Born in Death (In Death 23)
“Maybe, maybe.” She pushed away from the little table where they’d eaten. “It’s inconsistent with her type, her pathology. She was a team player, and she was a rule keeper. She took this to one of them, Roarke, and the one she took it to was the wrong choice.”
“She must have dealt with some clients directly.”
“In the office, or in theirs—New York–based. Some travel, too, sure. But nothing out of the ordinary I’ve found. No last-minute appointments worked in, according to her assistant. No last-minute travel to meet with a client or their representatives. If you look at her office, on the surface, it’s straight business as usual. Taking the home units without making it look like a bungled burglary was a mistake.”
“I don’t know.” He considered it. “Simpler, as you said, to take the units than to stay there and fiddle with them. Especially since the killer had a second job to do. It could simply be confidence. Go ahead and look at her office files, I’ve taken care of that. Covered the tracks.”
“Nobody ever covers them all the way. Okay, okay, present company excepted,” she added when he lifted an eyebrow. “If he was as good as you, and as—let’s say—meticulous—he’d have found a better way to do Copperfield and Byson.”
“Such as?”
“Arrange a meet, take them out together outside their apartments. You make it look like a mugging or a thrill kill. Rape the woman, or him, or both. Send the investigators mixed signals. I figure I’m looking for someone focused on the task—eliminate the threat, remove the evidence. That’s straight-line thinking, leaving out the flourishes.”
“Perhaps the only way he could take lives was to block out all but the target. Reach the goal, don’t consider the enormity of the action to get there.”
“I don’t think so, or not completely. Yeah, okay, reaching the goal. But if he’d needed to distance himself emotionally from the action, he wouldn’t use strangulation. It’s intimate. And it was face-to-face.”
Narrowing her eyes, she brought the crime scenes, the bodies, back into her mind. “He experienced the killings. You don’t want an active part in it? You got the tape right there. You slap it over their mouths, over their nose, and you walk away. You don’t have to see them suffer and die. But he looked right into their eyes as they did.
“And this isn’t what I need you for,” she snapped. “I can get into his head. Or I can get a profile from Mira, talk it through with her. I need a numbers man. I need a business man. Big business, big risks, big benefits. I need you to look at the data, analyze it in a way I can’t.”
“And I will. But tonight I’d prefer the generalities. I can take a look at her client list, give you a take on what I know that might not show on records or bios.”
“Why tonight?”
He considered again. Easier to evade, but she’d been straight with him and deserved the same. “I’m going to have my lawyers draft a contract of sorts which will prohibit me from using any of the data I may be privy to during the course of this investigation.”
“No.”
“It covers our respective asses. It will also prohibit you, or any member of the team, from revealing the name of the organization, corporation or company whose data I analyze. I can, quite easily, work with the figures only.”
Frustration nearly blew out of the top of her head. “This is a crock. Your word’s good enough.”
“For you, and thank you for it. But it’s simple enough to do, and it’s logical. It’s very likely I’m in competition, or certainly will be at some point, with some or all of the clients on your victims’ list. And at some point, while I can promise you I wouldn’t use the data you’ve put in my hands—”
“I don’t want your damn promise!” she exploded.
Her fury over it was like a warm, comforting kiss. “Then none of that between us. But, let’s be practical. It could appear, or be argued that I have or will use it. It still could, come to that, but this shows good intent at least.”
“It’s insulting to you.”
“Not if I offer it—more, insist on it. Which is exactly what I’m doing.” He knew how to calculate the odds, he thought. How to manipulate them. And how to win. “I won’t look at any of the data unless you agree to this provision. We can argue about it if you like, but that’s my line. I’ll have it taken care of, then we’ll move forward.”
“Fine. Fine. If that’s the way you want it.” She had to fight back the urge to kick something again.
“It is. I’m happy to look at the client list.”
She moved to her desk, pulled out a hard copy from her file bag. “Look it over, think it over. I’ve got some runs to do meanwhile.”
And some sulking, he imagined. “I’ll be in my office, then.”
She did sulk, but she worked while she was at it.
She did probabilities and was satisfied that the computer agreed—at 93.4 percent—that someone inside the firm was connected to the double murder.
She studied her notes, Peabody’s reports, the lab’s, the ME’s, the crime-scene records. And put up a second murder board.
New lock on the door, she reminded herself. Kitchen knife in the bedroom. But Natalie hadn’t been afraid enough to bunk with her boyfriend, or hole up in a hotel. Not afraid enough to tell her sister not to come and stay with her.