Promises in Death (38 page)

“And for her, wouldn’t you think?” Roarke walked back to the board. “For her, also sweet to have a part in undermining the son—the prince, as he’d appear to be from the outside. The one who had all she didn’t. The wealth, the advantages, the attention. The name. It all falls into place with this single element. But then you have to prove this single element is fact.”

“I can do that.” Eve grinned fiercely. “DNA doesn’t lie. I’m going to write this all up, toss it to Mira to add to the stew for the profile. I still need something that puts her and Sandy together, even just the same general place, same general time.”

“That would be my assignment.”

“It would, but you have to play it straight.”

“You’re always spoiling my fun.”

“You already had fun. I groveled.”

“True.” He walked over, laid his hands on her shoulders, laid his lips on hers. “I know you.” He rubbed her shoulders, lightly. “The part of you who isn’t working the case in your head is wondering if all this is true, is she what she is, did she do what she did because of that DNA.”

Yes, she thought, he knew her. “It’s a question.”

“And the mirror turns so you wonder next about your own blood. What passes from father to daughter.”

“I know I’m not like her. But it’s another question.”

“Here’s an answer. Three fathers—hers, mine, yours—and three products of that blood, so to speak. And all of us have done what we’ve done with it. Maybe because of it. You know you’re not like her, you’re sure of that much. I know you. I’m sure you never could have been.”

He kissed her again before he left her.

She put it away, put away that part of her that wasn’t working the case in her head. That was for later.

She stitched the theory together for Mira, and thought it was a shame Grady’s DNA wasn’t on record. She’d have her warrants in a fingersnap if she proved Grady was Max Ricker’s daughter. Still, it wouldn’t take much. A little spit, skin, hair, blood—whatever came handiest—was all she needed.

She sent messages to her commander, to Reo, to Peabody, and after a brief hesitation, to Morris.

Sitting back, Eve calculated the best, legal, and most satisfying method of collecting Cleo Grady’s DNA.

“Here’s an interesting bit of trivia,” Roarke commented as he came back in. “The football team representing the university where Alex and Sandy became mates happens to play against the team representing the university where Grady was a visiting student.”

“Is that a fucking fact?”

“It is. In fact, these teams hold a deep-seated rivalry and their matches are what you’d call events. Rallies, dances, mad celebrations. They held two of these events—one on each team’s home pitch, during the time Grady was there.”

“I like it.”

“Alex got a bit of press as he scored goals in both those matches. I didn’t find Sandy’s name in any media, but he is listed as a member of the team.”

“Second-string benchwarmer. Has to be a pisser. Reo’s going to make noises—or make noises that her boss is going to make noises—that thousands of people must’ve been at those games. Hard to prove that Sandy and Grady actually met up. But it’s going to be enough. It’s going to weigh. Maybe Alex met her,” she speculated. “Or saw Sandy with her. Would he know about her, about having a sister?”

“Max would only have told him if it was useful. More useful, to Max, to keep it to himself.”

“Still, it has to be addressed. I have a lot of people to talk to in the morning.” She angled her head. “What you said before about her education and her parents’ finances. If Ricker paid for it, there’s a record somewhere, however deep it’s buried. I can’t look at Grady’s any deeper than I have, but Ricker’s an open book. I can go anywhere I want there. As long as I play it straight.”

“I knew you were going to say that, and just as I was getting excited.”

Eve smiled. “Let’s find her college fund. Add a little more weight to the scale for Reo.”

 

 

 

S
he set up what she could, then refined the steps in a briefing the next morning at Central.

“It’s not just my ass in the sling if I push for this warrant and you come up empty,” Reo told her. “It’ll be yours, and the department’s in there with me.”

“We’ll find something. The warrant’s not out of the box with what we have. Add in the blood tie with Ricker and Mira’s profile, it’s not only in the box, it’s a lock.”

“Alleged blood tie,” Reo reminded her. “And the profile hinges on that. The need to impress her father, to punish her brother, and the rest of the psycho-shrink babble—no offense.”

“None taken,” Mira assured her.

“All that stands on her being Ricker’s kid, and knowing it.”

“We’ll be substantiating that today. You’re up for this, Morris?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Peabody and I will pull Alex Ricker in, work him. If he knows about a sister, even suspects he may have one, we’ll get it out of him. And letting the word get out that we’ve got Alex Ricker in the box, are interviewing him in the matter of Coltraine and Sandy? It’s going to give Grady a feeling of accomplishment. I’ll bet she’ll want a pat on the back from Daddy.”

“It would fit,” Mira agreed. “She may try to contact him through her usual sources.”

“Which we’ll have, also in a box, within hours. Rouche will give us Ricker, and he’ll give us Sandy. We may get lucky and get another log to add on the Grady fire.” She looked at Feeney. “We need to know asap if she tries for the contact. You’ll be set.”

“We’ll be set. She sends anything to the ’link Callendar found in Rouche’s quarters, we’ll nail it down. Once you work the return process out of Rouche, we’ll send her whatever return you want.”

“We’re a go then. Get me the damn warrants, Reo. Peabody, wait outside, please. McNab, set it up. Morris, another minute.”

Eve waited until the room cleared. “McNab’s going to have ears on you the whole time you’re with her.”

“I’m not worried about it.”

“She’s a killer. It’s her job. You should worry about it. If she senses anything off, she’ll do you first, think about it later. You just have to—”

“We’ve been over what you want me to do, how you want me to do it, three times. I can do this. And I should be the one to do it, not only for Amaryllis, but because I’m the only logical choice. You have to trust me to do my part. I’m trusting you to do yours.”

No choice, she thought, but to back off. “Call it in, either way.”

“I will.”

Eve watched him walk away, then stuck her hands in her pockets as Peabody stepped up. “He’ll be okay, Dallas. McNab’ll be right there. Practically.”

“If he tips it the wrong way, and she pulls out her weapon or a knife, McNab will get it on record. Morris is still down. I couldn’t work out a way to do it myself. She’ll be on alert with me. I thought about pushing her into taking a swing at me, so I could swing back. Then, oops, I’ve got her blood on my shirt. But then I’ve provoked her into giving up DNA instead of her—essentially—volunteering it.”

“He’ll get it done. He needs to, so he will.”

“Right. Contact Alex Ricker, and ask him real nice to come on down so we can chat.”

“He’ll bring a bunch of lawyers.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

She went into her office to prep, to line up all the threads she intended to tie together. She could wrap that knot tight around Cleo Grady, but she needed all those threads to put the bow on it.

Now it was wait, she thought. Wait for Reo to get the warrants, wait for Callendar and Sisto to deliver Rouche, wait for Morris to play out his role.

Alex Ricker? At this point he was more a pawn than a thread. She’d use him—and prove his father, his friend, and his half sister had used him. And she’d prove all the threads ran out from him, simply because he was.

She wouldn’t be sorry for it. He’d made his choices—to follow in his father’s footsteps, or close enough alongside them to cross the lines. He’d chosen to stay on that path rather than change it for a woman who must have loved him. A woman who died because she’d loved him, and left him.

She stood at her window, drinking coffee, considering choices. When she heard the knock on her door, she called out, “Come on.”

Mira stepped in, closed the door behind her. “Do you want me to observe when you interview Alex Ricker?”

“I’ve got it.”

“All right. I will want to observe if and when you interview Cleo Grady.”

“When. The DNA’s going to lock it. I need that because the law says I do. But I know who she is. She’s Ricker’s spawn. What I don’t know, what I’m curious about is what she wanted, or needed, from him. Was it the recognition, the money, the thrill? Maybe all of it. It fits that she sought him out rather than the other way. It fits their profiles.”

“Yes. She’d be nothing to him, and he’d be important to her. She could make herself important to him.”

“He educated her, so she must have. The college money, coming through a scholarship—with her the only recipient. That was stupid and greedy on Ricker’s part. Why not spend some bucks to send off a few other kids? He’d buried the payment, putting it through one of the arms of one of his fronts. He could’ve made it a legit deal, done the same a few times. Gotten the tax break or whatever.”

“He wouldn’t give a dollar to anyone without a purpose, a personal interest. It’s not in his scope.”

“Once she took it, he owned her. Was she too stupid to see that, or didn’t she care? She didn’t care,” Eve said before Mira spoke. “I read your profile. I’m just talking out loud.”

“It troubles you, all of this. The genetics of it.”

“Maybe it does. But that only makes me more determined to put her away. She had a pretty good life from what I can see. Parents who stuck, a decent home. She tossed it. Some people are just born fucked up. I know that.”

She studied Grady’s photo on her board. “Maybe she was, maybe she was always going to go bad—even without knowing Ricker, without knowing she came from him. And maybe needing to know where she came from and finding out turned her, just enough. Just enough so she kept going, and couldn’t go back. I’m curious.”

“Will it make a difference in what you do?” Mira asked her. “Or how you handle what you’ve done, afterward?”

“No to the first. I’m not sure to the second. I’m not going to say taking her down isn’t personal, because it is. Because she’s a cop, because of Ricker. Because of Morris and because of Coltraine. It’s personal, right down the line.”

“And it’s easier, clearer, to take the steps, do what has to be done when it’s not. Or not this personal.”

Eve met Mira’s eyes and spoke calmly, coolly. “I want to hurt her, to use my hands on her, get her blood on them. I want that for all the reasons I just said. And I want it just for me.”

“But you won’t.”

Eve shrugged. “I guess we’ll see.”

“You won’t jeopardize the case for your own satisfaction, however much you’d enjoy it. That alone should answer one of your questions, Eve. Genetics stamp us, we can’t deny it. But we build from there. At the end of the day you’ll do what needs to be done, for all the reasons you named. But at the core of it, at the heart, you’ll do what needs to be done for Amaryllis Coltraine.”

“I didn’t give her a chance, you know?”

“In what way?”

She let out a breath, shoved at her hair. “When she was alive, with Morris. I didn’t give her a chance. It kind of irritated me for some reason that he was stuck on her. Stupid.”

“Not stupid, really. You didn’t know her, and you’re very attached to him.”

“Not that way.”

Mira smiled. “Not that way. But you’re not one who trusts quickly, or easily. God knows. You didn’t trust her yet.”

“I’ve been having dreams, kind of conversational dreams with her. It’s weird. Weird because I know it’s my head holding both ends of the conversation, but . . . I had this thought the other night at the shower deal. This thought that I guess comes out of those weird conversation dreams. I think I would’ve liked her okay if I’d given her more of a chance, when there was a chance. I think if that shower deal had been another six months or so down the road, she’d have been there.”

“It’s harder knowing that.”

“It’s fucking brutal actually.”

“Dallas. Sorry, Dr. Mira.” Peabody poked her head in the door. “Alex Ricker’s on his way in.”

“Good. Set up for interview.”

Wait’s over, she thought.

ALEX SAT WITH HIS COMPLEMENT OF LAWYERS while Eve and Peabody set up, while Eve engaged the recorder and read off the salients. Though she’d Mirandized him before, she did so again.

“Questions?” she asked pleasantly. “Comments? Snide remarks?”

As she expected, the head suit went into a prepared riff on Mr. Ricker’s voluntary presence, on his willingness to cooperate, the previous examples of his cooperation. She let it run through, then nodded.

“Is that it? All finished now? Or would you like to give examples of Mr. Ricker’s kindness to the little orphaned children and small puppies?”

Harry Proctor looked down his important nose. “I’ll make a note of your sarcasm and discourteous attitude.”

“My partner here keeps them on disc.”

“I can get you a copy,” Peabody offered.

“And here’s what I’m making a note of. The cooperative and civil-minded Mr. Ricker comes into interview with not one, not two, but three—count them, three—lawyers. Makes me wonder just what you’ve got to worry about, Alex.”

“I believe in being prepared, particularly when it comes to the police.”

“I bet you do. But, golly, it’s strange that someone who’s prepared, a businessman of your . . . caliber would be, as he claims, oblivious to the machinations—don’t you love that word, Peabody?”

“Top-ten favorite.”

“Let’s say it again, to the machinations of his personal assistant and longtime best pal, Rod Sandy. That you’d just be blissfully ignorant of Sandy and your father’s plotting and planning. It makes you kind of an idiot, doesn’t it?”