“Yes, of course.” She stepped back, shutting the door behind them before going to a house ’link. “If Mr. Pella is able, there are two police officers here who insist on speaking to him. Yes, I’ll wait.”
The domestic glanced back at Eve and looked as intimidated as a droid could manage.
The entrance boasted soaring ceilings, and was elegantly if sparely furnished. The staircase was directly to the left, a straight, sleek line, the treads were highly polished wood with a faded red runner climbing their center. The chandelier was three tiers of blown glass in shades of pale, delicate blue.
She wandered a few feet farther to glance to the right, into a formal parlor. Photographs lined the creamy white mantel, and from the style of dress worn in them, she judged them to be a gallery of Pella’s dead. Parents, siblings, the pretty and forever young face of his wife.
Third man on the list, she thought, and it could be said-in this case-that Pella occupied a house of the dead.
“If you’d come with me?” The droid folded her hands neatly at her waist. “Mr. Pella will see you, but his medical requests you make your visit as brief as possible.”
When Eve didn’t answer, the droid simply turned and started up the steps. They creaked softly, Eve noted. Little moans and groans of age. At the top was a landing, which split right and left. The droid walked to the right, and stopped at the first door.
It would, Eve thought, overlook the street and the bustle of life outside.
It wasn’t life she sensed when they stepped inside. If this was a house of the dead, this was its master chamber.
The bed was enormous, canopied, with head-and footboards deeply carved with what she supposed were cherubs on the wing. The light was dim, drapes drawn fully across the tall windows.
The man in bed was ghostly pale, propped against white pillows. An oxygen breather was fixed over his face, and above it his eyes were almost colorless and full of bitter rage.
“What do you want?”
For a sick man, his voice was strong enough, though the breather made it raspy. Fueled, perhaps, by what Eve saw in his eyes.
“Sir.” The medical was female, sturdy and competent. “You mustn’t upset yourself.”
“Go to hell.” He tossed it off like a shrug. “And get out.”
“Sir.”
“Out. I’m still in charge around here. You get out. And you.” He pointed a finger that shook slightly at Eve. “What do you want?”
“We’re investigating the murder of a woman whose body was found in East River Park.”
“The Groom. Back again. I was a groom once.”
“So I hear.” She stepped closer to the bed. She couldn’t insist he remove the breather, and with that and the poor light, his features were difficult to distinguish. But she saw his hair was white, his face round. She would have said somewhat doughy-and thought: steroids. “You’re aware she was killed in the same way Anise Waters, who worked for you, was killed nine years ago.”
“Nine years. A fingersnap of time, or a life sentence. Depends, doesn’t it?”
“Time’s relative?” she asked, watching those eyes.
“Time’s a son of a bitch. You’ll find out.”
“Eventually.”
“You cops looked me over nine years ago. Now you’re back to do the same? Well, take a look.”
“When’s the last time you were out of bed?”
“I can get up whenever I damn well please.” There was frustrated insult in his voice as he shifted to sit up straighter. “Can’t get very far, but I can damn well get up. You thinking I got up and killed that girl. Grabbed myself a couple others?”
“You’re well informed, Mr. Pella.”
“What the hell else do I have to do all damn day but watch the screen.” He jerked his chin toward the one on the wall opposite the bed. “I know who you are. Roarke’s cop.”
“Is that a problem for you?”
He grinned, his teeth showing through the breather.
“How about him.” Eve pulled out the sketch. “Do you know who he is?”
He glanced toward the sketch in a way that told Eve he was ready to dismiss it all. Then she saw something come into his eyes, saw something pass in and out in that beat where he really looked at the face. “Who is he?”
“Guy who likes to kill women, be my guess.” That hard resistance was back on his face, the screw you expression. “From where I’m sitting, that would be your problem, not mine.”
“I can do a lot to make it your problem, too. Do you like brunettes, Mr. Pella?”
“I don’t have time for women. They don’t listen to you. Die on you.”
“You served on the Home Force during the Urbans.”
“Killed men, women, too. But they called it heroic. She was busy saving lives when they killed her. Somebody probably said that was heroic. None of it was. Killing’s killing, and you never get it out of your head.”
“Did you identify her body?”
“I’m not talking about that anymore. You don’t talk about Therese anymore.”
“Are you dying, Mr. Pella?”
“Everyone’s dying.” He grinned again. “Some of us are just closer to finishing it than others.”
“What’s finishing you?”
“Tumor. Beat it back, been beating it back for ten years. This time they say it’s going to beat me. We’ll see about that.”
“Any objection to my partner and me looking around while we’re here?”
“You want to run tame in my house?” He pushed himself up a little. “This isn’t the Urbans, Roarke’s Cop, where your kind can do as they damn please. And this is still the United States of goddamn America. You want to search my house? You get a warrant. Now get out.”
E ve stood outside, hands on hips, studying Pella’s house. In moments she saw the bedroom drapes twitch, then quickly settle.
“Tough son of a bitch,” Eve commented.
“Yeah, but is he tough enough?”
“I bet he is. If killing’s what he wanted, killing’s what he’d do. There’s the groom angle, the lost love. Why should these women live, be happy, young, when he lost his wife? Soldier during the Urbans. Knows how to kill, and he strikes me as a man with plenty of anger, and a lot of control-when he wants to use it.”
“The sick room, the breather,” Peabody considered. “Could be an act.”
“Could be, but he has to know we could find that out. Of course, if he is dying, that’s just one more check in the plus column. And no judge is going to give us a warrant with what we have to search the home of a dying, bedridden old man.
“Dallas, mute off. Feeney, you copy?”
“Read you.”
“Let’s put a couple of uniforms on this place. Surveillance goggles. Pella doesn’t give me the full buzz, but there’s a minor tingle happening. He knows something about something, and the face in that sketch triggered it.”
“Done.”
“Shadow pick up on any tail?”
“Nada.”
“Yeah, me either. I’m going to drop Peabody by her place, head home myself. I’ll be working from there. Dallas out.”
“Home sweet home?”
“Home where you can start digging up data on Pella’s dead wife. Details, all you can find. I can wrangle clearance to search his medicals. Take a closer look at Dobbins, too.”
“Looks like I’m not getting laid again tonight.”
Eve ignored her. “I’ll take another glance at the currently unavailable Hugh Klok. Guy’s into antiquities and that says travel to me. Let’s see if any of these guys frequents the opera. Roarke can take a closer look at their real estate. Maybe the houses mean something. I want blueprints in any case.”
She pulled away from the curb, hoping to sense someone watching, someone sliding through the traffic behind her. But all she felt was the crowded streets, and the sluggish push of vehicles that had turned the earlier snow into dismal mush.
17
“LOCKED IN,” EVE SAID WHEN THE GATES OF home closed behind her. “Eyes and ears off. Dallas out.”