Born in Death (7 page)

She waited a beat. “Since we’re all here, let’s clear up some business. I’ll need your whereabouts for the night of the murders. Midnight to fourA .M.”

Sloan laid his hands on the table in front of him. “You consider us suspects?”

“I’m a cynical so-and-so. Your whereabouts, Mr. Sloan.”

He drew breath through his nose, expelled it. “Until approximately twelve-thirty, my wife and I were entertaining our grandson and his friend. At that time, they left our home and my wife and I retired. I remained home with my wife until the following morning when I left for the office. At seven-thirty.”

“Names, please? Grandson and his friend.”

“His name is mine. He was named for me. His friend is Rochelle DeLay.”

“Thank you. Mr. Myers?”

“I was entertaining out-of-town clients—Mr. and Mrs. Helbringer from Frankfurt, their son and daughter-in-law—until sometime after oneA .M. We were at the Rainbow Room.” He smiled wanly. “And, naturally, I have the receipts. My wife and I returned home, went to bed just before two, I believe. I left for work the next day about eight-thirty.”

“And how can I contact your clients?”

“Oh, God.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “I suppose you must. They’re staying at the Palace. Your husband’s, I believe.”

“Small world. And Mr. Kraus.”

“Also entertaining clients with my wife, in my home. Madeline Bullock, and her son Winfield Chase, of the Bullock Foundation. They were our guests for a couple of days while they were in New York. We had dinner and played cards. Until about midnight, I believe.”

“I’ll need to contact them.”

“They’re traveling. I believe they’re making a stop or two on their way back to London, where the Foundation is based.”

So, she’d track them down.

“Mr. Kraus has stated that neither of the victims approached him with any questions or any problems pertaining to their jobs, or their personal lives. Did they approach either of you?”

“No.” Sloan said it flatly.

“I spoke with Bick a few days before this happened,” Myers began. “Regarding the execution of a trust fund for a client’s new grandchild. He never mentioned a problem.”

“Thank you. It may be necessary for me to speak with all of you again, and will certainly be necessary for me to interview the supervisors and associates of the victims in this matter.”

“Gentlemen, would you excuse us.” Sloan lifted a hand. “I’d like a word with Lieutenant Dallas in private.”

“Jacob,” Kraus began.

“I don’t need legal counsel, for God’s sake, Robert. Leave us alone.”

When they were, Sloan pushed away from the table, walked to the wall of glass. “I liked that girl.”

“Excuse me?”

“Natalie. I liked her. Fresh, bright, had a spark in her. She was friendly with my grandson. Friendly,” Sloan repeated as he turned. “They worked in the same department. Her department head was about to put her up for promotion. She would have gotten it. I spoke with her parents this morning. You think there’s no compassion here? No sympathy? There’s more.”

Those thin hands fisted. “There’s rage. This firm is a home to me. I built it. Someone came into my home and killed two of my people. I want you to find the bastard. But if, in the course of your investigation, confidential data regarding clients of this firm leaks, I’ll have your job.”

“Then we understand each other, Mr. Sloan. As long as you understand that if, during the course of my investigation, I learn that you had any part—directly, indirectly—in those murders, I’ll have you in a cage.”

He crossed to her, and this time, held out his hand. “Then we have a perfect understanding.”

6

EVE FOUND PEABODY AND THE REST OF THE team finishing up in Byson’s office.

“McNab, I want you to go with the officers to transport all these items to Central. I want you with the boxes and their contents every step of the way. You personally log them in. And lock them up—conference room five. I’ve cleared that with the commander. Take the electronics directly to Feeney.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Those electronics are to be logged a second time into EDD, with your code and with Feeney’s.”

He lifted his brows. “We got national security in here?”

“We’ve got our asses in there, so if you don’t want yours in a sling, log and document every step. Peabody, you and I are going to get some statements from associates. You take this department, and Byson’s people. Do another round with his supervisor. I’ll take Copperfield’s.”

She started out. “Every step of the way, McNab,” she repeated, then took the elevator to Natalie’s department. She knew just where she wanted to start.

“I need to speak with Jacob Sloan, the grandson.”

This time around the receptionist didn’t hesitate, but simply beeped an interoffice ’link. “Jake? A Lieutenant Dallas would like to speak with you. Of course.”

“Third door, left,” Eve was told. “Excuse me? Would you—do you know anything about a memorial?”

“No. Sorry. I’m sure the family will make an announcement.”

She followed the direction and found Jake Sloan waiting just outside his office door. He was built like his grandfather, but youth made him lanky. His hair was a dark blond, pulled back in a fat little tail at the nape of his neck. His eyes were a bleak sea foam.

“You’re the one who’s in charge of Natalie and Bick’s murders. Investigating their murders, I mean. I’m Jake Sloan.”

“I’d like to speak to you. Privately.”

“Yeah, come on in. You want something?” he asked as he closed the door behind her.

“No, thanks.”

“I can’t settle.” He paced around a small office with posters in geometric shapes and primary colors on the walls. There were toys on his desk—or what she thought of as toys, in any case. A bright red squeeze ball mocked up like a devil with horns, a cartoon dog on a fat spring, a curly tube that rocked on a string and changed colors with the movements.

He walked to a tiny refreshment area and pulled a bottle of water from a minifriggie.

“I almost didn’t come in today,” he told Eve. “But I couldn’t stand the idea of staying home. Staying alone.”

“You and Natalie knew each other well.”

“We were pals.” His smile was shaky and brief. “Had lunch together a couple days a week maybe, with Bick if he could make it. Gossip in the break room, hang out. We’d go out together a couple of times a month, usually. Nat and Bick, me and whatever girl I was seeing. One girl the last six months.”

He dropped down in his chair. “I’m rambling. You don’t care about any of that.”

“Actually, I do. Do you know anyone who’d want to hurt Natalie?”

“No.” She saw the gleam of tears before he turned his head to stare hard at the image of a blue circle inside a red triangle framed on the wall. “People liked Nat. I don’t understand how this could happen. Her and Bick. Both of them. I keep thinking it’s going to be some awful mistake and she’ll poke her head in the door and say, ‘Skinny latte?’”

He turned back, tried that smile again. “We’d get lattes in the break room.”

“Were you and Natalie ever involved romantically, sexually?”

“Oh, jeez, no. It wasn’t like that.” Spots of color rode on his cheeks now. “Sorry, it’s kind of like thinking about nailing my sister, you know? We just hit it off, day one. Friends, like we’d known each other already. And I don’t guess either of us were what the other was looking for that way. Nat, she was looking for Bick. They were, like, fated, you know? You could just see it. God.”

He propped his elbows on the desk, lowered his head to his hands. “It just makes me sick to think what happened to them.”

“Did she say anything to you about any concerns, any problems? Since you were close, would she have told you if something was bothering her?”

“I’d have thought she would, but she didn’t. And something was.”

Eve zeroed in. “How do you know?”

“Because I knew her. I could see it. But she wouldn’t talk about it. Said she was handling it, not to worry. I teased her that she was getting wedding jitters, going to do a runaway bride, and she played along. But you know, that wasn’t it.” He shook his head. “She was anxious about the details of the wedding, but not getting married, if you get what I mean.”

“So what was it?”

“I think it was an account. I think she was having trouble with one of her accounts.”

“Why?”

“Worked with her door locked a lot the last couple weeks. That wasn’t Nat.”

“Any idea which account?”

He shook his head again. “I didn’t push. All of us have at least a couple of accounts that we can’t discuss with other people in the department. I guess I thought she was losing a big client and trying to put out the fire. Happens.”

He looked away again, back to the blue circle inside the red triangle. “We were all supposed to go out this Saturday. The four of us. I don’t know how they could be dead.”

There was a knock, then the door opened. “Jake. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Dad.” Jake pushed to his feet. “Ah, this is Lieutenant Dallas, with the police. My father, Randall Sloan.”

“Lieutenant.” Randall took her hand, held it firm. “You’re here about Natalie and Bick. We’re all in…I guess we’re in a daze.”

“You knew them.”

“Yes, very well. It’s such a shock, such a loss. I’ll come back later, Jake. I just wanted to see how you were.”

“It’s all right,” Eve told him. “I’m about done.” She flipped through her memory of the pecking order. “You’re a vice president of the firm.”

“That’s right.”

But not a partner, Eve thought, despite his expensive suit, his glossy looks. “As such, did you have much contact with either victim?”

“Not much, not at the office. Of course, Nat and Bick were friends of my son’s, so I knew them better outside the office than most of our account execs.” Randall moved to his son, laid a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “They were a lovely couple.”

“Did either of them express any concerns to you, inside or outside the office?”

“Why, no.” Randall’s brow furrowed. “They were both excellent at their work, and happy—as far as I know—in their personal lives.”

“I need to ask—it’s routine—about your whereabouts on the night of the murders.”

“I was entertaining clients. Sasha Zinka and Lola Warfield. We had cocktails and dinner at Enchantment downtown, then went on to Club One to hear some jazz.”

“What time did you pack it in for the night?”

“It must have been close to two when we left the club. We shared a cab uptown, I dropped them off. I can’t be sure, but I think it was nearly three when I got home.”

“Thanks.”

“My girlfriend and I were at Pop’s—my grandfather’s,” Jake said when Eve looked at him. “I guess we left there around midnight, twelve-thirty. Went to my place from there. She stayed over.”

“Appreciate the time.” Eve got to her feet. “If I have any more questions, I’ll be in touch.”

Eve went from office to office, interrupting meetings and ’link calls, wading through tears and anxiety. Everyone liked Nat and Bick, nobody knew of any problems. She got a little more out of the account assistant Natalie had shared with two other execs.

She found Sarajane Bloomdale in the break room, sniffling over a cup of tea that smelled like wet moss. She was a tiny woman with a short black balloon of hair that cut across her eyebrows in thick, ruler-straight bangs. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her nose pink.

“Been out for a couple days,” Sarajane told Eve. “Caught a head cold. Sucks, you know? Mostly, I was sleeping it off, and then yesterday Maize—she’s one of the other assistants—she called me. Hysterical, crying. She told me. I didn’t believe her. I kept saying, ‘That’s just bullshit, Maize.’ I kept saying that, and she kept saying how it’s true, they’re dead. And I’d say—”

“I get it. How long did you work with Natalie?”

“About two years. She was great. Didn’t expect me to run around doing all the grunt work likesome. They’ll run your feet off around here. But Natalie was great. Organized, you know? You didn’t have to forever find where she forgot she put something. And she’d remember stuff like your birthday, or just bring in pastries now and then. And when I broke up with my boyfriend a couple months ago, she took me out to lunch.”

“Was she working on anything specific the last couple weeks? Did she make any unusual requests?”

“Nothing out of the usual. She was working on something, locked her door a lot lately.” Sarajane glanced around Eve, checking the doorway. “I sort of figured she was doing wedding stuff,” Sarajane whispered. “We’re not supposed to do personal business on company time, but, you know, your wedding and all.”

“How about transmissions made through you, correspondence she asked you to send?”

“Just the routine stuff. But you know, she logged back in after hours a couple times lately. I happened to notice when I checked her daily calendar on her office unit. Just noticed the log-in. I guess I said something to her about it. Like I said, ‘Gee, Natalie, your nose is going to fall off if you keep it to the grindstone.’ And she looked kinda funny about it and asked if I wouldn’t mention it to anybody. She was just catching up on some work.”

“Did you mention it to anyone?”

“I might’ve. Just in passing.”

“To?”

“I dunno. Maybe to Maize, or to Ricko down in Legal. We’re kind of going out, me and Ricko. I might’ve said how she was working too hard and it was too bad, ’cause it was making her tired. I could tell. And she should relax more with her guy. And watch out for that piranha who worked with him.”

“Which piranha would that be?”

“Lilah Grove. Quinn—she’s an assistant down there—she says Ms. Grove’s flirting with Mr. Byson every chance, asking him to come into her office and help her out,discuss clients over coffee or lunch.”

Sarajane managed an expression between a scowl and a sneer. “Got her sights on him, you know? Guys can fall for that crap. I even told Natalie about it. She was my boss, right? So I told her, but she just laughed it off.”

“Okay. Do you know if Natalie made any appointments to talk to one of the brass around here? If she intended to have a meeting with any of them?”

“Didn’t ask me to set anything up. Um, you cops have mostly taken all my work stuff. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Couldn’t tell you.”

Eve finished up with Cara Greene, stepping to the office doorway just as the woman was popping a tiny blue pill.

“Blocker,” she said. “Vicious headache. It’s a completely horrible day.”

“Do you know why Natalie logged back into the office unit after working hours?”

“No.” Cara frowned. “We all work late, and this time of year we’ve revved up into tax season. But…I’ve certainly known Natalie to work late, to stay at her desk for a couple of hours after end of business. And we won’t even talk about the four weeks before April fifteen when most of us just live here. But it wasn’t her usual routine to go then come back.

“Do you want to sit? I need to sit. I’m not feeling very well.” She lowered to a chair. “Fielding frantic or angry calls from clients about their accounts being pawed over by the police is very unpleasant. Trying to play mother to the staff here when they come by to cry on my shoulder about Natalie, or allay their fears that something might happen to them. And trying to think, to think if you’re right and this horrible thing has anything to do with her work, what I missed. What I should know.”

“And nothing comes to mind.”

“Nothing does. I have to think it was some sort of personal business. Someone who wanted to hurt them, was jealous or angry. I don’t know.”

“Was there jealousy here in the office?”

“A sense of competition, certainly. And certainly not everyone is best friends. But I honestly can’t think of anyone who held a grudge or genuinely bad thoughts about Natalie.”

“Do you know Lilah Grove?”

“The Femme Fatale of Individual Accounts.” Cara’s lips curved in a little smile. “And, yes, I’ve heard the gossip that she was overly friendly with Bick. It didn’t worry Natalie, and I never heard anything about Lilah and Natalie arguing or even having strong words.”

Maybe they saved them for end of business, Eve thought as she went down to meet Peabody.

“Did you get a statement from a Lilah Grove?”

“What is this, a sixth sense thing?” Peabody demanded. “She was the first I was going to brief you on.”

“Department’s sex queen. Hit on Byson. What’s your take on her?”

“A little hard, with a very sharp edge. Vain, ambitious. Likes to flaunt both. Claimed the flirtation was mutual and harmless and expressed disgust and annoyance—both seemed false—that anyone in her department of the firm would gossip about her that way. Watered up a few times when talking about the vics, but never smeared her enhancements—which appear to be expertly applied and really pricey. She wears Do Me.”

“What?”

“It’s perfume. The real thing, not the off-brand or the cheaper eau de whatever. I like to go in and get sprayed with it when I troll the higher-end department stores.”

“You’re the one?”

“The one what?”

“The one person in the known universe who likes to get sprayed by those spritz guerrillas.”

Peabody stiffened her shoulders, lifted her head high. “We are more than one. We are a small, yet sweet-smelling army.”

“Yeah, I bet Do Me smells like a sweet, sunny meadow. I’m going to do a quick follow-up with Grove before we head back.”

“Second office, right.”

“I’ll do it solo. Check in with McNab.”

“Yes, sir. And, Dallas?” Peabody’s smile was sly. “When I wear Do me, he does.” She strolled off, whistling.

“Asked for that one,” Eve mumbled.

The door to the office was open. Eve saw a blonde with long, sleek waves, tipped back in a caramel-colored leather chair, examining her manicure as she talked on a headset.