Memory in Death (In Death #22)(41)

"He lost control."

She brought the murder scene, the body, back into her head. "But he didn't. Three blows. Three deliberate blows. He loses control, he's drunk or juiced or just plain murderous, he beats the shit out of her, he smashes her face. He whales on her, but he doesn't. He just bashes the back of her head, and leaves her."

She rolled her shoulders. "I'm going to set up a board. I have to start putting this in order."

"Well then, let's have a meal first."

9

SHE ATE BECAUSE HE'D NAG HER OTHERWISE.

And the mechanical act of fueling the body gave her more time to think. She had a glass of wine, nursing it throughout the meal. Small sips, like medicine taken reluctantly.

She left the wall screen on, data scrolling over. More pieces of the players she knew, or knew of, thus far. Trudy herself, and Bobby, Zana, and Bobby's partner, Densil K. Easton.

Finances looked solid, if not spectacular, all around. Easton had attended the same college as Bobby, graduated with him. He was married, one offspring.

A knuckle rap for disorderly conduct his last year in college. Otherwise, no criminal.

Still, a good candidate if Trudy had a partner, or a lover. Who'd know the ins and outs of personal and professional data better than the son's business partner?

Easy enough to get from Texas to New York. Tell the wife you've got to make a quick trip out of town, wheel a deal.

The killer had to be good with details. Remembering to take Trudy's 'link, bringing the weapon, or using something handy, then taking it along with him.

Quick temper, though, bashing a woman's brains out with a couple of hard blows. But not rage.

Purpose.

And what was the purpose?

"Why don't you talk it through," Roarke suggested, tipped his glass toward her. "It might help."

"Just circling around it. I need to see the body again, need to talk to Bobby and his wife again, check out this business partner, Densil Easton, get a line on if the vic had any lovers or tight friends.

Sweepers didn't find much. Plenty of prints. Vic's, son's, daughter-in-law's, the maid's. A couple of others that checked out as previous guests, back home and alibied at the time in question. No prints on the escape platform or ladder. Got blood there, and some smeared pigeon shit."

"Lovely."

"Little bit of blood in the drain, and I'm betting it's the vic's."

"Meaning the killer didn't wash up at the scene, and either wiped whatever he touched, or sealed up.

So you'd say prepared."

"Maybe prepared, maybe somebody who knows how to seize opportunity." She was silent a long moment. "I don't feel."

"Don't feel what?"

"What I'm used to feeling. They're worried I can't be objective because I knew her, but that's not the problem. I don't feel... I guess it's a connection. I always feel some kind of connection. I knew her, and I don't feel anything at all. I helped scrape two men off the sidewalk a few days ago."

Tubbs—Max Lawrence in his Santa suit—and Leo Jacobs, husband and father.

"Their mothers wouldn't have recognized them," she continued. "I didn't know them, but I felt... I felt pity and anger. You're supposed to put that aside. It doesn't help the victims, the investigation, that pity,

that anger. But it does. If I can hold on to it, just enough of it to drive me on. But I don't have it. I can't hold what I don't have."

"Why should you?"

She looked up sharply. "Because—"

"Because she's dead? Death conveniently makes her worth your pity, your anger? Why? She preyed on you, an innocent and traumatized child. And how many others. Eve? Have you thought of that?"

Her throat burned. But it was his anger heating it, she realized. Not her own. "Yes. Yes, I've thought of that. And I've also thought that because I don't feel, or can't, I should've passed on this. And I can't pass because if you can walk away, even once if you can just turn your back and walk, you've lost what made you."

"Then use something else this time." He reached over, just to brush his fingers over the back of her hand. "Your curiosity. Who, why, how? You want to know, don't you?"

"Yeah." She looked back at the screens. "Yeah, I want to know."

"Then let that be enough this time. This one time."

"I guess it's going to have to be."

* * *

So she set up her board, reviewed her notes, compiled lists, checked data. When her office 'link beeped, she checked the readout, glanced at Roarke. "It's Bobby."

She answered. "Dallas."

"Um, sorry. I'm sorry to contact you at home, and so late. It's Bobby Lombard."

"Yeah, it's all right. What's the problem?"

Other than your mother being dead, she thought, and the fact that you look one thin step up from a ghost.

"I wanted to ask, if we can move. I mean, if we can get another hotel." His hand lifted, raked through his short, sandy hair. "It's hard— it's hard to be here, right down the hall from... It's hard."

"You got a place in mind?"

"I... no. I tried a couple of places. Things are booked. Christmas. But Zana said maybe we had to stay here, and I didn't think of that, so I wanted to ask."