Devoted in Death (In Death 41)

“He was tortured for two days before they – and it was they – sliced open his belly and let him bleed out.”

Roarke pulled on a gray sweater, and made Eve wonder why the color had looked so dull and stiff in Earnestina’s apartment, and was so rich and soft over Roarke’s torso.

“Back to reality, indeed,” Roarke murmured. “??‘They’? You’ve identified his killers?”

“Not yet, but there are two, and he wasn’t their first. He was a long way from their first.”

“It sounds as if we should have a glass of wine, a meal, and you should tell me.”

“I could use a glass of wine. Sexual sadists,” she began as they walked out of the bedroom together. “With a twist.”

She ran it through for him as she would for another cop. He might’ve winced at the comparison, but he could – and did – think like a cop.

While she arranged her board, he put a meal together. Which meant she wouldn’t get pizza, but compromises had to be made. It was in the marriage rules. He certainly made them, she thought, just by having the meal in her office at the little table with murder and death on full display.

“You believe New York was their destination.”

“Long-term, can’t say, but you’ve only got to look at the map, see their kill spots. It’s not an arrow from point to point, but any time they veered off, then shifted right back – north and east.”

She took the wine he offered, gestured with it to the map. “Detours, that’s how it looks to me. Maybe you need fuel for your vehicle, for yourselves, or there’s some attraction, or someone you know, so you jog off a few miles.”

“But come back,” he said, nodding, “to that same direction. What do they take from their victims?”

See, she thought. Cop thinking. “Cash and jewelry if there is any. A vehicle, or in some cases parts from a vehicle. Most – not all – of their known victims run in the high-risk area. LCs, the homeless, but they target others. Often remote areas. A woman in her seventies living alone. They used her residence as their torture/kill zone, took her easy-to-transport valuables. A guy in his twenties heading home on the back roads, late – from a bar. They used some vacant cabin for him.”

“And no trace?”

“They wipe it clean – maybe they seal up, maybe the forensics have been sloppy.” Too many to know, she thought, too many to pick over, step-by-step. “I can’t say for certain. But at least one of them’s organized enough to be careful. They haven’t found all the kill zones. The killers don’t leave the body where they work as a rule. They use dump sites, and generally a fair distance off. And plastic tarps.”

“So, someone might think they’ve had a break-in, but without the blood, the gore, not report a possible murder.”

“Exactly. And by the time they’ve put some of it together, the crime scene’s been thoroughly compromised. Lucky,” she mused. “Some of it’s just luck. Organized, careful, but lucky.”

“Come eat.” He took her hand, drew her over to the table.

The square white plates held a line of pork medallions drizzled with some sort of sauce, a golden huddle of roasted potatoes flecked with herbs, and a colorful medley of winter vegetables.

He had a much more creative hand with the AutoChef, she considered, than she ever would.

“The heart, the initials,” he began.

“Their signature.”

“Yes, but also a declaration, don’t you think? Not only we did this together, but we are together.”

“True love.”

“Wouldn’t they think so? The heart holding their initials symbolizes just that. Add the fact they don’t use their victims sexually.”

“Because they’re committed to each other, and that would be cheating.”

“Without the heart, what would you have concluded?”

Considering, she ate – whatever the drizzle of sauce was, it had some kick. “I would probably have concluded team. It’s possible for one killer to select, lure, overcome and torture with varied strokes. But it’s more likely two, given the range of the victims. A woman’s less likely to stop on the side of the road for a strange man, or open the door to one at night. Two of the LCs weren’t licensed for same sex – not that they wouldn’t have potentially gone off menu, but best probability: The client was male. Easier, too, for a lone woman to lure a single male with the will-you-give-me-a-hand-with-this-heavy-object ploy.”

“So your most likely conclusion would be a two-person team: one male, one female.”

“Most likely. I wouldn’t have ruled out a single, but most likely. But…” She nodded as she ate. “Without the heart I wouldn’t have seen them as a couple, as romantically linked. Sex, sure, but not romantically.”