with a navy underlayer. Servers moved silent as wraiths to clear dessert plates or serve coffee, pour fizzy water into glasses.

Lemont Frester stood on the wide front stage, a huge screen behind him showing him with various luminaries from Hollywood, music, politics. Mixed in were images of him speaking to prisoners, addicts, youth groups. Or pictures of him dressed for a hike with forested mountains around him, looking pensive and pious staring out at the roll of blue seas, on the back of a white horse in some golden desert.

They all had one common link. Lemont Frester was the focus.

His voice rolled out, as ripe and fruity as a basket of oranges. He practices, she thought: the rhythm, the punch words, the gestures, the expressions, the pause for a bit of laughter or approving applause.

He wore a three-piece suit, directly between the shades of the room’s walls and table linen. She wondered if he’d had it made for just that purpose, along with the tie of pale gray chevrons on navy.

Too perfect a match for happenstance, which was usually bullshit anyway. And a man who’d order his wardrobe to coordinate with a speaking arena, or vice versa, had a towering ego, a tsunamic vanity.

She didn’t like him. Didn’t like the way his eyes glinted, his voice rolled, his suit matched. Didn’t like the sense that he was on the same level as one of those pay-as-you-pray evangelists who banged the good-looking faithful on the side, and scammed the money from susceptible old women.

But not liking him didn’t make him a murderer.

She listened with half an ear. He talked of not just overcoming his addictions, his flaws, what he called the dark child inside him—he’d triumphed over it. And the audience could, too. They could all lead strong, productive lives (that included world travel, Eve supposed, and fancy suits), could counsel others, even the darkest inner child, to win the desperate personal battle.

The answers, the solutions, the checklists were all handily contained in his latest book package, which included a disc compilation of homilies and highlights. And all that for the bargain price of a hundred and thirty-eight dollars, only twenty bucks more for the autographed package.

A steal, Eve thought. Oh yeah, Frester was robbing people blind, and not one of them appeared to mind a bit.

Her ’link signaled. She pulled it out, found a voice mail from Roarke, switched it to text only.

I’m between meetings, briefly, and assume you are as well. Mavis and her family will be coming over tonight for drinks and a casual dinner. It’ll do us all good. I’ve put it on your calendar, but as we both know I might as well write it on air.

Take care of my cop until I see you, then I’ll look out for her.

She had a moment of wondering why he’d asked their friends over when she was in the middle of a very ugly case, then remembered they’d talked of it the night before.