Brotherhood in Death (In Death #42)

She let him drive and did a quick run on the newest victim.

“Two marriages, two divorces, currently single. Three offspring, and five offspring from them. Lots of letters after his name. Graduated magna cum laude from Yale, did some postgrad work there, some at Columbia, did some more at Oxford. Guest lecturer at Yale, at Columbia. Wrote a couple of books on economics, lots of papers. Served as adviser for two administrations—and did that while Senator Mira was in Congress. They damn well knew each other.”

Before she’d finished the run, Roarke pulled up at a three-story townhouse. A couple of black-and-whites sat outside, along with Baxter’s snazzy vehicle.

Two uniforms stood out on the sidewalk in their heavy winter coats, gloved hands around go-cups. Eve held up her badge.

“Lieutenant,” one of them said. “Detectives are inside. Said wait on the canvass until you said different.”

“Hold on that until I take a look at things. Who’s first on scene?”

“That’s us. We were on patrol, and Dispatch sent us over, oh-three-forty-two. We arrived on scene within two. Vic’s grandson called it in.”

“Does the grandson live here?”

“No, sir, but he’s got the passcodes, swipes. Said he stayed here now and then.”

“Okay. Hang tight.”

The cop on the door must’ve been watching for them as he opened it before they started up the short flight of steps. “Lieutenant,” he said, and stepped aside.

They’d left Wymann hanging. His eyes bulged out of his swollen, bruised face as he swayed gently from the rope attached to a complex series of boldly colored swirls that served as the foyer light. Dried blood left thin ribbons down his throat, his torso, his legs.

Like Eve, Baxter stood, looking up. “He’s yours.”

“Yeah.”

“My boon companion and fresh-faced young detective and I want in.”

“Yeah. Where’s the grandson?”

“Baker, Jonas Wymann. Put him back in the kitchen with a uniform. He’s pretty wrecked.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“Nope. First on scene got the basics. It only took one look to figure this was yours, so we just secured the scene, stowed the wit, and tagged you.”

“Peabody’s on her way, Lieutenant,” Trueheart told her.

“Okay, seal up,” she told Roarke, “and let’s get him down. Where’s the thing to lower the thing?” she wondered.

Roarke found it, and at her nod, brought the swirling light and its burden down.

“Detective Trueheart, verify vic’s ID.”

She knelt with him, took out gauges to establish time of death while Baxter and Roarke exchanged small talk.

“TOD’s reading oh-three-eleven. Nine-one-one came in about thirty minutes later. Didn’t miss them by much. Facial bruising, looks like a broken jaw, ligature marks on wrists, more bruising on the genitals, signs of anal rape. All injuries consistent with those on Edward Mira. Bag his hands,” she ordered. “Bag the placard and the rope for the lab.”

“ID’s verified, sir, a Jonas Bartell Wymann, this address.”

She put on microgoggles, got closer. “Busted his nose, too. It’s going to be a weighted sap. Security?”

“The hard drive and discs are missing,” Baxter told her. “No signs I can see of forced entry. The little bit the uniforms got out of the wit was he wasn’t able to reach his grandfather all evening.”

“Let’s talk to him.” After a glance at Baxter, she rose. “You and me, Trueheart. Baxter, go ahead, bring in the sweepers and the morgue. Let’s see what Morris can tell us. Have EDD come in, go over the electronics.”

“Um,” Trueheart said as he started back with Eve.

“Spit it out, Detective.”

“Baxter and I cleared the house. There wasn’t any sign of struggle, any sign any of the beds had been slept in. There are two house droids, sir, but since we could see this would be your case, we didn’t take them out of sleep mode.”

“We’ll get to them. Big fricking house,” she commented.

“Yes, sir. Ah . . .” He cleared his throat. “There’s also what appears to be a sex droid in the closet of the master bedroom.”

“Is that so? How do you know it’s a sex droid?”

He flushed, pink and pretty. “Well, ah, Baxter mentioned he’d seen that model before, and it was built for that particular purpose.”

“Uh-huh,” she said and walked through to a kitchen so shiny silver and glossy black her eyes wanted to twitch.

A man sat at a square table of glass on a silver pedestal, his head in his hands, a cup of something in front of him.

He looked up as she entered, showed her a ridiculously handsome face poet pale with shock and grief. And young, she noted as she gauged him as barely old enough to drink legally.

“Are you in charge?” He had a voice like a bell—deep, clear, resonant.

“Lieutenant Dallas. Yes, I’m in charge. This is Detective Trueheart. I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Baker.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. Granddad—someone killed him. I don’t understand.”

Eve flicked a glance at the uniform, dismissing her, then sat across from Baker. Another glance, this one at Trueheart, had the new detective taking a seat.

“This is hard. Why don’t you start by telling me why you’re here. This isn’t your residence.”

“No, I don’t live here anymore. I did for a while, when I was just starting out. I stay sometimes. He’s mostly alone here, so I stay sometimes.”

“When did you get here tonight?”

“It was late—early, I mean. Three-thirty or something.”

“Do you usually come over so early in the morning?”

“No. No. He didn’t come to opening night, and he always . . . I thought maybe he forgot or just got busy, and I was even a little upset because it was my first . . .” He paused, pressed his fingers to his eyes, tawny gold, rimmed with red.

“Whatever Works.”

Baker dropped his hands at Trueheart’s words. “It’s been getting a lot of buzz,” Trueheart continued. “I just put it together. Jonas W. Baker, you’re the lead. I was going to try to take my girl to see it sometime. You opened last night?”

“Yeah. Opening night. Musical comedy,” he said to Eve. “I’m the male lead. It’s my first time headlining. My mother’s in Australia, and my father—well, even if he was in the country, he probably wouldn’t have come. But my grandparents never missed.”

“Your grandparents?” Eve repeated.

“Yeah, they’re not married anymore—not for years—but they do the united front for my plays. But she’s stuck in Chicago. Her flight got canceled—they’re snowed under good. What I mean is whenever I got a part, they’d be there opening night. Front row center, every time. And my grandfather was the one who backed me when I wanted to go into theater instead of law or medicine or politics—whatever would’ve been suitable for my parents. He backed me, and he helped me, and let me live here while I was getting my start.”

He picked up the cup in front of him, set it down again, pushed it away.

“He never missed, so when he didn’t show, I thought he was running late or something. I had to put it away, you know, and do the job, do the show. We rocked the house, too, yeah, we did.”

“You must’ve been upset not to have him there. Big night for you,” Trueheart added.

“The biggest.”

“I guess you didn’t have time to try to reach him. Try his ’link.”

“I did, actually. I left a couple v-mails. The last one, during intermission, was pretty pissy. God. And when the show was over—six curtain calls, and a standing O—what did I do? I sulked about it.”

“You wanted to share it with him,” Trueheart prompted.

“I’ve got a girl, too, and she was there. But . . . he’s the one I wanted most. I just wanted him to see all that faith and support, they weren’t wasted.”