Arriving in New York equaled noise, heat drenched in humidity, snarling, bad-tempered traffic, and sidewalks flooded with people.
A perfect welcome home. Eve loved every grimy or shiny, every rude or welcoming, every high-class or low-class square inch of it.
“It was good,” she said. “Everything was as good as it gets. So’s this.” “Home’s always best.”
Roarke drove through traffic, the stop and go of it, with the same ease he’d milked a damn cow. They’d sent their luggage ahead, so it was just the two of them for a little while longer.
“And home on a Sunday means neither of us have to get back at it until tomorrow. I vote for pizza, a whole lot of wine, then popcorn and a vid and a whole lot of sex.”
“Do you now?”
“Gotta stretch the vacaying to the last minute.” “I couldn’t agree more with any and all of that.”
They drove through the gates, and she looked at the towers, the turrets, the spread of the house Roarke built, at the expanse of lawn, the summer green of the trees, the vibrant flowers and shrubs.
“Yeah, home’s best.”
Still best, she thought when they went in, to find Summerset, in his habitual funeral black, waiting in the foyer. Galahad sat beside him, but instead of padding over to greet them, he just gave them the hard eye.
Eve crouched down. “Come on, you know you missed me.”
He looked deliberately away, then back, then sort of sashayed over as if granting a favor.
But when she gave him that first long stroke, he purred, then rubbed his pudgy body against her knees.
“Welcome home,” Summerset said. “You both look as if the time away did you more than good.”
“It did. And all’s well here?”
“Yes, it is. Your family’s well, I hope, one and all.” “They are, and send you their best.”
“The bags you marked for me are unpacked, and the others upstairs. Except for the lieutenant’s gift to you.” Summerset gestured toward the main parlor. “As you requested.”
Taking Eve’s hand, Roarke walked into the parlor.
The painting hung in a place of prominence over the mantel.
Surprised, Eve turned to him. She’d expected him to hang it in his office, maybe the library. “Here? You’re sure about that?”
“It’s personal, but not private. It’s family, so I’m sure, yes.”
“It’s a precious gift. I’m honored to be included in it,” Summerset added. Eve just shrugged. “You’re his real father, so…” She scooped up the cat.
“See? We didn’t leave you out, either.”
The painted Galahad sat between Eve and Roarke, looking pudgy yet dignified.
“I’m going to head up and unpack.” But she lingered another moment. “It looks good there.”
She set down the cat so he jogged up the steps beside her. The minute she walked into the bedroom, he made a beeline for the bed, leaped up, sprawled out.
Obviously, all was forgiven.
She sat beside him, gave him a belly rub. “I missed you, too. You’d probably have gone for the villa in Greece—luxury’s your speed. But you wouldn’t have gone for the farm, trust me. Too much competition, to start— dogs and cats swarming. Too much outside for you, with big-ass cows and weird-eyed sheep. You’re an urbanite, pal. It takes one to know one.”
“So are we all,” Roarke agreed. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to do what the family does every bloody day. A bit of a lark for me to have a hand at it for a very short time, but the farmer’s life? It’s a hard one. And one they love.”
When he sat, Galahad shifted his affections.
They unpacked and, by tacit agreement, both stayed out of their offices and had pizza on the patio as the sun set.
“Maybe we scratch the popcorn and vid.” She sat back, sipped a little more wine. “It’s barely nine, but it doesn’t feel like it.”
“There’s the earth on its axis moving around the sun again.”
“Yeah, you ought to find a way to fix that. We can skip straight to the sex.”
“How could I argue with that?”
“I figured that would get your vote.” She closed her eyes, lifted her face to the night. “I’m going to have a shitload to catch up on tomorrow. You, too.”
“The price we pay.”
“Worth it. I did miss the cat, and New York pizza, but worth it. What time’s your first meeting?”
He smiled at her. “You’ll still be sleeping.” “Figured. Then let’s go get this vacation capped off.”
They walked inside, then up to the bedroom, where the cat already stretched across the bed.
“Some things don’t change,” she commented.
And as they turned to each other, the communicator on her dresser signaled.
“No, they bloody don’t.”
“What the serious fuck? I’m not on the roll until oh-eight hundred.” She snatched it up. “Dallas.”
Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Official request for your assistance from Webster, Lieutenant Donald. Unattended death, 14 Leonard
Street, apartment 321. Will you respond as primary?
“Crap. Affirmative. Responding now. Dallas out.”
She looked over at Roarke. “I don’t know why, but he wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Understood. I’ll drive—and don’t wonder if I’m going with you because he once tried putting moves on you, and in our house. That’s all done. We’ll consider it our alternate way of capping off our vacation.”
“Fine.” She strapped on the weapon she’d put on the dresser for the morning. “What the hell is IAB doing at an unattended death?”
“I suppose we’ll find out.”
She grabbed her badge, her ’link, the rest of her pocket paraphernalia. “I’m going to see who lives—and possibly died—there while you drive.”
They left the cat on the bed and went out to the car Roarke had remoted from the garage to the front of the house. She pulled out her PPC, started the search while he sped down the drive, through the gates.
“Shit. Shit. Martin and Elizabeth Greenleaf have that unit. Captain Martin Greenleaf, IAB—retired. I know—or maybe knew—him some. He’s Webster’s guru or mentor, father figure. I know they’re tight. He was tight with Greenleaf and his wife.”
“He requested you because, as you said, it’s important. I assume he didn’t just tag you so as to keep it official?”
“Yeah, yeah. Still stretching it some. And he wouldn’t have stretched it if it’s, or looks like, natural causes, or an accident. Or maybe he would,” she considered. “Because they were tight, and he just reacted.”
“You’ll sort it out.”
“Yeah.” She looked at him again. “Welcome the hell home.”
“Well then, it is our home and our life here, isn’t it then? It’s what we do, who we are. I wouldn’t change it. Would you?”
“No.” That part came easy. “But I didn’t expect to dive right back into murder. And he wouldn’t have asked for me, especially this way, if he didn’t think murder. And I can’t go into whatever this is influenced by what he thinks or feels.”
“He’d know that, wouldn’t he?”
“He should. Crap, crap, Captain Greenleaf, or his wife. Or somebody else in their apartment. But odds of somebody else don’t fly.”
“Because?”
“What I know of Greenleaf is by the book, and the book is sacred. No deviation. And I have to wipe that out, go in blank. That’s how it has to be.
“Webster’s been taking a lot of time off-planet.” “I wouldn’t know.”
“Bollocks to that. He’s spending that time at the Olympus Resort, and with Darcia Angelo. Olympus is basically yours, and she’s your top cop there. You know.”
“She does her job, and well. Her off time is her own. And yes, he visits often enough. They made a connection—we saw it for ourselves.”
“Pretty damn quick connection.”
Amused, he shot her a look. “And didn’t we?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe. Yeah, okay. Listen, I’m going to need you to be Peabody,” she said, referring to her partner. “Either assisting me if I need you to, or keeping Webster out of my way. Can you do the second part without punching him in the face?”
“It’s been a bit of time since I punched him in the face, or elsewhere,” Roarke said easily. “We came to an understanding.”
“Great.” When he turned onto Leonard, she felt a wave of relief. “He called in uniforms. That’s a good step. Follow procedure, secure the scene.”
“I’ll get your field kit from the trunk and put on my Peabody.”
A good, solid building, she noted, brick, pre-Urbans. A decent neighborhood, good security on the entrance. And a uniform standing there now.
She badged him as they walked up the short steps to the doors. “Lieutenant.”
“What do you know, Officer?”
“My partner and I responded to a nine-one-one by Lieutenant Webster. Ambulance also requested, but the victim was DOS. Lieutenant Webster ordered me to take the entrance door, and my partner to remain on scene with him to ensure it remained secure. DB is male, mid-seventies, at a desk in what appears to be a home office. No visible signs of forced entry.”
“Stand by.”
She went in, barely glanced at the pair of elevators before taking the stairs.
“He was smart to have the uniform stay with him on scene,” she commented. “Smarter maybe if he’d just called it in, then stepped back, but smart enough.”
“And smart enough to ask for you if he suspects foul play.” “We’ll see about that.”
On three, she walked to the apartment. It had a door cam—but Greenleaf was a cop, after all—and a solid set of locks. She pressed the buzzer.
Webster answered, and she thought: Fuck. He’s a mess.
His light blue eyes held nothing but grief and despair, and his body language told her he was using every ounce of self-control to hold it in. Rather than crowning his narrow face, his brown hair looked as if he’d dragged a garden rake through it.
Casual dress, she noted—so he’d changed from work before he’d come here.
“Dallas. I’m sorry, but I needed the best. Martin deserves the best.” “Okay. Step back, Webster.”
“Sorry,” he said again. “Roarke, I appreciate you coming. I know you weren’t on the roll, Dallas, but … It looks like suicide, but not in a million years. Not in two million. I need to tell you—”
“Nothing yet.” His grief aside, she cut him off. She had to. “Nothing. I want you to stay out of my way. I’ll talk to you after I look at the scene and the body.”
“Just let me—”
“No. Officer, stay with the witness. Where’s the body?”
The uniform stepped forward, gestured. “In there, Lieutenant. The MTs examined the body, but didn’t disturb the scene. My partner and I arrived approximately four minutes after the nine-one-one.”
The apartment opened into a living area, with a short foyer holding a catchall table. She noted a bag on it, a six-pack of upscale brew inside.
“I—”
“Not now,” she told Webster, and moved into the living area with its sofa and plumped pillows, a recliner, a wall screen, some floral prints on the wall, a pair of shoes by a chair.
Neat enough, not obsessive. Lived-in, and lived long.
A kitchen area tucked behind a half wall to the left with a small dining area. It sparkled clean, no question, but still more lived-in and lived long to her eye. A bowl of summer fruit on the counter. Mugs on an open shelf above an old-model AC, a cooktop over a stove beside it.
Someone probably cooked on it.
And to her right, as she stepped forward, what might have been a small bedroom at one point and now served as a den/office.
There, at a desk painted black, Captain Greenleaf slumped. “I—”
“Later, Webster. I need to examine the body and the scene, and you need to step back.”
Roarke handed Eve her field kit. “Why don’t we take a walk,” he said to Webster, “and you can tell me. We’ll let the lieutenant do what’s best for your friend.”
“I haven’t contacted Beth yet—his wife. I didn’t want—” Eve turned at that. “Where is she?”
“A ladies’ night, a regular thing. She would’ve left about eight-thirty, I guess.”
“Okay, let’s leave that for now. Take a walk.”
“Dallas—just let me say this, damn it. I know what it looks like, but it’s not.” Grief soaked him. Face, body, voice. “It’s just not.”
“Let me see what it looks like, then we’ll talk. For now, stay out of the way. You want me to stand for him? Let me stand for him.”
She walked into the crime scene and, to discourage any more conversation, shut the door behind her.
Greenleaf slumped in his desk chair like a man taking a quick nap— though he wouldn’t wake from this one. On the floor by the chair lay a police-issue stunner, and she could see the marks from it on the side of his neck.
Deep marks, she noted. Deep enough to break and burn the skin.
On the wall screen, the Mets and the Pirates battled it out. Bottom of the seventh, 0–1, and the Pirates with a man on first. Since his chair faced the screen, logically he’d watched at least some of the game, or had intended to.
He had a data and communication unit on the desk, still running. The message on the screen read:
Beth, I’m sorry, but I just can’t go on this way. Too many good cops’ lives ruined, their families broken. My fault. Forgive me because I can’t forgive myself.
“Yeah, Webster, I see what it looks like.”
She opened her field kit to formally identify the body, and pressed Greenleaf’s left thumb to her Identi-pad.
“Victim is identified as Greenleaf, Martin, retired captain, Internal Affairs Bureau, NYPSD. Age seventy-six, resident of this address.”
She took out her gauges. “Time of death, twenty-one-eighteen.”
She crouched down, recorded the weapon. “A police-issue stunner recovered on scene on the floor, right side of the chair. Identifying code has been removed.”
She checked it—on full—then set her first marker for the sweepers.
“The victim sat with his back to the doorway leading from the living area of the apartment and facing the wall screen. Both the wall screen and the computer activated. No visible signs of struggle, no visible signs of violence to the body but the stunner burns, which indicate direct contact with same at the throat. The stunner is set on high.”
She shifted to change the angle of the recording.
“Victim has a wrist unit, left wrist, and a band style ring on the third finger of his left hand.”
Carefully, she checked Greenleaf’s pockets. “Wallet, right front pocket of his trousers, containing…” She flipped through.
“ID, license to drive, credit card, four photos, and … thirty-six dollars in cash. A ’link, passcoded,” she said after trying to access, “and a glass of unidentified liquid, with ice…” She bent close, sniffed. “Smells like tea, lab to confirm contents, on the right side of the computer screen. The glass is about half-full, on a coaster.”
Maybe he added some courage to the tea, she thought. But.
Why does a retired cop intending to self-terminate get himself some iced tea, turn on the ball game, and use the comp to write his last words when there’s an actual pen and a pad of paper on the desk?
“What appears to be a suicide note on the monitor of the D and C on the desk. Current information indicates the victim was alone in the apartment at TOD.”
Wouldn’t be the first cop to end his watch by pressing a stunner to his throat, and wouldn’t be the last, she thought.
And yet, it was all pretty damn tidy, wasn’t it? A note that says basically nothing before he offs himself while his wife’s out. Married a long time, she considered. Would he want her to come home and find him like this?
Depends on the marriage, she decided, so she’d go down that road.
Closed window—closed and locked—and the aging temperature regulator pumped and buzzed some. Made some noise along with the color commentary on the game.
His back to the door. And the ball game on-screen. Ice melting in a glass that was likely tea.
She went through the desk, found his memo book. Appointments listed for the next several weeks, a note to remind him to buy flowers for his wife
—anniversary in ten days, dinner booked at a swank place nearby.
He had 47 years! inside a big heart.
She stepped out, walked through the apartment, into the bedroom. Seriously clean but a little less tidy, with signs of someone hurriedly dressing—or someone who’d changed their mind about wardrobe a couple of times.
Some facial enhancements and grooming tools on the bathroom counter, another discarded pair of shoes—female, this time—right next to the closet door.
And two windows leading to a fire escape. One locked, one not. Curious, she walked through, checked all the other windows. All locked. Just that one, in the bedroom.
She went back, opened it, peered up, peered down.
In the closet, a shared one, she found Greenleaf’s clothes, very organized. His wife’s—she assumed—not as much.
Ladies’ night, she thought. Choosing and rejecting outfits.
In the bedroom drawers, the same deal and, in the nightstands, some electronics, some night creams, a bottle of meds for helping with an erection, and some lube.
Since both were about half-full, she assumed the couple had remained sexually active.
In the kitchen a note stuck to the friggie.
Snacks inside for you and Don, sweetie. See you both in a couple hours. Don’t drink too much brew!
She’d drawn hearts at the start and finish of the note. She walked back to the body.
“Okay, Captain. Okay.”
She contacted the sweepers, the morgue—requested Chief Medical Examiner Morris. No need to bring Peabody in yet, she decided. The morning was soon enough for that.
She texted Roarke instead.
Bring him back.
While she waited, she checked the time stamp on the suicide note.
Within a minute of TOD, so that could go either way.
Back in the kitchen, she checked the AutoChef. It looked like the couple had shared a meal of linguine with cream sauce and a salad. In the friggie— well stocked—she noted the snack tray. Cheese, pickles, carefully sliced disks of a meat-like product, some sort of dip, some salsa.
A tray of crackers sat on the counter beside a bowl of chips and a pile of cocktail napkins.
Expecting Webster, no question, and that could go either way. Let Webster find me, deal with it while Beth’s gone.
Or somebody didn’t expect a cop on scene minutes after TOD. For now, she’d keep both possibilities wide open.
When she heard the door, she stepped out again.
“Have a seat, Webster.” She gestured to a chair out of eyeline with the body. “Run it through for me.”
“I’m going to start at the beginning, all right?”
Calmer now, she noted, and knew she had Roarke to thank for it. “Go.”
“Martin came by to see me this afternoon. I’ve been off-planet for a week, so doing weekend work, flexing time. He thought we could have some lunch, catch up, but I was swamped. We just had some coffee at my desk.”
“What was his mood?”
“Good. Up. Fine. He talked some about his granddaughter’s Little League game, and just wanted to know how things were going with me. I had some things I wanted to talk to him about, and we didn’t have time then, so he said I should come over about nine or so because Beth had her girls’ night, and we could drink some brew—if I brought it—bullshit awhile.”
“He expected you.”
“That’s right. I didn’t get here until about nine-thirty. Had a lot to clear at Central, wanted to change, buy the brew.”
“How’d you get in?”
“I have a swipe and their passcode. I didn’t bother buzzing in downstairs, but he didn’t answer when I knocked. I just let myself in, figuring he didn’t hear me. He’s had some hearing issues off and on for the last year or so, and I heard the game on in his den. I called out.”
He took a moment, gathered himself.
“I set the brew down and, when I looked in his den, I saw him.” “Did you touch anything?”
“His shoulder. His left shoulder. I didn’t touch the weapon, the monitor, anything else. I just put my hand on his shoulder because I couldn’t believe … Jesus.”
Webster covered his face with his hands as the words shook out of him. “I need a second.”
“You read the monitor.”
Face still covered, Webster nodded. Then he dropped his hands, and his eyes burned hot. “And it’s bullshit. It’s bullshit, Dallas. He’d never do this to Beth, to his kids, his grandkids. He wouldn’t do this to me. And he’d never take this way out.”
“Do you know if he had any medical issues other than his hearing?”
Now, as he shook his head, Webster dragged his hands through his hair. “Nothing, not that he ever told me, or Beth told me—and she would if he
didn’t. Slowing down, he’d say, and it pissed him off some. That’s bullshit about good cops, his fault. He honored the badge, do you get me?”
Webster’s voice hitched, then hardened.
“Yeah, he was a hard-ass, and straight down the line. If a cop smelled bad, he’d go after them all the way, and he taught me to do the same. It doesn’t make you popular, but it’s the job.
“It’s a setup, Dallas,” he insisted. “Martin wouldn’t do this. I know that without a fucking doubt.”
Right now, she thought, they needed facts. Not feelings.
“You say you knocked. How many times? How long did you wait before you came in?”
“I knocked twice. Slowing down, right? So I wanted to give him a minute. A minute, maybe a little less, and I swiped in. No more than about a minute.”
“Did you hear anything from inside?”
“No. Well, the game. I heard the game coming from his den, so figured he didn’t hear me knock over it.”
“Did anyone else know he expected you tonight?”
“I don’t know. Beth—he’d have told her, the way you do.”
He lifted his hands, dropped them again. Then linked them together as if he didn’t know what to do with them.
“I don’t know if he told anyone else, or why he would.” “Describe your relationship with him.”
“He was my captain when I joined IAB, and until he retired. And he was the next thing to a father to me. My parents split when I was a kid, and my father didn’t have much interest. My mother remarried, and they didn’t have a lot of interest. Martin and Beth did. I have Christmas with them every year. I loved him, and I want whoever did this to him.”
“As of now I haven’t determined homicide. I’ve requested Morris, and the sweepers are on the way. You are not part of the investigation. You can’t be. You know that.”
She held up a hand before he could speak. “I’ll keep you in the loop. I can do that, but that’s all. Don’t get in my way.”
“I know you didn’t especially like him.”
Eyes flat, she spoke coolly. “Do you think that applies to my ability to investigate his death?”
“No. Absolutely no. That’s why I asked for you. Dallas, I need to be here for Beth. This is going to— They really loved each other. She needs somebody who loved him here. I don’t want to contact her, bring her home like this. I don’t want her to see him like this, or watch them carry him out in a body bag.”
“I need her statement. I need to interview her. She’s most likely the last person to see him alive.”
“He said she’d be home before midnight, earlier, probably. She just meets some friends once a month, and they drink wine and hang out for a couple hours.”
“Did you tell anyone you were coming here tonight?”
“I messaged Darcia. My door was open when Martin came by. Sure, somebody could’ve heard us set it up, but I didn’t say anything specifically to anyone.”
“Roarke, would you see about getting the security feed for the building, and the feed for this front door cam on this unit?”
She waited until he’d walked out.
“If there’s anything, any detail, any single thing you’re leaving out, softening up, shifting on me, spill it now, Webster, or I swear to God when I find out—and I will—I’ll slice you to pieces.”
Closing his eyes, he nodded. Then looked at her straight on.
“That’s why I wanted you on this. Exactly why. No. There’s nothing. I swear to God right back at you. What’s the TOD? In the loop, you said.”
“Twenty-one-eighteen.”
“Christ, Christ, I was probably walking in the door of the building, or on my way up five or ten minutes later. If I’d gotten here just a few minutes earlier—”
And she could see, literally see, his control crack. And so spoke briskly. “Ifs don’t solve anything. Put it away. Did he say anything to you, even
just shooting-the-shit cop stories about a threat?”
“No—” Backtracking, Webster waved a hand in the air. “I mean sure, before he retired. IAB cops get threats all the time, it’s part of the package. You get verbal bullshit, you get physical altercations. Mostly, it’s just blowing air, so you document and let it go. Same as you, Dallas, or any cop, but the difference is the threats and altercations are usually from other cops.
“We’re not popular,” he added with a shrug. “That’s how it goes.” “Anything recent, anything specific?”
“No. Listen, he didn’t have to retire. He chose to. He told me it was time to, like, pass the torch. And he wanted time, more time to just be a husband, a dad, a grandfather.
“He liked being retired. Beth retired a few years after he did, and they did some traveling. They made noises about moving south, getting a place on the shore, buying a boat, but their family’s here, so they never followed through. The only time anything like threats came up is when we talked shop and it was: ‘Remember that asshole who said he’d cut out your rat heart with a dull knife and feed it to the other rats?’
“It was yesterday for him, Dallas, and he’d put in his time.”
At the knock, Eve rose, let in the sweepers. While she read them in, gave them her priorities, the morgue team arrived.
“Why don’t you wait in the kitchen?”
Webster shook his head. “He deserves someone who knew him, cared about him, to stand by.” Then he turned to her. “You’re calling it homicide.”
“Right now, it’s suspicious death. Where’s his service weapon?”
“He turned it in when he retired. I know he did because I was there.” “How about his clutch piece, his backup, a drop weapon?”
“Dallas, Martin rode a desk the last fifteen years of his tour. He didn’t have a clutch piece, he’d never use a drop weapon, and he didn’t have a backup. That stunner’s not his.”
“And if it is?”
“Then someone found a way to make it look like that.”
He stood silently as the morgue team rolled the bagged body away. “I want a drink—a real drink. He keeps a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen.”
“No. I’ll get it,” Eve told him when he stepped that way. “I’m sealed up, you aren’t.”
Roarke came back in, nodded at Eve. “Where’s the bottle?”
“Cabinet by the window. Glasses in the cabinet to the right of the sink.” “I’m sorry, Webster,” Roarke said when Eve went into the kitchen.
“Truly sorry for your loss.”
“I get that. I appreciate that.” He sat again, pressed his fingers to his eyes. “She’ll find who did this. You’ll help her.”
“However I can. But she’ll find the one who did this. Will it be enough?” “It’s never enough, but it has to do.”
He took the two fingers of whiskey Eve brought back. “When’s the last time you were in this apartment?”
“Three—no, four weeks ago. Four weeks ago. His daughter’s birthday dinner.”
“So I’m not going to find your prints anywhere on scene?”
“The way Beth cleans? Not a chance.” He downed the whiskey. “You got the security feeds. I’d like to see them.”
“Tomorrow,” Eve told him. “I want you at Central at noon.” “But—”
“I need to report to Whitney, meet with Morris, do what I have to do. Then we’ll go over everything again. If I’m satisfied, I’ll let you view the footage. I’m letting you stay on scene,” she added before he could object, “to be here for the captain’s widow. Don’t fuck with me when I’m questioning her, Webster. Don’t make it harder.”
“She loved him. They loved each other, and family was their world.” “Then she’ll want me to do my job.”
“She will.” He glanced at his wrist unit. “She’ll be home soon. Let me tell her. Please. Let me be the one to tell her he’s gone. I won’t get in your way.”
The hardest part, always, Eve thought, was telling someone their world had shattered.
“Do it fast,” Eve advised.
