Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

“Okay. I’ll let you get to it.”

“Sir. We could lose a lock on our rating.”

“One thing at a time,” Roarke told Rhoda, giving her shoulder a pat to move her along.

When she left, Roarke watched Eve continue to search.

“I think he had almost as many clothes as you do,” she commented. “Just the one safe, in here, I came across on my sweep. It’s open. I can’t tell if they had the code or broke in.”

Roarke slipped inside, crouched down to examine the safe. He took out one of his toys, ran some sort of scan.

“Scan,” he told her. “Eight-digit code, and it was opened with a reader. It’s a simple lock. I expect someone like Banks would have had the code tucked somewhere so he wouldn’t have to remember it, but this was scanned. The bulletins haven’t disclosed cause of death.”

“Broken neck—manually. Dumped in the water. Made to look like a mugging—took his coat, shoes, valuables. No ’link on the body.”

“They didn’t bother to make this look like a burglary,” Roarke said. “He has jewelry in here, his passport which is always worth a bit of something on the black market. And there’s art and other easily liquidated things throughout the place. Likely he had some cash in here, and that’s gone. But cash can’t be traced, so why not?”

“You’re pissed. Me, too. But it’s not that challenging to get into an apartment, even in a secure building, when you know the occupant’s dead or going to be. Can you take that toy, see if the locks were compromised, or if that’s a straight entry, too?”

“I can.”

He left her. By the time he came back, she’d moved on to the sports closet.

“Jammed and scanned—bedroom level.”

She stopped, eyes narrowed. “So they didn’t wait to do it the easy way, with his keycard and codes off the body. Broke in before they killed him. Why is that? Because it’s easier to cross a lobby to an elevator before, say midnight, then it is at after three in the morning. A lot of people still coming and going at like ten, eleven at night. Parties, heading out for a drink, coming in from dinner and all that. Several parties happening in the building, and that’s going to be fairly routine. Caterers, deliveries, guests.”

“Dallas—Hey, Roarke.” Peabody stepped in. “Nothing in the guest room or home office. Not even a used memo cube.”

“Fast, sloppy, and so far thorough. Take the master bath.”

She dug into a ski jacket. “He left the building about nine, had them order a cab, a Rapid. From the contents of his stomach, he went to a high-end cocktail-type party. Had sex with a redhead.”

“That’s specific.”

“Stray pubic hair. We have him picked up by another Rapid—we’ve got the address and time—and dropped off near the JKO. TOD just after three, so he met his killer or more likely killers there. One of them has the skill to snap his neck, they team up haul him over the fence into the reservoir where he’s spotted about two hours later by a couple of underage drinking buddies who jump in to pull him out.”

She moved on to a wet suit.

“Meanwhile, they stripped anything valuable from the body, including his pocket e’s, so we have no way to trace who he talked with or when. They’re not stupid.”

“Got something!” Peabody walked back in with a memo book in a waterproof bag. “Inside the toilet tank—classic.”

“And for a reason,” Roarke agreed when Eve took it, opened the bag.

“Passcoded.”

Roarke held out a hand.

“Seal up first.”

He sighed, but obeyed. Then fiddled with the book for about twenty seconds. “Rudimentary block. Open now, and . . . ah. What you have here is an on-the-go sort of bookkeeping. The books for the laundering service is how it looks.”

“Any names?” Eve demanded.

“It doesn’t look like it. Numbers. What went in, and when, what came out and when. His fee, profit. It’s more a little pocket guide than actual accounting.”

“If he kept those books here, they’re gone now,” Eve concluded. “Maybe the art gallery has records. And names.” She took the device bac