Thankless in Death (In Death 37)

12

EVE BROKE THE SEAL ON THE REINHOLDS’ apartment door and entered. It still smelled of death, with a lacing of the sweeper’s chemicals.

“We’re going through it again.”

“What are we looking for?” Peabody asked her.

Eve scanned the living area, still surprisingly neat and tidy in the wake of murder. “He played Little League, and kept the bat. Or more likely his parents kept it. They’d have kept other stuff, right? Isn’t that how it works? Parents hang on to things, to pieces of their kids. Photographs, sure, but mementos.”

“Kid drawings, school reports, trophies, and awards, like that, sure. Most would. Mine sure did—do.”

“Anything they kept he didn’t take we look at. Family photos, too. Vacation and holiday stuff. Anything might connect to someone he’s got a grudge against, or somewhere he wants to go again.”

She walked into the kitchen. “It started here. When he picked up the knife, turned it on his mother, that’s when it all started for him. Reconstruction says she was here. It’s lunchtime. He’s fixing his lunch or she’s fixing it for him. She’s fixing it.”

Eve put a picture of the mother in her head, as she’d been in her ID shot. “She’s fixing it because that’s what she does. She fixes the meals, keeps the house. Probably a sandwich so the knife’s out. It’s right there when he decides to do it. She’s nagging at him, that’s how he sees it.”

And seeing it herself, Eve walked around the table. “You’ve got to get a job, grow up, get your shit together. Maybe she tells him she and his father are giving him a deadline or he’s out. Maybe she didn’t wait to confront him together with her husband. So he picks up the knife, jams it into her. And it feels so good, the look on her face is so satisfying he does it again. Just keeps doing it even when she tries to get away, when she falls, even when she’s already dead. And then he eats his lunch.”

“What?”

“He ate after Nuccio. Had a big snack. I bet he sat right down here and ate, and started planning how he’d kill his father. Plenty of time, time to start putting what he wanted together, hunting up their passcodes, checking out the bank accounts. Plenty of time.

“He never panicked,” Eve continued. “He never tried to clean anything up, hide anything. It’s like he … came of age here in the kitchen over his mother’s bloody corpse.”

“Well, God.”

“He’s got the ambition and the brains to go after the money, after what he recognizes or considers valuables. To take the time for planning that before and after he kills his father. To do that he gets his old bat—that memento. Maybe his old man pitched him a few back in the day, criticized his form. He doesn’t take the bat with him. It didn’t matter to him. He buys a new one for his tool kit.”

“Leaving childish things behind.”

“Huh?”

“I just thought … you said he came of age. So he left the bat he’d used as a kid and bought a new one. They probably bought him the first bat, the murder weapon. He buys one now for himself.”

“That’s good.” Eve nodded. “That’s how he thinks. Still, a little fear of the father. He hides, lies in wait, takes him by surprise. Ambush rather than confront. Then he leaves them both there, where they fell, leaves them swimming in their own blood, and eats and sleeps and plans. It’s like a kid again, a teenager maybe, tossing his stuff on the floor, stepping over it rather than picking it up, putting it away. Nobody here to tell him to clean up his space. It’s deliberate.”

“What part?”

“Staying here until Saturday night. Leaving them on the floor, dishes scattered around the kitchen. She kept a tidy home, raised him to pick up his space, nagged at him about it. Now fuck her, he’ll make as much mess as he wants.”

“No mess in the living area or their bedroom.”

“He’s not interested in those spaces. It’s all about the little office area, the kitchen, his room, the bathroom. He hates how old it feels in here, all his mother’s fancy touches, the old stuff she and his father hang on to, set around, or tuck away. The traditions irritate him. He wants new—like the new bat, the new suit. He wants some shine.”

She took a turn around again. “He’ll look for a status place. He wants the opposite of this, the opposite of settled, homey, traditional. That’s what he’s after now.”

“A newer building, or something recently rehabbed.”

“Modern, I think. Slick and sleek. Everything he’s never had because he doesn’t see what he had here, he’s not grateful for growing up in a home where people cared about making it nice, keeping it nice, where they valued family heirlooms and traditions. He hates all of it. Let’s take it apart, then follow his trail.”

The silver-and-glass tower rising above the Hudson River boasted its own bank, a two-level state-of-the-art fitness center—with pool, a five-star spa, a select group of high-end boutiques, twenty-four-hour concierge service, two exclusive restaurants, three bars, and for an additional fee, a daily, weekly, or monthly cleaning service.

The apartment on the eighteenth floor was, for him, a wet dream.

Floor-to-ceiling windows comprised the river-facing wall. A touch of a button, or voice command, opened them to the terrace.

The generous living space—humongo, built-in wall screen, floors of cool silver, walls of pale gold—spilled into a dining area already furnished with a floating, free-form chrome table and glossy black chairs. The kitchen beyond, all hard silver, strong gold, rippled glass, held every modern feature he could imagine, and plenty he hadn’t.