Reunion in Death (In Death #14)(21)

"Listen, Peabody, about that-"

"And you put it on your desk."

"Yeah, well... I figure this is supposed to come to you, so-"

"No, sir." Her voice was thick as she lifted those drenched eyes to Eve's. And smiled. "She gave it to you, and that means she trusts you. She accepts. You're family. And you put it there, right there on your desk, and that means you accept. It's a real moment for me," she added and dug out a handkerchief. "I love you, Dallas."

"Oh jeez. If you try to kiss me, I'll deck you."

Peabody gave a watery laugh and blew her nose. "I wasn't sure you'd be speaking to me this morning. Dad called and said how they were staying here."

"Your mother put the whammy on Roarke. That takes some doing."

"Yeah, I had to figure. You're not pissed off?"

"Sam made croissants this morning. Your mother brought me one, with coffee."

The grin lit Peabody's face. "So it's okay then."

"Apparently." Eve picked up her cup, pursed her lips as she looked inside. "But it seems I don't have coffee at the moment. How could that be?"

"I'll correct that oversight immediately, Lieutenant." Peabody snatched the cup, then hesitated. "Um, Dallas? Blessings on you."

"What?"

"Sorry, I can't help it. Free-Ager training. It's just... Thanks. That's all. Thanks."

CHAPTER 5

"Julianna Dunne." Feeney gulped coffee, shook his head. He had the lived-in face of a basset hound, the droopy eyes of a camel. His coarse ginger-colored hair, wired through with silver, looked as if it had been hacked at by some maniac with hedge sheers. Which meant it had recently been trimmed.

He sat in Eve's office, his rather stubby legs stretched out. Since he was wearing one brown sock and one black, Eve concluded his wife hadn't managed to give him the once-over that morning.

A fashion plate he wasn't. But when it came to electronics, he ruled.

"Never expected to get another shot at that one."

"We've got no prints or DNA at either the crime scene or the apartment leased to Julie Dockport to verify. But the visual-" She gestured to the split screen ID photos- "gives me an eyeball verification. I ran a probability for form, and got a ninety-nine percent that Julie Dockport and Julianna Dunne are the same woman."

"If she just got out of a cage the first part of the year," McNab commented, "she works fast."

"She works," Eve said. "She's thirty-four. By the time she was twenty-five, she'd married three men, killed three men. That we know of. On the surface, it was for profit. She targeted wealthy guys-older, established men. Each of them had been married previously and divorced. Her shortest relationship was seven months, her longest, thirteen. Again, in each case she received a large inheritance at the spouse's demise."

"Nice work if you can get it," Peabody put in.

"She targeted each man, researched him, his background, his likes, dislikes, habits, and so on. Meticulously. We know this as we were able to locate a bank box in Chicago that contained her notes, photographs, and data on husband number two, Paul O'Hara. That's one of the bricks we used to close her up. We were never able to find similar boxes in New York or East Washington."

"Could she have had a partner?" Peabody asked. "Somebody who removed or destroyed evidence?"

"Unlikely. As far as any of the investigators were able to ascertain, she worked alone. Her psych profile corroborated that. Her basic pathology was pretty straightforward. Her mother divorced her father when Julianna was fifteen. Her stepfather was also divorced, wealthy, older, a Texas yeehaw type who called the shots at home. She claimed he sexually molested her. The police psychiatrist was unable to determine whether or not Julianna's sexual relationship-which he did not deny- with her stepfather was consensual or forced, though she leaned toward believing Julianna. In any case, as she was a minor it was abuse."

"And the main weight that kept her time down," Feeney added.

"So she's killing her stepfather." Peabody glanced back at the wall screen. "Again and again."

"Maybe."

And staring at the screen, Eve could see the child she herself had been, cowering in the corner of a cold, filthy room, mad from the pain of the last beating, the last rape. Covered in blood-his blood-with the knife she'd used to kill her father still slick and dripping in her eight-year-old hand.

Her stomach pitched, and she forced the image away.

"I never bought it." Eve kept her voice quiet, waiting for control to snap completely back into place. "She did the killing with calculation. Where was the rage, the terror, the despair? Whatever happened with her stepfather, she used it. She's a stone cold killer. She was born that way, not made."

"I gotta go with Dallas on this one," Feeney agreed. "This one has ice for blood, and she's nobody's victim. She hunts."

"The APB hasn't turned up anything yet," Eve went on. "I don't figure it will. She'd have planned carefully, would already have a new name, new personality, new story. She won't change her looks much. She's too vain, and she likes the way she looks. She's girly. Likes clothes, hair, baubles, salons. She'll stick to better shops and restaurants. You won't find her at bargain basements, or in sex clubs or bars. She prefers major cities, on planet. We'll flash her picture on the media, and we could get lucky."