Portrait in Death (In Death #16)(109)

She stepped back, took stock. Live here, but you don't work here. This isn't your work space. Got to keep that separate. This is your mother's place, the place you come for a nice, quiet meal, for a good night's sleep. But it's not where you create.

Haven't been here in awhile. She ran a fingertip through the light layer of dust on the dresser. So much work to do. Too much to do to come home and relax. To come home and not find your mother waiting for you.

"Eve."

She looked over at the doorway where Roarke stood. "Finished already?"

"Not much there. He has a thirty-day clearing system. If you take the units in, you could dig out the deleted transmissions, but from here, without any tools, you'll only get the month. And he wasn't the chatty sort. He ordered pizza about three weeks ago, and fresh flowers for his mother's grave-"

"Location of cemetery?" she interrupted.

"I've got it for you, yes. There aren't any transmissions to or from friends, relatives, acquaintances. He's left his mother's voice announcement on the unit."

"But his voice is on there. We'll get a clear voice print."

Something moved in his eyes before the shutter came down. "Yes, that's no problem."

"You want me to feel sorry for him because he lost his mother? Because you're still close enough to your own grief to relate in some way. Sorry, fresh out of sympathy here. People die. It sucks. You don't deal with grief by murdering three innocent people."

"No, you don't." He sighed. "There's just something pathetic about this place, about the way he's living here with his mother's things. Her clothes still in the closets, her voice still on the machine. I've been working out there and found myself looking up, time and again, at her face. Do you see what he's done?"

"No, what has he done?"

"He's made her into an angel. From all reports, she was a good woman, maybe a special one at that. But human, mortal. It's that he hasn't accepted, you see. She isn't allowed to be human, so he deifies her. He's killing for her, and God knows, it doesn't seem she deserves it."

"It's her you feel sorry for."

"A great deal. She would have loved him, wouldn't she? Loved him very much by all accounts. Wouldn't she love him still, even after all he's done?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I don't suppose we ever will. Here's Feeney now," he added, and stepped out.

Had he been talking about Gerald Stevenson's mother, Eve wondered, or his own?

She cleared the bedroom for the sweepers and huddled with Feeney. "Where's McNab?"

"Ah, he nipped into the other bedroom there. Said he'd give Peabody a hand."

"I bet it's not his hand he's hoping to give her."

Feeney could only wince. "Please. Don't put such pictures in my head."

"I like to share, since they keep getting jammed into mine. Pictures," she repeated and gestured to the wall. "I don't think he's here. No nice little photos sitting around his mother's room. There would've been. She'd have had some of him in there, or sitting around."

"Mothers tend to," Feeney agreed.

"Figures, especially given his line of work or interest. So he cleared out any images of himself, just in case."

Trying to ignore what may or may not be going on in the bedroom, she tapped an evidence bag. "The mother liked Barrymore products. He left her enhancements in her room."

She jerked her head toward the open hallway door. "Yancy's still working on the witness-stubborn twit. Hopefully, he'll have it done soon, but I figure you should start an image search on the faces here anyway, see if anything pops."

"Take awhile." He brightened. "I'll have McNab do it. Keep his hands, and everything else on him, where it belongs."

"Works for me. I'm going to goose Yancy in a minute. If he's making progress I'm taking Roarke and checking out the parking facilities he tagged for us. Be easier if we have the guy's face to show around.

"He's coming back here, Feeney. His mother's things are here, this gallery of photos, some of his clothes, his mom's girl stuff. There's still food in the kitchen, and he's too compulsive and well-trained to let it spoil. But he's got work to do. I think he wants to finish his work before he comes home. The neighbor was right. He's on assignment."

"How close is he?"

"Pretty close to done. He knows we're moving in. He's had to move to backup plans. It's not that he planned to kill until he got caught." Face set, she dropped the bag of enhancements back onto a table. "He planned to kill until he was finished. It's not the thrill that drives him, it's the work, so he has an endgame. He wants us to see it, wants us to see the finished work. He may have to move a little quicker now to get it done, so he can show it off before we stop him. He'll have the next target in sight by now."

"Lieutenant." Pretty-faced Yancy leaned against the doorway. "I think we've got it. Sorry it took so long. It's tougher when the witness figures we're, you know, full of shit."

"Are you confident she's not stringing you?"

"Oh yeah. I explained, really politely and apologetically, that she could be charged with obstruction and so forth if she knowingly gave me a false image. Her lawyer made lots of lawyer noises, then verified-that's another thing that delayed the result."