Chapter 9

HE PULLED A CHAIR OVER SO THEY FACEDeach other, braced an ankle on his knee. “I had to take your stinking class over because you had it in for me. I got in-home detention for a month, stuck in there with my bitching, carping parents. You fed them lies when they came in for your student crisis meeting. You told them I was lazy and careless, how all I wanted to do was play comp games instead of learning the lame, stupid, worthless science. You cost me my fucking summer, all those weeks taking that class over when my friends were hanging. I couldn’t go to the shore.”

He lifted the nippers, studied them, smelled her fear sweat. “It was the worse summer of my life. My friends ragged on me every damn day, and I was stuck in class with losers just because you wanted to screw with me.”

He leaned forward, and though she tried to curl her fingers, keep them balled in a fist, he pried one out, fit the nippers over it. Smiled at her.

“I’m going to take the tape off so you can explain all this to me. Give me your side of it. If you scream, I’m going to snip this finger off at the knuckle. You got that?”

She nodded, her eyes glued to his as he pulled at one corner of the tape.

“One scream, one finger,” he warned and yanked the tape free.

She hissed in a breath at the rip on her skin, let it out in a tremble. “I won’t scream, Jerry.”

“Nobody’s going to hear you anyway, the way you’ve got this place closed up, but I don’t want to hear it.” He really wanted to tighten his hold on those nippers, feel the snip, watch her face when he did. But it occurred to him she might need her fingers to make the ID he wanted.

Still, she wouldn’t need her toes if it came to that. Slowly, he drew the nippers away, set them down.

“So, what’s your side of it, Ms. Farnsworth?” He put on an attentive face, and still couldn’t conceal the ugly glee in his eyes. “I’m really interested.”

“I wanted to help you. I did,” she insisted, when he picked up the nippers again. “I went about it the wrong way. I made a mistake.” She had to fight back tears of relief when he took his hand off the nippers, gave herself a moment, just a moment to gather herself. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”

“You were on my case from day one.”

“You had such potential.” She wasn’t entirely sure that was a lie. She had seen potential. And utter laziness. But she’d tried so hard with him, had given him so many chances. For God’s sake, she’d worked with him one-on-one, assigned one of her best students as his lab partner.

“I couldn’t figure out how to mine that potential, how to reach you.” That was a lie, she thought. She’d been a good teacher, and she’d tried everything in her arsenal with Jerald Reinhold. He’d been one of her few failures because he hadn’t cared, he’d been consistently lazy, obviously ungrateful. “That was my failure. My fault.”

“You marked down my work.”

Part of her wanted to rise up, to take him down to size with her outraged teacher’s voice because she’d done no such thing. If anything she’d given him slightly higher marks initially in hopes to build his confidence, inspire him to try harder.

So she used that. “I sensed great things in you, Jerry, so I pushed you hard. Too hard. I didn’t see that until it was too late. I regret that. I’m sorry for that. I wish I could go back and do it all over.”

“Do-over.” He snorted the term, but she’d confused him. He’d never expected her to admit all of it. Never expected her to see she’d been the one at fault.

Didn’t matter, he thought. The plan was the plan.

“Give me the combination to your safe.”

He snapped it out so fast, she jolted, and though her stomach clenched, she told him, slowly and clearly.

“If that’s not it, you lose a finger.”

He slapped the tape back in place, walked out.

Alone, she tried to shift, to turn and twist. She couldn’t see the cords around her wrists, her ankles, but she could feel them cutting into her. He’d taped over the cords, taped around and around her and the chair so she was all but glued in it.

But maybe with repetitive motion she could loosen it all, just enough. Or maybe she could find a way to coax him into freeing her hands.

Where was Snuffy? What had he done to the poor little thing? Harmless as a lamb, she thought, and fought tears again.

He’d killed his parents, she’d heard all about it on the media reports. Killed them and stolen their money.

He’d kill her, too, unless she found a way to talk him out of it. Or get away.

When she heard him coming back, she went very still.

Cooperate, she ordered herself. Agree with him. Be contrite.

She’d spent more than half her life teaching, and primarily teens, which could often be a frustrating, thankless job—until they bloomed a bit, turned the corner off that avenue of self-involvement. Watching them bloom had been one of her greatest joys.

With Jerry Reinhold? She’d never seen the first tiny bud.

“You got a hoard in there, don’t you, Ms. Farnsworth? Cash, jewelry. Heirloom shit, right? That’s worth a lot. Bunch of discs—you’re going to explain the ones to me marked ‘insurance.’ I bet some of the shit you’ve got sitting around here’s worth plenty. You owe me plenty, so we’ll get started on that. We may just have to pull an all-nighter.”

He shoved her chair to the side a bit, brought himself up to the computer. “First thing? I’m going to need your passcodes. Let’s start with your bank accounts.”

Because he wanted to, he gave her a hard, careless backhand. “I said, I need your passcodes. Oh, sorry!” He laughed. “I guess you can’t talk with your mouth taped up.”

He yanked the tape free, watched tears form in the corners of her eyes. “It’s payback time, Ms. Farnsworth.”

· · ·

At her desk Eve expanded her notes into a detailed report. She focused on it, setting aside the dregs of the emotional upheaval she’d caused, witnessed when she’d knocked on the door of Lori Nuccio’s parents to tell them their daughter was dead.

She couldn’t stop their grief, and knew she couldn’t take it on.

What she could do, would do, was pursue and catch the man who’d taken their daughter and forever changed their lives.

Lori’s face had its spot on her board now. As she’d been, and as Reinhold had left her. The media would have that face by morning—the before—and would run it over and over. But she’d make damn sure they never got their hands on how Lori had looked when she died.

Who else was on his list? Who would he target next?

She got up for more coffee, drank it standing at her window, looking out at New York.

All those lights—windows, sidewalks, the beams from traffic cutting through the dark. All those people going, coming, settling down, partying, having sex, looking for action, looking for quiet.

How many of them had somehow offended or pissed off Reinhold in his twenty-six years? And how many might he get to in his payback spree before she stopped him?

She turned to her board.

Mother, father, ex-lover. Personal, intimate.

Would he stick with that? Grandparents? Did they make the grade? Cousins? Would it be family first—payback for childhood slights, for lack of support, for criticisms?

Friends would come next, wouldn’t they, if he followed that sort of pattern. Would it be the one who won big in Vegas while he lost? The one who kicked him out for not paying the rent?

He’d need opportunity, a way to get to them.

She sat again, ran probabilities.

Then sat back, frowning, drumming her fingers over the results.

The computer liked the Brooklyn grandparents. Highest probability. Out-of-town set, very low. Friends got an even split.

She wouldn’t chance it. She’d have the grandparents under protection.

But it didn’t fit well in her gut, not yet. Weren’t grandparents typically or generally more indulgent than parents? And wouldn’t Reinhold see the pattern, too?

Then again, the Brooklyn set had some money, from what she’d dug up. Not roll-in-it and sing-happy-songs money, but a solid foundation. He’d need and want more money.

Offsetting it? Traveling to Brooklyn. Getting out of Manhattan, taking that time, making those plans.

“Not your next stop. I just don’t feel it.”

The friends didn’t have real money. But Asshole Joe, as Peabody dubbed him, had hit it in Vegas. He could get two birds with one stone, couldn’t he? Payback, and the money he’d lost and his friend won.

Maybe three birds, she considered, as he’d be happy to brag to Asshole Joe about killing Lori. Someone who’d known her, a friend who’d probably agreed after the breakup that she’d been a bitch.

Of friends and family—though she needed to dig deeper into the cousins—Asshole Joe topped her list for targets.

But even he didn’t sit quite perfectly.

“Dallas,” Peabody began as she started into the office. “McNab—”

“Isn’t he going to want to circle back to his friends at some point?”

“What?”

“Reinhold. He’s not a loner. Everything we’ve got on him indicates he likes to hang with his friends, go to bars, clubs. He wants somebody—and somebody familiar—to drink with, to bitch to. He’s pumped right now. Adrenaline’s flowing. Everything’s gone his way. He’s having his personal little celebration, but eventually, he’s going to need to bump fists with his buds, right?”

“I... I don’t know. He’s killed three people. His friends probably aren’t going to want to bump fists.”

“You’re not thinking like him. He’s rich—on his scale. He’s famous. He’s got power and glory. If you can’t rub that in the faces of your friends, then who? Right now, it’s fancy hotels and food, new clothes. But he’s got to see already that takes more money than he’s got to maintain for long.”

“Maybe, but... We’re about the same age. If, say, I had a hundred and seventy-five-odd grand fall into my lap, my initial reaction would be ‘Holy shit, I’m rich.’ And I’d celebrate, too. I’d buy new stuff, toss some of it around. I couldn’t help it.”

“Then you’d stop because you’re not an asshole.”

“Yeah, but he is.” Considering, Peabody stepped closer to the board. “He’s not going to be thinking of investing for the future or paying his bills off or whatever things mature people do with windfalls.”

“I get that. I get it.” Eve pointed at Peabody, then because she saw her partner’s gaze shift to the AutoChef, pointed at it. “But he’s found an ambition,” she continued while Peabody scurried over to program coffee. “He’s never had one before. That’s something I got from Mira. Something broke free inside him, and released this killer from the lazy asshole. Now he’s got ambition, and I think, on some level, he is thinking about the future.”

“Like an investment fund?”

“No, like how he’s going to keep doing what he’s discovered he really likes doing, and how to make enough money at it to keep up a high-life style. Fucker probably sees himself becoming some sort of big-ticket paid assassin, a hit man. But before that, he has to even the scales, pay back everyone who crossed him, one way or the other. He can’t keep moving from hotel to hotel. He needs a base, a hive... an HQ.”

Though she knew its miseries, Peabody sat in the visitor’s chair with her coffee. “Okay. I see where you’re going. He needs to score while he evens the score so he can get a place of his own. An iced place. He’d have to score mega to buy one, but—”

“Not as mega to rent. But to rent, he’ll need more cash, or better a safe account because cash throws up flags. He’ll need that ID, and enough change in his looks so he can move around the city.”

“The grandparents in Brooklyn are pretty well set.”

“Yeah, the comp likes them for it. Did your grandparents ever piss you off?”

“Not really.” As she thought of it—of them—an easy smile bloomed on Peabody’s face. “I guess they’ve kind of spoiled me. Well, all of us.”

“That’s how it goes, right? Still, considering his meter for offenses, and the fact he’s been a major screwup all or most of his life, there’s probably enough there. I’m having them covered. It seems he’s at least smart enough to figure we would.”

“Asshole Joe hit big in Vegas.”

Eve nodded, rubbing at the tension in the back of her neck. “Could go for him, especially since that’s pretty fresh. But odds are Joe’s already burned through a chunk of the big. He needs more than that, another major infusion. In his place I’d start on former employers. Even if they’re not well set, wouldn’t he see them that way? They own or run a business, they had authority over him—like his parents.”

“It’s a good angle.”

“I think we push that one. And we start taking a look at high-end apartments, condos, townhomes currently for rent.”

“Hell of a lot of those, Dallas.”

“He only needs one—and so do we.”

Hoping to jog her brain, she angled toward the board, propped her boots on the desk in think mode.

“He can’t stay deep in his old neighborhood, not if he’s got half a brain cell working. Too big a chance even if he alters his looks somebody will make him. Not the ex’s neighborhood either,” she decided. “But somewhere close. He’d want the familiar, the comfort of it, at least while he’s still developing. And it’s more satisfying to lord it over everyone. To have a fancy, expensive place close to where his friends have their cheap ones.

“Run some probabilities on that.”

“Okay. Meanwhile, McNab let me know they’ve just about got the street cam angle worked out. They’re up in the EDD lab.”

“I’ll head up. Run the probabilities, send them to me. Then go home and get some sleep, or catch some in the crib. We’ll start back on this in the morning.”

“What are you going to do?”

Eve dropped her foot to the floor. “That depends on what McNab and Roarke have.”

“I’ll stick here, in case you get something hot. I’ve got a change of clothes in my locker. Maybe just tell McNab I’ll be in the crib.”

Satisfied, Eve headed out and up.

She avoided the EDD bullpen. Even in the middle of the night it jumped and hopped and jiggled with wild colors and constant movement. She steered away, but made a mental note to carve out some one-on-one time with Feeney—her former trainer, partner, and captain of the geek squad.

She spotted Roarke and McNab through the glass walls of the lab, and stepping in almost staggered from the punch of clashing, crashing music.

She recognized Mavis on the vocals, and however much she loved her friend, there were limits.

“How can you think with all that noise?” she demanded.

“Keeps the juices rolling,” McNab claimed, but bowed to rank. “Music end,” he ordered, and cut Mavis off mid wail. The room descended into blessed quiet.

“What have you got?” Eve asked as she stepped toward a screen where images flew by in a blur.

“A puzzle,” Roarke told her. “With the last pieces just in place.” He swiveled on his stool to face her. “In plain English?”

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

“Starting at the victim’s building, we were able to correlate from various security cam footage Reinhold’s route to, and to a lesser extent from. It took some time and doing as he made a few detours, and far from all buildings in that sector have cams—or working ones in any case.”

“We nailed arrival, Dallas.” McNab sucked from a giant go-cup. “But he hit a residential pocket on departure, out of any cam range, and we haven’t been able to pick him up. He could’ve grabbed a cab or a bus, or kept walking. We’d have him if he headed into a subway. We’ve run all the stations in that sector. But he could’ve gone down somewhere else. We can keep looking.”

“Show me what you have.”

“We just put it together.” McNab ordered the results on screen. “We’ll run it forward, so you can see him arrive, then move into position.”

She watched the Rapid Cab swing out of the tangled traffic, brake at the curb. Reinhold, in his new suit and dark sunshades, hopped out, hefted a long duffel.

“Zoom in there, get me the cab number.”

McNab paused the run, sticking Reinhold as he’d secured the strap of the duffel on his shoulder.

“He’s happy,” Eve stated. “Excited. You can see it on his face. He’s thinking about what he’s going to do to her. How he’ll do it.”

“We got the number,” McNab told her, but ordered the zoom so she could see it herself. “We wanted you to see it before we called it in.”

She pulled out her ’link. “Keep it going,” she ordered, as she contacted the cab company’s central dispatch. “This is Lieutenant Eve Dallas, NYPSD, Homicide. Badge number 43578Q. I need the pickup location of a passenger.”

She relayed the information as she watched Reinhold walk, his movements smoothed out by geek-skill as the cams caught him.

She saw his head turn, imagined his gaze shifting, over, up with the movement. Looking at Lori’s building, her apartment windows, Eve thought. Taking out his ’link, trying to contact her, see if she’s up there. Her day off. He’d know that.

“Outside the Grandline Hotel on Fifth, got it. Thanks. Keep it going,” she said to McNab.

She wanted to watch him.

She studied his face when she could see it, his body language as she contacted the hotel. “Show me what you have on departure,” she told McNab once Reinhold walked into the café.

She repeated her name and identification data to the hotel clerk. “Do you have a Reinhold, Jerald registered?”

“One moment, Lieutenant... We have no one by that name.”

“A checkout? Today.”

“There’s nothing in our records.”

“What time did you come on shift?”

“Nine P.M.”

Too late, Eve thought, but there would be security cams.

“I’m coming in. I’ll need to see your security discs for today, starting at seven-thirty. All of them, all day.”

She didn’t wait for an agreement, just clicked off.

“You’ve got him walking south.”

“Yeah, then we get to this sector here, we catch him for a nano crossing over west, and that’s when we lose him.” McNab took another deep suck of whatever overly sweet drink he’d chosen. “Most building cams here have a shorter range. If he’d gone into any of the buildings, the search would’ve nabbed him.”

“Opposite direction from the hotel where he got the cab,” she considered. “Unlikely he was going back there.”

She paced for a moment. “He knows we’re looking for him, knows we’ll find Nuccio’s body and fairly quickly. Maybe he thinks it’ll be tomorrow, but still quick enough. He’s not going to grab a cab near her place, so he needs to stay on foot long enough to put some distance between any pickup and the crime scene. Smug smile on his face, just strolling along. World’s his clam.”

“Oyster,” Roarke corrected when McNab’s brows drew together in puzzlement.

“He’s too cocky-looking not to have another hole ready to crawl into. The Village maybe, or SoHo, Tribeca. Or maybe he walked south, and then caught an uptown bus. Tucked in by now, wherever the hell he is. I’m going to check out the hotel.”

“I’m with you,” Roarke said and pushed to his feet.

“Do you want me to keep running the search, Lieutenant?”

She considered it, shook her head. “We’ve got what we’re going to get, and it’ll have to be good enough. Peabody’s using the crib.”

McNab’s face brightened. “Oh yeah?”

“And don’t even think about doing the deed in there.” She strode out, knowing he’d probably do more than think about it.

She decided to risk the elevator, breathed a little easier when she found it empty.

“What kind of a place is the Grandline?”

“I thought you might ask.” Roarke tapped his PPC. “Midsized business hotel, twenty-four-hour services to accommodate the business traveler.”

“A step down from The Manor.”

“Well, most are.”

She scowled when the doors opened and a pair of uniforms dragged in a pair of bloody, battered, still spitting street LCs.

“It’s my corner, you thieving whore-bitch.”

“You don’t own the sidewalk, Cuntzilla.”

“You tried to steal my john, right in my fucking face!”

“I can’t help I was walking by and he went for me instead of your fat, dumpy ass.”

Noting the fire in fat, dumpy ass’s eye, Eve instinctively nudged Roarke back an instant before FDA kicked out with a foot squeezed into a shoe with a toe as sharp and pointed as a stiletto. It connected with bare shin. Thieving whore-bitch let out an ear-splitting yowl, swiped out with inch-long nails as pointed as the shoes.

This time blood flew, and pandemonium reigned as the uniforms fought to drag the women apart.

TWB tore FDA’s sparkly pink shirt, exposing one impressive man-made breast.

“And you ask why men enjoy watching women fight,” Roarke commented.

“Oh, for the sake of silicone Jesus.” Eve grabbed one of them by the hair, she didn’t know or care which one. Yanked, dragged, and managed to plant a boot on the other one’s neck.

“Knock it off!” Her voice echoed in the confines of the elevator. “Or I’ll stun the pair of you. And shut the fuck up,” she added when the pair of them screamed out their curses and complaints.

“Secure these two, damn it.”

“Come on, Dorie, what the hell?” One of the uniforms crouched to slap restraints on one pair of wrists while he partner did the other.

The elevator doors opened. “Get them off.”

“We’re actually taking them down to—”

“Now.”

“Yes, sir.” Hauling them up, the uniforms pulled the now weeping and wailing LCs off the car.

“Well now, that was entertaining.” Roarke took out a handkerchief, caught Eve’s chin in his hand.

“What?”

“Just a little back-blow from the nail swipe. “There, that’s better.”

“God” was all she said until they reached the garage level.

“You drive,” she told him. “I want to check on some things on the way.”

He got behind the wheel. “Such as?”

“I want to make sure Morris is on the third DB. I can put together how and when, I sure as hell know who and why, but it keeps it consistent. And I want to alert Harpo—hair and fiber queen—at the lab. Mira thinks he took some of the vic’s hair. That’s a personal trophy if so. And I want to check on the probabilities I had Peabody run on his next victim.”

“You believe there’ll be a next.”

“He’s got one picked out. If we don’t net him soon, we’ll have another DB for Morris.” She paused long enough to scrub her hands over her face. “If he put half this time, effort, and thought into any one of the jobs he’s blown through, he’d be at least middle management by now.”

“This is more fun.”

“You got that right. He’s found himself. They have sites, right? Conduits, avenues, to hype yourself as a kill-for-hire, or to look for one.”

He sent her a sidelong glance.

“You’d know... people who know people.”

“Possibly. That was never my avenue nor did I buy rounds at the pub for those who drove along it.”

“But you know people.”

“I do.”

“It’s just a side angle, but he likes this, and so far it’s working for him. He likes the high life and he likes killing. Right now he’s killing people he knows, has some grudge against, but most of them aren’t going to keep him in the high life. Why not make your hobby your profession? He might think that.”

“It’s an interesting side angle. I’ll ask around.”

“He shouldn’t have gotten this far.” She let her head rest back. “He hit it lucky with Nuccio. She picks today to be out of reach, get a new ’link and number. Without that, I connect with her, and I’d have asked about the locks. On top of it, he tried her old number, I know he did. We’d have had that, even on a clone, I’d have known he was trying to find her. Everything just played in his favor.”

“Luck’s a potent thing. Skill’s better.”

He pulled up in front of the Grandline.

The doorman hustled forward. “Lieutenant Dallas? They’re waiting for you inside. Mr. Wurtz at the desk.”

The place struck her as very clean and entirely too bright. Busy even at this hour, the lobby throbbed with movement. Business people, she judged, coming in from late transpo, going out to same. Others sat slack-jawed with fatigue mumbling into hand or ear ’links.

A striking man with a face too young for the silver mane of hair—and maybe that was the point—stepped around the long black counter at her approach.

“Lieutenant, Michael Wurtz. I’m the night manager. I have the security feed you requested. The clerk informed me you’d inquired about Jerald Reinhold. No one registered under that name. We have the alert in place.”

“He got a cab out front at just before sixteen hundred today. So I need to see that feed.”

“I have it set up in my office. Just this way. I admit to being unnerved when Rissa told me. I’ve followed the reports on this man all day.”

He opened a door behind the big counter into a small warren of rooms and cubes, then turned into an office.

“People often take advantage of the cab line here,” he continued. “In any case, security made copies of the times you requested.”

“Take the lobby cams first,” Eve told him.

Wurtz used a remote, started the feed on his wall screen.

Eve spotted Reinhold at 8:23.

“That’s him. Ball cap, sunshades, the two suitcases.”

“Oh dear. One moment.” He turned to a comp, operated it manually, and with a very swift touch. “We checked in a guest named Malachi Golde at eight-twenty-eight. He requested a day room. He showed ID, paid cash up front as it says in these notes his credit card had been compromised at the transpo center. Oh dear,” he repeated.

“What?”

“I see here the ID card is invalid—it’s over a year out of date. The clerk didn’t check that or notice.”

“What time did he check out?”

“Officially, he hasn’t. But we did a room check at six P.M., as he’d only paid for a day room. He wasn’t in residence, nor were his things.”

“Let me see the feed for thirty minutes before he caught the cab.”

Wurtz ordered the time to run.

“Speed it up.” She watched, scanned. “Stop it there. In the suit now, no suitcases, just the duffel. He’d been in and out at least once between check-in and this. I’ll need a copy of the full day. Is the room he used occupied?”

“No. We have it open.”

“I want to see it.”

“Right away. It’s very disturbing.” With nervous fingers, Wurtz tugged at his tie. “I wouldn’t like our guests to be made aware he was on premises.”

“I’m not going to make an announcement. Let’s see the room.”

“It’s on twelve.”

He showed them out, gestured toward the elevators. “I’ll take you in, then unless you need me, I’ll go arrange for the disc copies.”

“That works. I’ll also need a list of names. Who checked him in, if anyone helped with his bags, the doorman who got him the cab, anyone else on staff who had direct contact with him.”

“I’ll see you have it.”

He let them into the room on twelve, hurried away.

“Has to cover his ass—or other asses as he wasn’t on,” Eve commented. “The expired ID should’ve been questioned, and he doesn’t look like Mal Golde. Same age, sure, basically the same height maybe, but that’s it. The clerk wasn’t paying attention so he got lucky again. He doesn’t check out so nobody pays attention. Just a day room for cash, his version of a flop.”

She glanced around the streamlined, efficient space. Lots of tile and shiny silver—high-energy colors, its own business center and minikitchen.

She’d have the sweepers go over it, but didn’t expect much.

“Just a place to stay for a few hours while he ran errands, made plans, showered, changed into his new suit. We’ll see him going out with the suitcases again—who notices that in a hotel lobby, but he’s worked out where he’ll try to sell what he didn’t liquidate on Sunday. Takes it out, or pieces of it. Does some selling, does some buying. The suit, maybe, more clothes, the duffel, the bat. Need the duffel for the bat.”

She wandered as she thought it through. “In and out, using this as a temporary home base. Jewelry stores, secondhand stores, pawnshops, selling, trading. Even the suitcases at one point, and probably at least some of his old clothes. Shedding it all now, for profit.

“Then, all done, he just walks out of here, catches a cab, and goes down to kill Lori Nuccio.”

She paced circles in the top-flight business-style suite. “Shopping bags. He’s bound to have come back with shopping bags, so we’ll see where he went at least.”

She rubbed fatigue from her eyes. “Look, I’m going to go ahead and review the discs back at Central, catch a couple hours in the crib.”

“I have a better idea. I had them hold us a room at The Manor, it’s close enough. You can review the discs there and we can both catch a couple of hours in a room that doesn’t include Peabody, McNab, and potentially other cops.”

It was the room without other cops that decided her. “Sold.”