Portrait in Death (27 page)

"I don't teach anybody. Train maybe, but that's different."

"I wouldn't have the shot at a gold shield, not this soon, if you hadn't taught me."

"Trained you, and let's stay on target here. The other level is taking from the subject and seeing them as just that. A subject, not a person with a life, a family, with needs or rights. A subject, like-I don't know-a tree. If you've got to cut down the tree to get what you want, well, too bad. Plenty more trees."

"You're talking to a Free-Ager here." Peabody shuddered. "Talking about indiscriminately mowing down trees hits me in a primal area."

"The killer isn't killing just for the thrill of taking a life. It isn't done with rage, or for profit. It isn't sexual. But it is personal. It's intimate-for the killer. This person, this specific person, has what I need, so I'll take it. I'll take what they have, then it becomes mine. They become mine, and the result is art. Admire me."

"That's a pretty twisted route."

"It's a pretty twisted mind. And a smart one, a cool one."

"You think it's Professor Browning?"

"She's connected, so we line up the connections. Who knows her, and Hastings, and the two victims? Who had contact with all of them? Let's find out."

She started at Juilliard, at the theater department. At some point in their young lives, Rachel Howard and Kenby Sulu had intersected.

She sent Peabody off to make the rounds with the photograph of Rachel while she made her own.

When her 'link beeped, she was standing at the back of a rehearsal hall watching a bunch of young people pretend to be various animals.

"Dallas."

"Hello, Lieutenant." Roarke's face filled her screen, and almost immediately shifted from an easy smile to puzzlement. "Where are you? The zoo?"

"In a manner of speaking." Wanting to cut out some of the background noise, she stepped out into the hall. "Everything okay?"

"Well enough. Eve, I have to go out of town for a few days."

"Oh." It wasn't unusual for him to have to buzz around the planet, or off it. The man had interests all over the developed universe. But the timing was poor. "If you could-"

"I have to go to Ireland," he said before she could finish. "I need to go back, and deal with this."

Stupid, she thought immediately. Stupid to have this blindside her. Of course he'd need to go back. "Look, okay, I can see how you'd feel that, but I'm in the middle of things here. I need to stick with this until I close the case, then I can take some time. I'll put in for it when I get back to Central."

"I need to deal with this myself."

She opened her mouth, ordered herself to breathe before she spoke. "Right."

"Eve, it has to be done, and isn't something you need to worry about. I don't want you to worry about it, or me. I'm sorry to leave you to handle Summerset, and I'll try to make it as quick as I can."

She kept her face blank, her voice even for both their sakes. "When are you leaving?"

"Now. Immediately. Fact is, I'm on the shuttle now. I can't tell you precisely where I'll be-I don't know yet. But I'll have my personal 'link with me. You'll be able to reach me anytime."

"You knew you were going." She lowered her voice, turning her back on the corridor as students rushed by behind her. "You knew this morning."

"I had to see to some details first."

"But you'd already made up your mind to go."

"I had, yes."

"And you're telling me like this so I can't do anything to stop you."

"Eve, you wouldn't stop me. And I won't have to put your work in a holding pattern so you can come along and nurse me through this."

"Is that what you did when you went with me to Dallas? Nursed me through it?"

Frustration ran over his face. "That was a different matter."

"Oh yeah, with you being a man and all, with unbreakable balls. I keep forgetting."

"I have to go." He spoke coolly now. "I'll let you know where I am as soon as I can manage, and I'll be back in a few days. Probably sooner. You can kick my unbreakable balls then. Meanwhile, I love you. Ridiculously."

"Roarke-" But he'd already ended the transmission. "Damn it. Damn it." She kicked the wall, twice.

She marched back into the rehearsal room and vented her frustration by stalking through the slinking tigers and leaping chimps.

The instructor was a pencil-thin woman with a high shock of blue hair. "Ah," she said, "and here we have the lone wolf."

"Shut them down," Eve ordered.

"Class is in progress."

"Shut them down." Eve whipped out her badge. "Now."

"Oh damn it, not another Illegals sweep. Stop!" For a thin woman, she had a big voice, and her order shut off the din.

Eve stepped in front of her. "I'm Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD." There was a communal groan at the announcement, and two students edged toward the rear doors. "Hold it! I'm not interested in what you've got in your pockets or your bloodstream, but anybody goes out those doors, I will be."

Movement stopped.

"I have a picture. I want you to come up here, one at a time, and look at it. I want to know if you know this girl, have seen her, or have any information on her. You." She pointed at a boy in a black unitard and baggy shorts. "Here."

He swaggered up. "Nope."

"Look at the picture, smart-ass, or this is going to turn into an Illegals sweep."

He smirked at her, but he looked. "Don't know her, never seen her. Can I go, Officer?"

"Lieutenant. No. Stand over there." She pointed to the right wall, then gestured to a girl, also in black.

She started up, flicking a toothy grin at the boy now lounging against the wall, as though they shared a private joke. But when she looked at the photo, the humor drained out of her face.

"On the news. I saw her on the news. It's that girl from Columbia who was killed. Like Kenby."

The murmuring started from the crowd of students, and Eve let it roll. "That's right. Did you know Kenby?"

"Sure. Sure I did. Everybody did. Man, oh man, this sucks so large."

"Have you seen this girl before?"

Even as she shook her head, someone called out. "I have. I think."

Eve shifted, looked at the boy who stood with his hand raised. "Come up here. Go stand over there," she told the girl.

"I sort of think I saw her." The boy wore the black uniform, and a forest of silver loops along the curve of his ear. He had a trio of matching hoops at the peak of his left eyebrow.

"What's your name?"

"Mica, Mica Constantine. Kenby and I had a lot of classes together, and we hung out sometimes. We weren't real tight, but sometimes we partied with the same group."

"Where did you see her?"

"I think I saw her. When I saw her on the news reports, she looked sort of familiar. And when Kenby-when I heard about what happened to him, like with her, I thought, hey, isn't that the chick from the club?"

Eve felt the vibe at the base of her spine. "What club?"

"Make The Scene. Some of us go there sometimes, and I think I've seen her there. I think I remember seeing her and Kenby dancing a couple of times. I'm not absolute about it, just it seems to me."

"When do you think you saw them together?"

"Not together. I mean they weren't like a thing. I think I saw them dancing a couple of times, like last month maybe. I haven't been to the club in a while. Only reason I remember is they looked good, you know. I'm taking this class to learn how to free up my body, how to move it. So I was watching the dancing especially, and they really moved."

"I bet other people noticed them."

"I guess."

When she reconnected with Peabody, they had three witnesses between them who'd seen Rachel and Kenby dancing at the club.

"They didn't come in together, sit together, leave together," Eve summed up as she headed back downtown. "A few casual dances, over a few weeks in the summer, from what we have so far. No way it's a coincidence."

"Someone saw them there, and that cemented it?"

"Saw them there, or saw them at some point, somewhere else. Individually or together. They both liked to dance, so maybe they hooked up elsewhere. Both college kids. She might've gone to see one of his performances. Diego and Hooper both frequent the club. Odds are either or both of them saw these two together. We'll sweep Columbia again, see if any of Rachel's friends or classmates remembers seeing her with Kenby. Or mentioning him."

***

While Eve tugged on the next line, Roarke walked down the streets of South Dublin. The area had once been as familiar to him as his own face. There'd been changes since his youth, plenty for the good.

The Urban Wars had crushed this part of the city, turned the projects into slums, and the streets into a battlefield. He remembered the aftermath only dimly. Most of it had been over and done before he'd been born.

But the consequences had lasted a generation.

Poverty and the thieves it bred still haunted this area. Hunger and the anger it fed lived here, day by day.

But it was coming back, slowly. The Irish knew all about wars, conflicts, hunger, and poverty. And they dealt with it, sang of it, wrote of it. And drank around it of an evening.

So, there was the Penny Pig. It had been a neighborhood pub when he'd been a boy and most of his neighbors were villains of one sort or the other.

He supposed it wouldn't be inaccurate to name him one of the villains.

It had been a haunt for him, and those he ran with. A place to go and have a pint and not worry about the cops coming in to roust you. There'd been a girl there he'd loved as much as he was able, and friends he'd valued.

All of them, dead and gone now, he thought as he stood outside the door. All but one. He'd come back to the Penny Pig, and the one friend alive from his boyhood. Maybe he'd find some of the answers.

He stepped inside, to the dark wood, the smokey light, the smell of beer and whiskey and cigarettes, and the sounds of rebel songs played low.

Brian was behind the bar, building a Guinness and holding a conversation with a man who looked to be older than dirt. There were a few at the low tables, drinking or having a sandwich. A miniscreen playing some Brit soap opera sat over the bar with the sound muted.

It was early in the day yet, but never too early to stop by a pub. If you wanted conversation, information, or just a sociable drink, where else would you go?

Roarke stepped up to the bar and waited for Brian to glance over.

And when he did, Brian's wide face creased in smiles. "Well now, here's himself come to grace my humble establishment once more. We'd break out the French champagne had we any."

"A pint of that'll do well enough."

"Do you see here, Mister O'Leary, sir, who we have among us today?"

The old man turned his head, and his rheumy eyes stared at Roarke out of a face as flat and thin as a plank. He lifted the pint Brian had just passed him, drank slow and deep.

"It's Roarke, is it, all grown up and fancy as a prince. Bit rougher around the edges, you were, when you came around to pinch wares from my shop down the street."

"You chased me out with a broom more than once."

"Aye, and it's no doubt your pockets were heavier when you lit out than when you came in."

"True enough. It's good to see you again, Mr. O'Leary."

"Got rich, didn't you?"

"I did, yes."

"So he'll pay for your pint as well as his own," Brian said and slid a pint down to Roarke.

"Happy to." Roarke took out a bill large enough to pay for a dozen pints, set it on the bar. "I need to speak with you, Brian, on a private matter."

Friends or not, the note disappeared into Brian's pocket. "Come back to the snug then." As he turned, he pounded a fist on the door behind the bar. "Johnny, get off your lazy arse and mind the bar."

He walked down to a small room at the end, opened the door for Roarke. "And where's Lieutenant Darling?"

"She's home."

"And well, is she?"

"She's well, thanks. Busy."

"Rounding up criminals, no doubt. You give her a kiss for me, and remind her when she's done with you, I'm waiting to make her mine."

He sat at one of the spindly chairs at the single table gracing the little room. Then grinned. "I'll be damned to hell and back, it's good to see you. Happier circumstances I hope, than the last."

"I haven't come to bury another friend."

"God bless him." Brian clicked the glass he'd brought with him against Roarke's. "To Mick then."

"To Mick, and the rest of them that's gone." He drank, then just stared into the foam.

"What's troubling your mind?"

"Long story."

"Since when haven't I had the time and the inclination to hear a long one? And when you're buying?"

"Do you remember when Meg Roarke left?"

Brian's eyebrows lowered, his lips pursed. "I remember she was here, then she was gone, and nobody was sorry to see the back of her."

"Do you have any recollection of... of someone else living with him-before she came. Do you remember anyone speaking of a young girl who was with him?"

"Seems to me there were a number of women who came and went. But before Meg? Can't say. Christ, Roarke, I'd've been in nappies, same as you."

"Your father knew him, and well. Did you never hear the name Siobhan Brody mentioned in your house, or around the neighborhood?"

"I don't remember, no. What's this about then?"

"She was my mother, Bri." It still caught in his throat. "I've learned Meg wasn't, and this young girl from Clare was." Roarke lifted his eyes. "The bastard killed her, Brian. He murdered her."

"Sweet singing Jesus. I don't know of this. I swear to you."

"I don't think he could have managed it alone. Not without a bit of help, or not without someone knowing what he'd done."

"My father ran with him off and on, and did things-all of us did-that weren't right along the clean side of the law. But murder a girl?" Looking Roarke dead in the eye, Brian shook his head. "My da wouldn't have had any of that."

"No. He wasn't one I thought of for this."

"But you're thinking." Brian nodded, and put his mind to it himself. "It was an ugly time. There were still petty little wars raging. Death was everywhere and cheaper in many ways than living."