Chapter 16

Mira listened in that quietly absorbed way she had even when Eve felt the need to get up and pace out the theory.

"There's no way it all slides in that neat," Eve concluded. "‘Hey, we're moving. Listen, brother, you're going to Africa to spread the word.' And between those two events, twelve girls are drowned in the bathtub of the former digs, rolled up and walled up. It has to tie."

"The mother's history of mental illness, and her eventual suicide when the youngest child was still living at home."

"He never lived on his own."

"Yes, a dependency either innate or fostered. You're looking at the tub—the mother died in one, now the girls are killed in one."

"It's tidy."

"It's the wrong symbolism. The mother took her life, and it's a violent act. A blade through flesh, blood in the water. The girls were drowned, not—according to the forensics—bled out."

"The killer could have cut their wrists. It wouldn't show on the bones. And it's pretty damn annoying not to be able to just look at a body and see."

"I'm sure it is. Let's take the other route. This Sebastian—a fascinating character from your notes—do you tie him in?"

"I'm not sure where or how, just yet. My first instinct was he'd be top of the list, no matter how Mavis feels about him, because those feelings go back to when she was a kid and he played the center role in keeping her from going hungry and being alone."

She shoved her hands in her pockets. "But then you talk to him awhile, and the sense is he's sincere—in his warped way. That he has a code—it's screwed up, but it's a code—and he isn't capable of doing what was done to those girls. Then, with a little distance, you have to remember he lives and makes his living off the grift. He's not just a liar, he's a damn good actor with it. So, he's a possible, even if just a possible accomplice."

"Is that because you sense he is capable after all, or because you instinctively hate the idea whoever killed those girls may already be dead and beyond the reach of justice?"

"Probably more of the second." She dropped down again. "But—" Then stopped when Dennis shuffled in again with a tray loaded with cups, what looked like a bowl mounded with whipped cream, and a fat white pitcher.

"Here we are. Don't let me interrupt. I'll fix you up and be right out of the way."

"Sit down and have some with us," his wife instructed. "It's very possible for older siblings to feel a sense of duty and responsibility for a younger, especially a younger who falls short. They come from a family who based their lives, their work on faith, good work, and the mission to use that work to draw more into the faith. They could hardly exclude their own brother from that mission."

She shifted, crossed her legs. "Particularly after the mother's death, the suicide which would go against their tenets—suicide affects those left behind, and the younger brother was still a teenager when she died."

"It messes you up."

"Family and loved ones often feel anger and guilt after a suicide. And there's often a sense of abandonment."

"The father went off on a mission within the year, dumped the younger on his older brother and the sister. So they're responsible, right? That's the way it would work. They're responsible for him now. It's their job to take care of him."

"Yes, they would in a very real way have substituted for the parents. At the same time, repeated failures by a sibling or a refusal or disinterest by that sibling in sharing the load, doing the work, would begin to wear. No one rubs you quite as hard the wrong way as a sibling. And while you may criticize, protecting and defending from the criticism of others is common."

"He was a drain on the work," Eve began, then goggled at the cup Dennis offered her—and the frothy hillock of whipped cream, sprinkled with shaved chocolate topping it. "Thanks. Wow."

"You'll want this," he said, handing her a spoon.

"From what you're telling me, yes," Mira agreed. "He put a strain on the mission they both forged their lives to fulfill. It may very well be they found this post in Africa as a way to push him to contribute, and remove him from the immediate area while they reorganized in the new location."

"Could he have snapped?" Eve demanded. "If they gave him an ultimatum. We're shipping you out if you don't start pulling your weight?"

"There's so little known about him. The medical records are very general, and there aren't many. The treatment for depression indicates he was troubled, certainly, that he had some difficulty not achieving what his siblings had, suffered from anxiety, and as I said, those abandonment issues. But the doctor who treated him is deceased, and the treatment ended fifteen years ago with the patient's death."

"He was more isolated than his brother and sister. And I have to ask, is this legal?" Eve dipped her spoon into the cool cream and warm, rich chocolate again.

Dennis beamed at her. "In this house it is."

"It's really amazing. Sorry," she said to Mira. "What I mean is, being more isolated, having less opportunities to socialize with peers, like the others who went on to study and work outside the homeschooling and missionary stuff, wouldn't he have a harder time adjusting to that life outside? His mother self-terminates, his father goes off on a missionary gig, leaves him in the care of the older two. They were given a small but decent financial share of the sale of the family home, a kind of before-I'm-dead inheritance. But the younger got an allowance, you can say, in the mother's will. So much per month he could draw from rather than a lump like his siblings."

"Which indicates the parents, either together or separately, had decided he couldn't or wouldn't handle a lump sum well, and needed more guidance. And yes, that could have caused some resentment on his part. Could have caused some anxiety and depression. So depressed, anxious, in treatment for both, still in a way under the thumb of his parents, who are now represented by his siblings, he's pulled into their work as he has nowhere else to go, no particular skills, and from what it seems, no burning ambition."

"Ends too loose tend to tangle," Dennis said as he sipped his chocolate, and Mira nodded.

"Exactly. You want to know if it's a viable theory. Could this at-too-loose-ends young man—with emotional challenges, challenges that may very well have been compounded by his separation from socializing with others his age in school, in play groups with other viewpoints and faiths... this young man who lacked his siblings' skills, their drive, and perhaps their vocation, have become so troubled, so tangled, that even the change from one location, which would have been his home now as his parental home had been taken away, to another—yet another, where he was not given a true choice—have caused a psychic break?"

"Yeah, I guess that's about it."

"It's certainly possible. And the method, the drowning, at the place that had become his home? Perhaps a rebellion against the tenets he'd been raised on, or a terrible attempt to embrace them."

"A ritual baptism deal—either to screw with the whole basis of his siblings' world, or to try to prove he could be a real part of it."

"Yes." Through the hillock of whipped cream, Mira sipped the chocolate. "You lean toward the first of those. You'd prefer it if he acted out of malice. But in this scenario, if it falls along these lines in the end, I'd lean toward the latter."

"Why?"

"He seems sad, your tragic and doomed suspect. His life so restricted—the youngest is often babied too long, held too tightly. If they were raised traditionally, as I suspect, rigid tradition, I mean, the mother—also challenged—would have had more of the day-to-day care and tending. She may have held too tight to him, and as he approached adulthood, despaired."

"You'd feel sorry for him, even if he killed those girls."

"I'd see someone who wasn't given what he needed... emotionally, physically." She sat back, as if considering. "The older siblings are grouped closely together in age. Then the long gap, the late baby. It's very possible the mother clung to this last child, discouraged him from spreading his wings."

"Stay with me? I need you to be with me?"

"Yes. Now he's a teenager," Mira continued. "The instinct is to rebel, to push away, to try new things. Even in a healthy family it can be a difficult time."

"And maybe he did a little of that pushing away," Eve speculated. "The mother, already on shaky ground, gives up, chooses to end it."

"Does he blame himself? If he'd been good, would she still be alive? Rigid tradition again," Mira emphasized. "She sinned, went off the path. Did he push her off the path? And I'd wonder if his treatment only added to the problem, the fact both he and the mother were under the same doctor's care."

"And it didn't help with the mother."

"Even an excellent therapist can miss signs of suicidal tendencies. But I think I'll do some research on his doctor, and I may understand more through that. Still, the short answer is yes, I believe he's viable as a suspect. I'll want to know more about Sebastian before I say the same about him."

"I'll get you what I can. If Montclair Jones killed those girls, his siblings had to know."

"Considering how tightly their lives intertwined? I'd rate the probability very high on that."

"Then I'll push on it. Thanks. I should get going."

"Finish your chocolate," Dennis told her. "I'll be back in a minute." He wandered out.

"It's so calm here," Eve commented.

"Oh, here has its moments."

"Yeah, I guess everywhere does. But it's got a calm center—I've been thinking about centers. And calm's different from regimented. It strikes me that's maybe how the Jones house was. Even with all those good intentions, and from my look at the parents they aren't fanatics or burn-in-hellfire types. But the center was their particular beliefs, the mother's problems, and their children were kept in that center without much chance to walk around outside it. Maybe you raise really caring, good, selfless people that way, or maybe you don't."

"Parenthood always has its individual structure. And it's a risky business. You do your best."

"I've seen the worst come out of the best, and know the best can come from the worst. It's a hell of a crapshoot. I really appreciate the time," she said as she rose. "And this really amazing magic in a cup. He could open a shop selling only this stuff, and make a fortune."

"He enjoys making it for family, and thank God not very often or I'd gain fifty pounds every winter."

"Tell him thanks again," Eve said as she put on her coat. "And I'll—"

She broke off as Dennis came back in, with a pair of wooly red gloves and a bright blue ski cap. "Here now," he said, "put these on."

"Oh, well. I really—"

"Can't go around with cold hands," he continued, tugging the gloves on her hands himself as he might with a child. "And you'll need to keep that brain warm to figure everything out, won't you?" He put the cap on her head, adjusted it. "There. That's better."

When she said nothing, genuinely could say nothing, he just smiled. "I'm always misplacing my gloves, too. They should have tracking built in."

"Thanks," she managed. "I'll get them back to you."

"No, no, don't worry about it. The kids are always leaving gloves and hats and scarves and socks and everything else around here. We have a box full of them, don't we, Charlie?"

"Yes, we do."

"You keep them," Dennis said as he walked her to the door. "And stay warm."

"Okay. Ah, in case I don't see you before, Merry Christmas."

"Christmas?" He looked momentarily blank, then grinned. "Of course, it's nearly Christmas, isn't it? I lose track."

"Me, too."

She walked down, then onto the sidewalk with emotion clogging her throat. And looked at the gloves as she walked. Roarke gave her countless gloves for the exact reason Dennis had put these on her. Gorgeous, sleek, warm leather, which she promptly ruined or lost.

But she swore she'd make damn sure she didn't lose the silly red ones.

She made it to her car with warm hands—and maybe a warm brain.

···

When Eve walked into a buzzing bullpen she caught the scents of refined sugar, yeast, fat before she spotted Nadine Furst. Doughnuts, Eve thought, the cop's sweet spot. No one knew that better than the ace reporter and bestselling author.

Nadine, her excellent legs crossed, her well-toned butt perched on Baxter's desk, chatted amiably with Trueheart, flicked a drop of jelly from the corner of his mouth. And made his young, handsome face flush when she licked it from her finger.

"Pitiful." Eve said it loud enough to penetrate the din. It quieted the voices, but didn't stop the scramble to stuff sugary fat in mouths. "Just pitiful. Every one of you."

Jenkinson swallowed a last bite of cruller. "They're still warm."

Okay, warm doughnuts was playing dirty, but still.

"Sanchez, you've got crumbs on your shirt. Reineke, for God's sake, wipe that doughnut cream off your face."

"It's Bavarian," he said with a satisfied smile.

"Peabody."

Since she'd just taken a big bite of glazed with sprinkles, Peabody shoved it into her cheek like a chipmunk, talked around it. "I, ah, contacted Philadelphia Jones, Lieutenant. She's coming in this morning. I was, um, about to book an Interview room."

"Chew that damn thing and swallow it before you do. Nadine, get your ass off Baxter's desk and into my office. Everybody else. Fight crime, for Christ's sake."

She strode off, relieved she'd thought to stuff the gloves in her pocket when she'd come into Central. The dressing-down would've been less effective while wearing red wooly gloves.

She considered tossing something over her board to conceal it, but knew very well—sneaky warm doughnuts aside—Nadine could be trusted.

"Saved you one at great personal risk." Nadine walked in with a little pink bakery box.

"Thanks." Eve considered trying to hide it, but the scent would guide a cop's nose straight to the concealment. And she didn't want to risk a hunt that might turn up her current candy hiding place.

"Those are the girls you've ID'd?" At home—and how did that happen?—Nadine tossed her fur-trimmed scarlet coat on Eve's visitor's chair, stepped to the board.

She studied it with her sharp green eyes. "All between twelve and fourteen?"

"So far."

With a sigh, Nadine studied the other faces and notes on the board. She might look glamorous with the streaky blond hair and angled face, both camera-ready, but under the sleek package lived a canny reporter who could dig up tiny pieces of a broken gem and fit them together to make a clean, shiny whole.

"You've been keeping a lid on the data pretty well, especially considering Roarke found the bodies."

"He broke through a wall—ceremoniously mostly—and discovered two of the twelve."

"I know the outline. The buzz is who are they, how did they get there—are there more—and the Roarke connection winds through it."

She'd basically ignored the media messages on her 'link, but there hadn't been all that many in the big scheme. But suddenly it occurred to her Roarke was probably dealing with more. A lot more.

"His connection's thin at best. The victims were killed about fifteen years ago, long before he bought the building."

"It's Roarke," Nadine said simply. "And it's you. I got word you're working with the fashionable and brilliant Dr. DeWinter."

"She's handling the remains."

With a little smile, Nadine sat on the corner of Eve's desk. "How's that working out for you?"

The question brought an annoying itch to the base of Eve's spine. "She's doing her job. I'm doing mine."

"When are you going to release the names?"

"When we have all twelve, and when any and all next of kin have been notified. I'm not dribbling them out, Nadine, to keep the media happy."

"It's a long time to grieve." Her gaze tracked to the board again. "I wonder, is it better to know, absolutely, there's no hope, or to cling to that thin, pale ray of it? You're looking at Jones, Nashville and Philadelphia? And weren't they lucky they weren't born in Helsinki or Toledo?"

"Consider Timbuktu, which I rarely do. I'm looking at everyone, Nadine. You know how it works."

"Siberia."

"What?"

Nadine grinned. "I thought we were playing. And yes, I do know how it works. And I know when you're not giving me anything, you don't think you can use me." In a careless move, Nadine shrugged. "Fair enough. My team's done some research on them, for the stories as they stand now, and to lay the foundation for later. Interesting about the mother's suicide."

"Interesting?"

"How the husband took the hard line. Suicide, ultimate sin, no consecrated ground for you. Her children had her cremated, scattered the ashes at sea."

That was interesting, Eve thought. And proved Nadine was useful even when Eve didn't have a particular use for her. But she said, "Sounds more fucked-up than interesting."

"Depends on your angle. And it's weird and wicked about the younger brother and the lion."

She nodded toward his photo. "But if I'm judging the time line, he was still alive, still in New York, when the twelve were killed."

No point in bullshitting, Eve decided. "Being dead doesn't mean he's not a suspect."

"With the king of beasts as executioner. Could be a nice twist. Anyway, we did our own due diligence on brother and sister. The sister in Australia, too. Even the New York sister's ex, though that was over before the murders, and didn't net anything interesting as he moved to New Mexico, remarried, and has a tidy little family. But you knew that."

"We call it doing the job."

"Me, too," Nadine said cheerfully. "Big brother's never hooked up legally, though he does date now and then. They were raised to save sex for marriage, which is why I figure the sister married young. But I have this nagging doubt they've stuck to that tenet." She smiled when she said it. "And one of the brother's former companions was willing to confirm that."

She hadn't bothered to go there, Eve thought, but had to admit it was good data to add to the mix.

"I don't much care about their sex lives, unless it pertains."

"Oh, I care about everyone's. And poking around in that area, I couldn't find anybody little brother dated."

Okay, that could be interesting, Eve thought. "He was only twenty-three when he died, and since you poked around, you know he led a sheltered life, had some emotional issues, add in my-mom-killed-herself issues. Could've been a late bloomer if he hadn't gotten snipped off the vine."

"You're looking at him."

"I'm looking at all of them."

"Dallas." All friendly amusement, Nadine pointed at her. "I know how it works, remember? And I know how you work. You're looking at the dead brother particularly."

The hell with it. "If he was alive, I'd have him in the box sweating him. And I don't want you running with that angle on-air, Nadine. I'm not ready."

"We're just chatting." She tapped the pink box with a pink-tipped nail. "Aren't you going to eat your doughnut?"

"I had breakfast, then I had the world's most amazing hot chocolate. Doughnuts pale." Which reminded her she still wore her coat.

Nadine nodded at the cap. "I like your hat," she said as Eve shrugged out of her coat. "The snowflake's adorable."

"The what?" Eve snatched the hat off, stared at the sparkling white snowflake on the front. "Shit. There's a snowflake on this thing. A glittery one."

"It's, as stated, adorable. But I digress. DeWinter's keeping a tight ship over in her world, but you should be aware she enjoys a good, frisky media conference. Once she gets to the point she's ready, she'll call one."

"She'll call one when I tell her to." But Eve made a note to make that crystal clear, and to use the commander if necessary.

"Just a heads-up, friend to friend."

"And you're being so damn friendly."

"I am. We are," Nadine added. "And before I move on to my not-so-secret agenda, I want to say I really, seriously, completely enjoyed Thanksgiving at your place, with the gang, with Roarke's family."

She angled to smile at the framed sketch on Eve's wall.

"That's great, you know. Not just that the kid thought of it, or what she wrote on the back, but that you'd hang it in here."

"I told her I would."

"And that mattered to her. You could see it on her face. Anyway, I know I was a little drunk—just a little—but what I said about being in love with Roarke's family remains true cold sober. If I wasn't a to-the-bone urbanite, didn't have to-the-marrow ambitions, a job I love, and so on, I'd move to Ireland, pick one out of the herd, and marry him. I may hold out for Sean," she said considering, speaking of Roarke's young cousin. "I might be ready to retire to Ireland by the time he's old enough."

"They have cows," Eve said darkly. "Practically in the backyard."

"I could live with that," Nadine decided. "In about twenty years. Until then, I'm writing my next book."

"Oh."

"Such enthusiasm!" Nadine laughed. "The Icove Agenda took everything up a level for me. I'm ready to dig into another. My working title is Ride the Red Horse."

"You're going to write about Callaway, about Menzini."

"It's a natural. A cult, a crazed leader harking back to the Urban Wars, a deadly weapon used to cause ordinary people to hallucinate and kill each other within minutes. The legacy passed on, the courageous cop who brought them down."

"Shit."

"Really, try to control your joy. I'll be tapping you, Roarke, the team from time to time while I'm drafting it out, and I'll be asking you to look over the finished manuscript, to make sure you're okay with it."

"They're going to make another vid, aren't they?"

"Bet your ass. While I'm working on that, I'd like to give the twelve girls some play—respect," she said before Eve could speak. "You'll do what you do to get them justice. I'll do what I do so people know they existed. To know their names, their faces, and that someone took their lives before they'd really begun. It matters, too."

It did, Eve knew. And no one did it better than Nadine because it mattered to her. "Get out your recorder."

Nadine fished into the suitcase she called a purse, pulled it out. "I can have a camera here in ten minutes."

"No camera, no interview. Just names." Eve listed them off. "You can't release them yet, but you can do some basic background—quietly—on them. I'll give you the others when we have them. I'll give you the green light when you can go with them. Until then, you're on red."

"Understood."

"Now go away. I've got work."

"So do I." Nadine scooped up her coat. "Looking forward to your holiday bash."

"My what?"

"I spoke with Roarke briefly. He said if I mentioned it to tell you to look at your calendar." Swinging on her coat, Nadine headed out.

She remembered now, with the mention of her calendar. But still. "Didn't we just have a bash? Isn't Thanksgiving a bash? Why is Christmas so close to Thanksgiving? Who plans this stuff?"

Since there was no one to answer, she got coffee.

Peabody barreled in. "I talked to Africa!"

"Kudos."

"Seriously, it was a big moment for me. Sergeant Owusu talked to her uncle, her grandfather, a few others. She was actually writing up a report on it, so you'd have it all laid out. She'll send it as soon as she's done, and digs up some pictures."

"Good."

"Meanwhile the gist she gave me is everyone agreed Preacher Jones—that's what they called him—was a lovely man of faith and goodwill. He spoke with respect, enjoyed trying their native dishes—even learned to prepare a couple. He also studied the language, and had humor when he made mistakes in speech. He was kind, and they believe his spirit has remained in Africa."

"So they liked him. How'd he get eaten?"

"He had a curiosity about everything. And liked to take photos, small recordings, for himself, talked of compiling them one day into some sort of book or documentary. He was out, wandering farther than was wise, to take photos of a watering hole at dawn. The lion came to feed, and he was the main entrée."

She'd read most of that in the incident report already. "Did they say if he habitually went on these photo shoots alone?"

"I didn't ask that specifically, but Owusu strikes me as thorough. If she got anything, it'll be in her report."

"I don't remember any interest in photography or animal life in Montclair Jones's background."

"Well, he'd never been to Africa before," Peabody pointed out. "If I went there I'd live with a camera. Basically, it sounded like he'd decided to make the best of it, was enjoying it. It makes sense—he was off the tether for the first time, and somewhere exotic and new."

Eve glanced at her computer when it signaled an incoming. "We have Iris Kirkwood confirmed as the tenth, and the ID on the reconstruct on the eleventh."

Eve studied the image—mixed race, she judged. Thin face, wide, wide eyes, sharp cheekbones.

"I recognize that face." Eve ordered the Missing Persons images, split screen. "There. There she is. Shashona Maddox, age fourteen. Went missing from the grandmother's residence. Grandmother custodial guardian. Mother took off when the kid was three, father unknown. Grandmother had custody of Shashona's half sister, same mother, father gave up parental rights, which wouldn't have been hard for him, most likely, as he was serving twenty to life for murder two at the time."

"We have another notification."

She did a quick search. "Yeah. Grandmother's still alive, still in New York. Half sister's a doctor, surgical resident at Mount Sinai. Grandmother, Teesha Maddox, lives and has lived for twenty-five years in an apartment on Eighth Avenue. A professional nanny, currently working Upper West Side. When's Philadelphia due in?"

Peabody glanced at her wrist unit. "We've got about an hour."

"Let's go see the grandmother. Tell the bullpen if we're not back, have her wait in the lounge."

As Peabody hurried out, Eve took the time to send a short, direct e-mail to DeWinter—copied to Whitney.

Appreciate the fast, efficient work. As per my reports, we're pursuing several investigative lines. Until we have all the victims identified, all the notifications done, and have interviewed all relevant parties, any media release or conference remains on hold. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.

"Keep a lid on it," Eve muttered, then like Nadine, scooped up her coat, swinging it on as she walked out.