Obsession in Death (In Death #40)(65)

“I said something like killing, taking a life, wasn’t respecting or enforcing the law. That’s when she leaned over, and it was all blood then. The wine, the pie. Just blood. She’s looking at me, and she says I did the same. I killed my father. She’s smiling when she says it, like we’re just a couple of pals having a friendly chat.”

She needed another moment, just one more. “In the dream, I felt panic. She can’t know that. She shouldn’t know that. I said she didn’t know anything about it, but she just kept smiling, told me she knew everything. Everything about me.”

To soothe, Roarke lifted her hand, kissed it. “She doesn’t know anything about you.”

“It felt like she did. ‘You killed Richard Troy,’ she said to me, ‘because he needed killing.’ That I knew what it was like, same as her, to do what needed doing, and to like it.”

“Bloody bollocks to that.”

“I know it.” She pushed up, had to stand, walk it off. “I was eight, and he was raping me – again. And so crazy drunk he might’ve killed me. I believed he would. That little knife on the floor, then in my hand, then going into him. It’s not the same, not the same as killing someone who poses no threat, not to you or anyone. It’s not even in the same universe.”

She shoved her hands through her hair then made herself sit again. “I know that,” she said, calmly now.

Still, he put an arm around her, drew her closer. “You don’t believe what she said in this dream, but you think she does – or would if she knew.”

“Yeah. She’d see it as something that makes us more alike. She sees us as alike, and this would cement it. She needs to convince me, that’s what I think. She needs to show me how right she is, and how it’s all a kind of partnership. She could pick anybody, right, but she needs to pick people she sees as against me, who’ve hurt or offended me in some way. To her twisted mind. Jesus, if a cop isn’t hurt or offended every other day, she’s not doing the job.”

She poked at the waffles on her plate. Shame to waste them, she thought, but her appetite had dropped out. “She asked if I wanted to pick the next one.”

“She thinks she knows you, that’s true enough in dream and reality. But she couldn’t be more wrong.”

“I don’t know her – that’s the problem. Just pieces. But I will, I’ll know her, and all of it. I’m going to wake up Peabody,” she decided, and got up again to do just that.

Once she’d verbally dragged her partner out of a warm bed, Eve headed straight to the computer lab. She brought up the next batch of results, gave them a quick scan.

A pattern here, she decided – definitely a pattern starting to form. She ordered the results on her own comp, started for her office. She could leave any e-nudging to McNab, if Feeney cleared him for her.

With the door connecting her office to Roarke’s open, she heard him on the ’link, and a sizzly female French accent speaking back to him.

Eve listened for a minute, realized despite the sizzly French it was all geek speak. The same, as far as she was concerned, in any language. Incomprehensible.

She went directly to her desk, began to sort and order the latest results with the ones she’d sorted and ordered late the night before.

She ran probabilities, re-sorted, re-ran.

Considered, then wrote up a summary of her conclusions, sent it all to Whitney, to Mira, and for good measure to Feeney as well.

Then sat back and began to read the correspondence she’d highlighted, beginning with the earliest. August of ’59, she mused. Before the Icove investigation. So that… notoriety hadn’t set it all off – if she was on the right track.

The interest – no, obsession – hadn’t rooted there.

Dear Lieutenant Dallas,

You don’t know me – yet – but I’ve been following your career for some time, and with admiration and great respect. Up until now, I couldn’t find the courage to contact you, but the tragedy of the Swisher family, and the bravery of young Nixie compelled me. If an orphaned child has the courage to be heard, why can’t I?

You risked your life to bring the Swishers justice, as you have before and will again. You inspire me, and challenge me to work for justice, to take risks, to do what must be done.

It pains me to know how often those you seek to protect and serve give you no thanks, give you no respect. I know, too well, what it’s like to be unappreciated, not respected.

Yet you continue to do what must be done, within the confines of the system. A system, I know as you do, that often fails to mete out just punishment.

I feel I know you, that we share many of the same values and goals, and could be good friends. For now know I’ll continue to give you my admiration, my respect, and my support. The law has boundaries that are too often senseless. My friendship has none.

A humble friend

A little over the top, sure, but not threatening, Eve mused. Not batshit crazy. There’d been a considerable outpouring of sympathy for Nixie Swisher in the media. A kid who’d survived a home invasion that had slaughtered her entire family? Strong story, and it had had some legs, if Eve remembered.

An e-mail like this? She’d have tossed it straight to public relations. But now, she thought – and the computer backed her up – maybe, just maybe, this was first contact.