Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(21)

She spun back to Eve, eyes ravaged. “You’re married. The book, the vid, and what I’ve seen on screen – it makes it clear you’re in love with your husband.”

“My life’s irrelevant.”

“It isn’t! You know what it is to love someone, to know them, because to really love, all the way in, you have to know. I know Dorian. No one we know could have done this. Someone else. Some sick, twisted, sadistic bastard. Can you give me a hand, can you spare a few dollars, can you show me how to get to Seventh Avenue – that’s all it would take. He’d help. Dorian would help. He took a cab.”

She pressed her hands to her face. “What time, what time? It couldn’t have been much past eleven-thirty. He’d have gone right out front, hailed a cab. You find out. You need to find out if he got in a cab or whoever did this, if they took him right from Lincoln Center. Or if he got downtown, and they took him from there. You need to —”

“I’ll do my job, Ms. Tesh, I promise you.”

“You didn’t know him.”

“That doesn’t matter. He’s mine now, and he’ll get my best.”

“Are you as good as they made out you are in the book, in the vid?”

“He’ll get my best,” Eve repeated.

5

Eve walked back to the bull pen and Peabody’s desk.

“Give me what you’ve got. We’re going to switch off.”

“FBI’s in it. The agent in charge is Carl Zweck. They’re following up a lead in Branson, Missouri, but have already connected with the primary in Pleasant Acres, New Jersey, on the murder last week. I just finished talking to her,” Peabody continued. “Detective Francine Lupine. They’re small town, Dallas, and don’t have a lot of resources or experience with serials. She’s looking for all the help she can get.

“Transferring notes to your computer right now. I reached out to the two primaries in Pennsylvania. Working my way back. FBI’s profiled a team, the romantic angle, just where we’re leaning.”

“Suspects? Descriptions?”

“They got nothing.” Peabody lifted her hands. “I’m wading through reams of reports and federal doublespeak, but it comes down to not so much. It looks like the unsubs switch vehicles here and there, and the ones recovered – in the cases where the owner was a vic – are wiped clean. Dozens of interviews over the past couple months, and conflicting reports¸ as you’d expect. A man and a woman, two males, various races, age ranges. The probability run is higher on the hetero couple, and the profile is giving an age range of twenty-five to thirty-five.”

Which was, Eve agreed, not so much.

“I’ll work with this. The interviews here indicate the vic left after the performance, with plans to go downtown to After Midnight. Several friends were to join him. Earnestina is Tina R. Denton. She’s not going to play into this, but we’ll follow up.”

A follow-up wasn’t wasting time, Eve thought, even when it felt like it.

“The most likely now is Kuper caught a cab, went downtown, and they grabbed him. Random choice, wrong place, wrong time. You’re looking for insight from the remaining interviews, and corroboration on the timeline and movements on the night the vic went missing. And if I’m wrong, any sense he was stalked or threatened prior.”

“You’re not going to be wrong. Everything I’ve got here says these two breeze into a town, a community, choose a vic, have their fun and move on. Identified areas so far are usually remote areas or, in more urban areas, an abandoned building. Two or three days, they’re done. They could already be done here, Dallas, and gone. That’s the pattern.”

“We follow through. Look at the route, Peabody. They were aiming for New York. This is where they wanted to be. Let’s find out why.”

In her office, she reviewed Peabody’s notes, and set up a second board. For once as she arranged the data on previous victims, she wished for bigger office space.

It took some doing, but she tracked the cab. Her vic had hailed one on Broadway, and taken it downtown where – at his request – the cab dropped him at the corner of Perry and Seventh – a few blocks shy of the club.

Why? Eve wondered. Nice night?

She did a quick back check on the weather, nodded.

“Nice night,” she murmured. “Take a little walk, stretch your legs, get some air. You know the neighborhood. How’d they mark you?”

She sat again, put her boots on the desk, shut her eyes.

The female, she thought – because she believed the probability of a hetero couple – use the female to lure him.

Excuse me? Try flirty but flustered, just a little helpless. Certainly harmless. Could you help me? I’m lost.

Yeah, maybe, maybe just that simple.

Or the ploy Dahmer used – that classic had proven to do the job in all the decades following.

Lone woman struggling to lift something heavy into the back of a vehicle.

Can I give you a hand?

Oh, golly. Would you mind? I just can’t quite get it up there.

Vic does the good deed, and the male comes up behind, bashes him. They drag him into the back of the vehicle – van or all-terrain – one jumps in with him to restrain, the other gets behind the wheel.

She opened her eyes again, studied the board.