Strangers in Death (In Death #26)(44)

“I don’t know. Seven, maybe eight. Short.”

“He must be very persuasive as well as short and seven.”

“He digs in, that’s for sure. It wasn’t much of a detour anyway.” She shrugged. “And you had to admire his logic, pretty much down the line. They’re stealing from potential customers, which cuts into his business. I’m a cop.”

“Top bitch cop.”

“Bet your ass. So as such I’m supposed to fix it.”

“As you did.” He brushed a finger over her cheek. “With minimal damage, I suppose.”

“Guy had skinny arms, but they were as long as a gorilla’s. Anyway, I figure the kid’s got a flop—he’s too clean and warmly dressed for street—probably with his gray market supplier. Couldn’t’ve been further off there. Little apartment off Times Square with a granny cooking his supper. Great-grandmother,” she added. “I ran them on the way home.”

“Of course you did.”

“Neither’s been in any trouble. The same can’t be said of Tiko’s mother. Illegals busts, solicitation without a license, shoplifting that upped to petty theft that upped to grand larceny. Last couple busts were down in Florida. The granny’s been guardian since he was about a year old.”

“The father?”

“Unknown. She was afraid I was going to call Child Services. Afraid I was going to call them in, and she could lose the kid.”

“Another cop might have.”

“Then another cop would’ve been wrong. Kid’s got a decent roof over his head, warm clothes on his back, food in his belly, and somebody who loves him. It’s…”

“More than we had,” Roarke finished.

“Yeah. I thought about that. There’s no fear in this kid, and that’s about all that was in me at his age. No meanness either, and you had plenty of that running your Dublin alleys. Had to have plenty of it. He’s got the chance of a good life ahead of him because someone cares enough.”

“From what you’ve said, he sounds like the kind who’ll make the most of that chance.”

“That’s my take. And I thought about Anders. He wasn’t afraid, and from everything I find, he wasn’t big on the mean. But his chance at life was taken. Because someone cared enough to end him.”

“Cared enough. Interesting choice of words.”

“Yeah.” She looked over at her murder board, looked at Ava Anders’s ID photo. “I think it fits. Listen, I couldn’t get by the lab to browbeat Dickhead into running a voice print. I’ve got a couple samples here. It probably wouldn’t take you long.”

“It probably wouldn’t.” He considered it over a sip of wine. “I might do that for you, if you fixed my supper.”

It seemed a fair trade. And if she went for one of her own personal faves—spaghetti and meatballs—he hadn’t specified a choice. She continued her run on Ava Anders first, left another message on Dirk Bronson’s—the first husband’s—voice mail. Then she wandered into the kitchen to program the meal.

She’d only set the plates on her desk when Roarke came back in. She wondered why she even bothered with the lab.

“Good news is, it didn’t take long. Bad news, from your standpoint anyway, they’re a match.”

“Shit. Could the St. Lucia transmission have been by remote?”

“It’s not reading that way. I ran it through several types of filters. As your expert consultant, civilian, I have to tell you Ava Anders received that transmission while in the room registered to her in St. Lucia.”

“She couldn’t have made it back there from New York in the time frame.”

“No. It’s a bit too tight for that.”

“Maybe the time frame’s off. Anders was still alive—unconscious, dying, but still alive when the security was booted back, the doors locked again. Maybe it didn’t take her as long as I calculated for the setup, and if she reactivated it all by remote, she might have been on her way back to St. Lucia earlier. It’d be tight, but maybe not too tight.”

“Ground time from the crime scene to a shuttle hangar, and the same from shuttle to hotel on the island have to be added in. You’re reaching, Eve.”

“Damn right I’m reaching.” Irritated, she scooped up some spaghetti. “I know she’s in it. Okay, the vic liked electronics. Could he have a security setup that could be turned off and on by long-distance remote?”

“Not impossible. What do your e-men say?”

“Cloning remote—good shit—short-range. But they weren’t looking for long. And Feeney’s dog sick with a cold.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I had to practically carry him down to transpo, send him off to a health center, call his wife.”

Roarke didn’t bother to hide his grin. “Haven’t you been the busy little scout today.”

“Bite me.”

“I rarely think of anything else but. I can take a look at the system. As for financials, I haven’t found anything off there. No suspicious withdrawals or transfers, no accounts tucked away. Not yet.”

Clean, covered, Eve thought. But her gut kept adding “calculated” to that. “If she didn’t do it herself and had it done, maybe she didn’t use money. There are other incentives. Sex, position, blackmail. Friendship. Isn’t there some saying about a real friend’s the one who helps you hide the body? She’s got a couple of women who strike me as real friends.”