Concealed in Death (8 page)

“He was always pissed-faced drunk. Hell, he hit on Lydia. She’s eighty-three,” Alma explained. “She does our books. He’s a dog, no question, and I can see him trying to cop a feel as long as it’s female. Age not an issue. But I can’t see him hurting anybody. Ever.”

“No, no, he’d never hurt anybody. He’s an asshole, but—cop a feel? Did he try that on you?”

“Remember that mouse he was sporting after the Fourth of July cookout about six, seven years back? Who do you think popped him?”

This time both hands went to his hair. “Alma, jeez! Why don’t you
tell
me this stuff?”

“Because then you’d’ve popped him, and I already had. And it was the last time he tried to mess with me. He apologized when he sobered up. What I’m saying, Lieutenant, is say you’re sitting at a bar, waiting for somebody or just trying to have a quiet drink. He’s the type who’d be all over you, thinking he’s witty-like or sexy or whatever, when what he is? Drunk and stupid and annoying. But he’s not the type who’d follow you out of the bar and get physical or get riled up and start something when you tell him to blow. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, but I want to talk to him. I’d appreciate his contact information.”

“Sure. Yeah. Crap.” Brodie boosted up a hip, pulled out his pocket ’link, then read off the data. “Right now I want to punch him in the face, but I have to say, he’d never do anything like this. He wouldn’t have done anything to those girls. I mean, yeah, he might’ve gotten drunk enough back then to try for some touch, but he wouldn’t have killed anybody.”

“Okay. Did you ever see anyone come around, or notice anyone who worked there who gave you a bad feeling?”

“I can’t say I did, or remember. I was juggling a lot of small jobs back then, trying to get a good toehold. It wasn’t like I was there every day or anything. Sometimes I’d be there a few days running, but mostly it was spotty. They’d call me in for some little thing they couldn’t fix, or to fix something they’d tried to fix and screwed up more than it was screwed up to begin with. I got more work out of it—doing stuff for some of the staff, doing stuff for people Nash and Philly recommended me to.”

“Impressions, on any of the staff, including Nash and Philly.”

“They were doing good work, still are, and it takes a lot of doing from what I can see. There’s no clocking in and out.”

“One more thing.” Eve brought Linh’s image on screen. “Does she look familiar?”

“Wow, really pretty kid. No.” He glanced over at his wife, who shook her head. “Is she one of the . . .”

“She is.”

“God.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, angled, took another, longer look. “She doesn’t ring any bells. I don’t know if I’d remember after all this time, but she’s got a really distinctive face, you know? A stunner waiting to happen.”

“We appreciate the time.” Eve pushed to her feet. “If anything comes to mind, contact me.”

“I will—we will,” Brodie assured her. “I hate thinking about those girls.”

Eve figured she’d be doing little else but thinking about them, especially when the second reconstruction came through as they left the apartment building.

“Got another face.”

Roarke looked at her screen, studied the thin-cheeked, sad-eyed image. “Would you like me to run a search?”

“Peabody’s doing it on the preliminary we got earlier, now she’ll run it on this. But hold on. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

She dashed back into the building, left him on the sidewalk. To pass the time, he took out his PPC, did some research of his own.

She was back inside five minutes.

“He recognized this one. He seemed pretty confident, even added an eyebrow hoop they didn’t have on the image. And said she had crazy hair—purple, pink, and green. She had tats—full sleeves—and he figured her for no more than about twelve or thirteen tops. He remembers all this because he was working right there when she jumped one of the other kids. He doesn’t remember why, just that it took several members of the staff to yank them apart.”

“Which tells you she was in the building, as a resident, had at least one physical altercation, and from the description wasn’t the quiet, retiring type.”

“You can’t get tats at that age without a legal guardian signing off, showing ID, and being in attendance. Her remains indicate she’d been knocked around regularly so I don’t see her legal guardian taking the time to do something that stupid with her. And that tells me she was likely on the street awhile, had connections. Maybe she’d been picked up a few times. We’ll get her ID’d. We’ll have her name.”

“Are we off to talk to the rarely sober asshole while Peabody finds her?”

“Not yet. I’ll get to him, but whoever did this probably wasn’t drunk. Probably
isn’t
a drunk as they tend to mouth off and make stupid mistakes, like hit on the boss’s wife.”

“Some bosses’ wives,” Roarke said, tapping the dent in her chin with his finger, “handle themselves.”

“Yeah. Anytime one of your half a zillion employees puts a move on me, I’ll deck him. Don’t worry.”

“Not a worry in the world, about that.”

“Right now, I’m more interested in a former resident, current staff member, and granddaughter of the woman who donated the new building. Seraphim Brigham, granddaughter of Tiffany Brigham Bittmore.”

“I know of Tiffany Bittmore.” As she didn’t want him running a search, Roarke walked around her car to the driver’s seat. “Philanthropist, with particular interests in children and addictions. She worked as a general dogsbody for a political activist organization where she met and married Brigham when they were quite young I believe. Early twenties, and had two children with him before his death—a shuttle crash some fifteen or so years later. He was wealthy—family money—and political with a strong liberal leaning.”

He slid into a stream of north-bound traffic as he spoke.

“She married again some years after his death. The Bittmores were even wealthier. They had two more children—I believe—before he was killed during an earthquake in Indonesia, where he’d gone as an ambassador for a global health organization.”

“That’s knowing a lot about.”

“I supplemented my knowledge since this morning. She’s known for being generous with her time, money, and influence when the cause speaks to her. She lost a son—that would be this granddaughter’s father—to an overdose. Apparently his daughter was determined to follow in his footsteps before ending up at The Sanctuary. Bittmore showed her appreciation with the donation of the building and a trust for operating funds.”

“And now Seraphim works for Jones and Jones.”

“And is a respected therapist with a solid reputation. And is recently engaged.”

“Huh. I’m just thinking I have to make sure my next husband’s a rich bastard, too. But I’m not sure I can snap a richer bastard than you. The pool’s pretty shallow.”

“Maybe it’ll be deeper in eighty or ninety years.”

“Well, that’s something to consider. How do you know where we’re going?”

“You said you wanted to interview Seraphim Brigham. Anticipating that when you tagged me, I tugged a few lines and learned she’s scheduled for drinks and dinner at her grandmother’s home—her New York home. Not so far, really, from ours.”

“I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. You can be handy.”

He shot her a glance. “You should also consider your richer bastard, should you fish one out of the pool, needs to understand cop brains, and have the right connections.”

“Those are going on my list.” She shot him a glance in return. “Would you go for another cop in eighty or ninety years?”

“Absolutely not. The next time I’m after a nice, quiet woman, perhaps one who does watercolors and bakes scones.”

“My richer bastard bakes pies. I like pie.”

“I like pie, too. I’d like to meet him.”

“Wait a few decades. What’s he been doing for fifteen years?”

She wasn’t thinking of her fictional richer bastard now, Roarke mused. How her thought process fascinated.

“How did he stop killing? Did he? Did he find another way to dispose of the bodies? Did he die, end up in a cage, find God? He killed twelve. Probably within a few weeks or months. You don’t just stop cold. I keep asking myself, where is he? What’s he doing? I did a run on like crimes, and sure, you get a couple pops here and there for girls in that range, for the plastic wrap and other elements. But none that fit this, not this. Multiples, the time and effort to hide them, the lack of violence. How the hell did he kill them?”

“I think you need to give DeWinter a bit of time there.”

“Yeah, yeah. She and Morris have their heads together on it.”

Frustrated, Roarke concluded, that she didn’t have the data, couldn’t start using it to narrow her track toward the killer.

“We notified the parents of the first vic we ID’d. Solid upper middle-class—upper-upper. Both doctors, long-term first marriage, two other offspring—grown now. Nice home, stable, affluent. No signs of abuse on the remains, and every sign the victim had been well cared for, medically, physically.”

“Was she abducted?”

“No. At least not from home. Got pissy about a concert. Was going through a pissy stage, which apparently is pretty normal. Took off for the city—from Brooklyn—had money, so my best guess is she lived it up for a couple days, tried the walk on the wild side, liked it fine. She wasn’t like the girl he wrapped up with her though. If she’d stayed clean, she wouldn’t have stayed on that path. She’d have gone home. The other one? The last place she’d have gone was home because that’s where they hurt you.”

Roarke simply covered her hand with his. It’s all he had to do.

“It’s not like me,” Eve murmured. “There was never a home in the first place, and maybe that was an advantage. I didn’t expect someone to look out for me. And I didn’t know, until he was dead, I could run. Even after, I didn’t manage to run far. Running’s what killed her, or put her on the path to being a victim.”

She yanked her ’link when it signaled, read the text from Peabody.

“Shelby Ann Stubacker. She’s got a name now.”

“Tell me about her.”

“She was thirteen. Father’s doing a dime in Sing-Sing—his second for assault. Mother’s got a sheet, mostly for illegals. They didn’t file a report, so we wouldn’t have found her there. She was picked up a few times. Truancy, shoplifting, did some juvie time, and some court-ordered rehab as she was picked up stoned, and in possession of illegals. She was nine the first time she got busted. Born here, died here. She’d have a file with CPS, but what’s the point. The system failed her, everybody failed her.”

“You won’t.”

Roarke pulled up in front of a gold-trimmed white building with seas of glass sparkling. Considering the low-end look of the vehicle, it wasn’t a surprise to Eve to see the doorman’s chin jut up, his mouth tighten, and his feet beat across the royal blue carpeting that stretched from sparkling glass door to curb.

Now, she thought, Roarke would get a load of what she put up with. Looking forward to it, she squeezed her way out on the street side.

The minute Roarke stepped out on the sidewalk, the doorman went from protective terrier to welcoming hound.

“Sir! Are you visiting someone at The Metropolitan this evening?”

“As it happens, I’m accompanying Lieutenant Dallas inside. I’m sure she’ll appreciate you keeping her vehicle in place until she’s completed her business.”

“I’ll see to it personally. Can I notify anyone for you?”

“If you’d let Ms. Bittmore know Lieutenant Dallas is here to see her on NYPSD business.”

“I’ll let her know. You’ll want the first bank of elevators, on the left side of the lobby. Mr. Bittmore’s main entrance is on the fifty-third floor, number fifty-three hundred.”

“Thank you.”

Eve scowled her way inside. “How much did you slip him?”

“A fifty.”

“I don’t bribe doormen,” she said with some righteousness.

“No, darling, you reduce them to quivering puddles of fear and awe, but this seemed quicker and cleaner.”

“He recognized you anyway. I saw it. You don’t own the damn place, do you?”

“I don’t, no.” He glanced around the spacious gold and white lobby, turned to the elevators. “Pity. It’s quite nice.”

“Next time I want the quivering and the awe.”

He let her step in the elevator first, so he could give her a light pat on the ass. “Next time.”

A house droid met them at the door of an elegant little foyer with a lush grape arbor, complete with rustic stone benches, cleverly painted on its walls and ceiling. The droid, sober in a simple gray dress and low heels, requested identification.

Eve held out her badge, watched the droid scan it.

“Please come in. Mrs. Bittmore and Ms. Brigham are in the living area.”

The area couldn’t be called spacious, but it hit those elegant notes again with the play of light-colored fabrics against walls the color of good burgundy. Art leaned toward the old world with classy depictions of misty forests, quiet lakes, blooming meadows.

Two women rose from a wheat-colored love seat backed by a pair of glass doors and a short terrace—then the view of the great park.

The older one stepped forward. Tiffany Bittmore had allowed her hair to go white, but Eve decided the decision had elements of vanity as the perfect sweep of it resulted in the same sort of classy elegance as the decor.

Her eyes might have been a dreamy shade of blue, but they held a sharp shrewdness. Her face, dewy and smooth despite her years, wouldn’t have been called beautiful, but arresting.

The curve of her lips did nothing to soften the stiletto blades of her cheekbones.

“Lieutenant Dallas, it’s a pleasure to meet you. And, Roarke, another pleasure. Your reputations and deeds precede you.”

“As do yours,” Roarke returned, with a charm he could wear like a silk tie. “It’s truly an honor, Mrs. Bittmore.”

“The gods gifted you with looks designed to stop women’s hearts. I’d have drooled over this one,” she told Eve, “back in my day.”

“I’ve learned to step around the puddles.”

With a laugh, Mrs. Bittmore gave Eve a friendly slap on the arm. “I think I’ll like you. Come meet the light of my life, then we’ll have some coffee. I’ve read
The
Icove Agenda
and seen the vid, which I rarely do, so I know you’ve a fondness for real coffee. Clarissa?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll see to it right away.” The droid eased out of the room.

“My granddaughter, Seraphim.”

“It is a pleasure. It would be more of one, I’m sure, if we hadn’t heard the media bulletin.” She offered her hand, a woman with her grandmother’s eyes in a softer, less dramatic face. “I contacted HPCCY when we did, and spoke briefly with Philadelphia. She told me you’d been in to see her, and Nash.”

“You work at HPCCY, and were a resident of The Sanctuary,” Eve began.

“Please, let’s sit.” Mrs. Bittmore gestured to chairs. “This is a horrible thing, and it’s distressing for Seraphim.”

“I might’ve known some of them,” Seraphim said before she lowered to the love seat. “I almost certainly had to know some of them. The report didn’t give any names.”

“They didn’t have any to give.” Eve debated a moment, which angle to play first. She took out her ’link, brought up one of the ID photos. “Is she familiar?”

“Oh Lord.” Seraphim took a deep breath, then reached for the ’link, and the photo of Linh Penbroke. “It was years ago, but I think I’d remember her. She’s so pretty. I don’t. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this girl before. But I lived in The Sanctuary for months. So many came and went . . . Still, I think I’d remember this face.”

“Okay.” Eve took back the ’link, brought up the second image. “How about her?”

“Oh! It’s Shelby. Yes, I remember this girl. Shelby . . . I don’t know if I knew her last name. She was in residence with me. A year or so younger, I think, but years tougher. She scored me zoner. Sorry, Gamma,” she added with a glance toward her grandmother.

“It was long ago.”

“The first few weeks I was there, I was really only looking for a place to sleep. I didn’t have any intention of getting clean, or changing my attitude, just paid lip service to all that.”

“You were so angry,” her grandmother added.

“Oh, I was
pissed
at everyone and everything.” She gave a soft, almost wondering laugh, kissed Tiffany’s cheek. “Especially you because you just wouldn’t give up on me.”

“Never.”

“So I went to the sessions, did the assignments—because I got a bed and food out of it. I figured they—the Joneses—were suckers, and I snuck illegals, alcohol, whatever I could when I wanted. But it wasn’t as easy as I’d assumed, because they weren’t suckers. I traded a beaded bracelet I had for the zoner. Everybody knew Shelby could get whatever you wanted, smuggle it in, if you gave her something she liked, and a little time.”

Seraphim paused when the droid brought in the coffee, and left just as quietly as she’d come.

“The staff didn’t know?” Eve asked Seraphim.

“She was very clever. No,
canny
’s a better word. Shelby was very canny. She got caught for minor things a time or two—and looking back, looking back not only as an adult but as a therapist, she very likely let herself get caught. Minor things were expected, and the punishments easy to get through. We outnumbered the staff probably ten to one easily back then. They were doing what they could to keep us safe, off the streets, out of sex trades, to help us. But to us, a lot of us? They were just marks.”

“What about a carpenter’s helper? Jon Clipperton.”

“I don’t remember his name, and may not have known it, but I remember the man Brodie brought with him a few times, in those last weeks we were in that building. Some men look at you,” she said to Eve, “and you know they’re seeing you naked. Sometimes that’s okay, you’re seeing them naked, too. And other times it’s insulting. Or it’s worse. I was young, but I’d been on the street awhile. I knew the way he looked at me and some of the other girls. And it wasn’t okay.”

“Did he do more than look?”

“I don’t know. I think he got some beer to Shelby, but she never said. We weren’t tight. I was, to her, an occasional customer. How did they die?”

“I can’t answer that yet. Did you ever go back inside that building after you’d changed locations?”

“No. I never wanted to go back there. I changed, before the move. Things changed for me, a transition. The talk therapy I paid lip service to so I’d get that bed, food, it began to get through, even though I resisted. Philadelphia worked with me one-on-one—whether I wanted her to or not and despite the blocks I put up, she began to get through the anger and self-hatred. She finally convinced me to speak to Gamma—my grandmother.”

“And you donated a building, and funds to the Joneses.”

“I did,” Mrs. Bittmore confirmed. “I can’t say they saved Seraphim’s life, but they helped her come home, they helped her discover who she really was.”

Tiffany patted Seraphim’s knee as she sipped her coffee. “They were doing their work in an inadequate space in a subpar building, and couldn’t afford the loan on that building much less proper maintenance, repair, the right staff. They’d given Seraphim a chance. I gave them one.”

“Ms. Brigham, you said Clipperton gave you a bad feeling. Was there anyone else who gave you that kind of feeling, or made you uneasy?”

“Some of the boys who came and went. You’d learn who to avoid. Lieutenant, we were a house of addicts and emotionally damaged children. Some of us, as I was for a time, were just looking for a free ride and a way to score. If the staff found illegals, alcohol, or weapons, they were confiscated. No one was ever asked to leave, not while I was in residence. That was the point. It was a sanctuary, and the risk of that is giving safe harbor to those who want trouble. But the benefits outweigh that risk. They saved me, or put me on a path where I could save myself. I’m far from the only one.”

“Does anyone stick out? Anyone you can think of who had reason to cause Shelby harm?”

“She scared the hell out of me, and a lot of others,” Seraphim said with a hint of a smile. “I thought I could handle myself. The arrogance of youth, the few months I’d spent on the street, most of that high. But even at my worst, I wouldn’t have taken her on. She had enemies, no question, but they tended to give her a wide berth. She could fight. I saw her take down another girl who probably had twenty pounds on her, and wasn’t a wilter. But Shelby was just fierce.”

She paused a moment. “My anger,” she said slowly, “I see now, again as an adult, as a therapist, paled beside hers.”

“Who did she hang with?”

“Ah . . . there were a couple of girls, and a boy. Let me think.” As she sipped coffee, Seraphim rubbed at her temple as if to stir up the memory. “DeLonna—skinny black girl,” Seraphim continued, closing her eyes. “She could sing. Yes, yes, I remember her. She had an incredible voice, a true gift. And another girl who was Missy or Mikki. I think Mikki. A bit plump, hard eyes. And a boy everybody called T-Bone. Smart, a little spooky. He’d just drift around like smoke. He’d steal your molars and you wouldn’t know it. Old burn marks on his arms—he covered some with tats, but you could see, and a scar down his cheek.

“They weren’t always together, but they hung together more than not, and more than any of them did with anyone else.”

“Did anyone on the staff have trouble with Shelby, or these others? Did anyone threaten them to your knowledge?”

“They were in trouble often, and I’d say, with Shelby in particular, it was a constant battleground with the staff. It’s frustrating and difficult work, Lieutenant, full of conflict and struggle. And incredibly rewarding. I would imagine you often feel the same about yours.”

“I guess I would. Do you know anything about a Jubal Craine? His daughter, Leah, was a resident.”

“I knew Leah. She was quiet, kept her head down, not only stayed out of trouble, but tried to be invisible, if you understand me.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I remember her, very well, because she was, in essence, my transition.”

“How was that?” Eve asked.

“We were in a class. I can’t remember what class, but we had to put in a certain number of hours a week on educational requirements. We were in a class when I heard him—Leah’s father. He was shouting, raging really, shouting her name, telling her she better get her lazy ass out there. Shouting at the staff. She went sheet white, I remember that. I can still see the look on her face. First the terror, the kind I’d never felt, then the resignation, which was almost worse. I remember all that, and the way she just got up, no protests, no pleas, and walked out.”

Seraphim put her coffee down, gripped her hands in her lap. “It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen, the way she just stood up, walked away. I remember that moment because I thought of the things Philadelphia and I talked about in one-to-ones. I thought of how scary it was on the street when you’re broke and hungry, cold, and when you hear stories about rapes and beatings. And I started thinking how Leah didn’t have anybody outside The Sanctuary but this man who was shouting how he was going to whip the sass out of her, and that sort of thing. I thought of Gamma, and how she’d never hurt me. Not ever. And I started thinking I wanted to have somebody who’d take care of me, who’d protect me. That I
did
have somebody. And Leah didn’t.

“They had to give her to him, you see. He was the legal guardian, and she wouldn’t say he hurt her. She just said she’d go home with him.”

“Poor thing,” Mrs. Bittmore murmured.

“The next time I saw her was months later.”

“She came back?” Eve demanded.

“I don’t know, actually. I saw her on the street. I was shopping with a friend. Gamma trusted me—
I
trusted me by then. Or had started to. I saw Leah getting on a bus. I nearly called out, but I’m ashamed to say I didn’t want my friend to know I knew this girl with her torn jacket and bruised face. So I didn’t call out. But she looked at me. For just a moment we looked at each other.”

Tears shimmered in Seraphim’s eyes. “She smiled at me. Then she got on the bus, and I never saw her again. But I did think, even then, I thought: She got away. At least she got away from him again.”

“I was told he came back, too.”

“I didn’t know that. I must have been home by then. He wouldn’t have found her at The Sanctuary. She didn’t go back there, at least not while I was there—and, honestly, I believe she was smart and scared enough not to go back to where he’d found her. It wasn’t long after I went home, to my grandmother, that they changed locations.”

“I had the building,” Mrs. Bittmore explained. “And when I went back to thank Philadelphia and Nash, the others, I’d already made arrangements to donate it, if they wanted it. I’d done my due diligence,” she said with a sharp smile. “So I knew they were legitimate. I asked if they’d be willing to let my lawyers and money people study their books and records, and they were. We were satisfied. I had my granddaughter back. I was more than satisfied. You never told me about this girl. This Leah.”

“No. I felt ashamed, I suppose, that I hadn’t gone up to her, spoken to her.”

“We could look for her, find where she is now.”

“Leave that to me,” Eve advised. “Thank you,” she said as she rose. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Have I?” Seraphim rose as well. “You must have already known Shelby’s name.”

“You gave me a better picture of her.”

“Any one of them could have been me. Any one of the twelve. I’ll do anything I can to help you.”