Festive in Death

Book 39: In Death

by J.D. Robb

Genres: Police Procedurals; Female Sleuths; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

Eve Dallas deals with a homicide-and the holiday season-in the latest from the #1 New York Times bestselling author.

Personal trainer Trey Ziegler was in peak physical condition. If you didn't count the kitchen knife in his well-toned chest.

Lieutenant Eve Dallas soon discovers a lineup of women who'd been loved and left by the narcissistic gym rat. While Dallas sorts through the list of Ziegler's enemies, she's also dealing with her Christmas shopping list-plus the guest list for her and her billionaire husband's upcoming holiday bash.

Feeling less than festive, Dallas tries to put aside her distaste for the victim and solve the mystery of his death. There are just a few investigating days left before Christmas, and as New Year's 2061 approaches, this homicide cop is resolved to stop a cold-blooded killer.

Release date: September 9, 2014

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 400

Sample

Men, Sima thought, can’t live with them, can’t beat them to death with a nine iron.

But a girl could exact some revenge, and she was a girl bent on just that.

Nobody deserved a good dose of revenge—or a beating with a nine iron—as much as Trey Ziegler. The fuckball had booted her out of the apartment they’d shared, even though she had the same territorial rights to the place as he did.

In the seven and a half weeks of their unofficial cohabitation, she’d paid half the rent, half the expenses, including food and beverage. She’d done all the cleaning (lazy bastard), all the marketing. And in that seven and a half weeks had given him the best years of her life.

Plus sex.

After considerable thought, in-depth conversations with close friends and confidants, two ten-minute sessions of meditation and six tequila shots, she’d outlined precisely how, where, and when to exact her revenge.

The how involved that nine iron, an extensive collection of cashmere socks, and itching powder. The where was that one-bedroom apartment over Little Mike’s Tattoo and Piercing Parlor in the West Village.

The when was right fucking now.

He wouldn’t have changed the locks—cheap bastard—and didn’t know she’d given a copy of her swipe to one of those friends and confidants, who also happened to be her boss, right after they’d moved in together.

And if he had changed the lock, her friend said she knew people who knew people, would tag one up, and it would be done.

Sima wasn’t sure she wanted to know the people who knew people or how they would gain access to the apartment. But she knew she wanted in.

So with her friend beside her for moral support, she pulled out her swipe key to open the main door to the apartments over the tat parlor.

Her tequila-fueled grin spread wider when the locks clicked open.

“I knew it! He’d never bother springing for the money to have me deactivated.”

“Maybe not on this door. We still have to see about the apartment.” Her friend gave her a long, hard look. “You’re abso-poso he’s not in there?”

“Totally. His supervisor sprang for the weekend seminar, been in the works for weeks. No way he’d blow it off. Free hotel room, free food, and a chance to show off for two days.”

Sima turned toward the skinny elevator, started to take off her gloves.

“We’ll walk up. Leave your gloves on, remember? No fingerprints.”

“Right, right. It’s my first break-in.” With a nervous giggle Sima started up the stairs.

“It’s not a break-in. You have a key, and you paid the rent.”

“Half.”

“He said it was half. Did you ever check for sure how much the rent was?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Sima, you’ve got to stop letting yourself get pushed around. What you were paying for the squeeze box up here probably covered the whole cha-cha.”

“I know. I know.”

“You’re going to feel a lot better after you cut out the toes in his socks. Remember the plan—one sock from each pair, a little nip so it starts to unravel. You start on that while I put the itching powder in his moisturizer. Then we replace the golf club with the toy one, and we book. We don’t touch anything else. In and out.”

“And he won’t know what the hell. He’s not going to golf until he gets somebody to pay the indoor fee, so that can’t come back on me. The socks will make him crazy.”

“He’ll figure it happened at the dry cleaners. He deserves it. A guy who has his socks dry-cleaned deserves it.”

“Yeah. And the itching powder? He’ll go screaming to the doctor, figuring he’s got a new allergy. Fuckball.”

“Fuckball,” her friend agreed, righteously, as they finally reached the fourth floor. “Moment of truth, Sima.”

On a long breath, Sima steadied herself. Climbing three flights, dressed in her winter coat, scarf, boots, hat—December 2060 was as bitter as her heart—she had worked up a little sweat.

She pulled out the key again, crossed the fingers of her free hand, swiped.

Locks thumped open.

Sima gave a triumphant hoot, and was immediately shushed.

“You want the neighbors poking out?”

“No, but—” Before she could finish, Sima found herself pushed inside with the door quietly, firmly closed behind her.

“Turn on the lights, Sim.”

“Right.” She hit the switch, then hissed, “Look at this mess! I haven’t been gone a week, and he’s already got crap tossed everywhere. Look in there!” She walked toward the kitchen bump as she pointed. “Dirty dishes, takeout boxes. I bet there’re bugs. Ew, I bet there’re bugs in here.”

“What do you care? You don’t live here, so you don’t have to pick up his mess or worry about bugs.”

“But still. And look at the living room. Clothes tossed all over, shoes just— Hey!” She marched over, picked up a scarlet-red high heel, then scooped up a bra with yellow polka dots over purple lace.

“I never noticed any trany tendencies.”

“Because he doesn’t have any!”

“I know, Sim. It’s like we all told you. He only booted you because he sniffed up a new skirt. And jeez, it’s been like a week since he did the booting, so you have to figure . . . Don’t blubber,” she ordered as Sima started to do just that. “Get even! Come on.”

Focused on the task at hand, she pulled the shoe, the bra away, tossed them down again, took Sima’s arm. “I’ll get you started on the socks.”

“I sort of loved him.”

“Sort of is sort of. He treated you like crap, so you pay him back, then you can move on. Trust me.”

Sima’s tears-and-tequila-blurred eyes tracked back to the bra. “I want to bust something up.”

“You’re not going to. You’re going to be smart and hit him where it hurts. Vanity and wallet, then we’re going to go do some more shots.”

“Lots of them.”

“Bunches of lots of them.”

Sima squared her shoulders and nodded. With her hand in her friend’s—moral support—they started toward the bedroom she’d shared for seven and a half weeks with her cheap, cheating, callous boyfriend.

“He didn’t even put up any Christmas decorations. He has a cold heart.”

She couldn’t have been more right.

Trey Ziegler sat propped on the bed, the long chestnut-and-gold-streaked hair he was so proud of matted with blood. His eyes—most recently tinted emerald green—staring.

The kitchen knife jammed in his cold heart pinned a cardboard sign to his well-toned chest. It read:

Santa Says You’ve Been Bad!!!

Ho. Ho. Ho!

As Sima peeled off screams, her friend slapped a hand over her mouth, dragged her away.

“Trey! Trey!”

“Shut it down, Sima. Just shut it down a minute. Jesus, what a mess.”

“He’s dead. There’s blood. He’s dead.”

“I got that. Holy shit.”

“Whattawedo? Oh God! Whattawedo?”

Running away would be awesome but . . . Even buildings as lousy as this probably have some security. Or somebody might have seen them come in. Or heard them work out the plan over tequila shots. Or something.

“You’ve got to calm down some—and don’t touch anything. Not anything. I’ve got to tag up somebody.”

“You’re going to have somebody come get rid of the body?” Sima dragged her fingers down her throat as if she were being strangled. “Oh my God!”

“Grip reality, Sima. I’m tagging a cop.”

•   •   •

Two in the morning, two in the freaking morning in the frozen bowels of December, and she had to roll out of a warm bed beside a hot husband and deal with what might be a dead body—or a drunken prank by a woman who drove her crazy on the best of days.

In moments like this, being a cop sucked.

But Lieutenant Eve Dallas was a cop, so she pulled up in front of the dingy box of a building in the West Village, grabbed her field kit—if there was an actual DB, it would save her coming back out for it—and stomped across the icy sidewalk.

She’d have used her master to swipe in, but the door clicked and buzzed as she reached for it.

She didn’t much like the look of the elevator in the skinny, smelly lobby, but opted for it. The sooner to get this over.

She jammed her cold hands—she hadn’t thought of gloves—in the pockets of her long leather coat and scowled with golden brown eyes at the numbers creeping from one to two to three, and finally to four on the dented panel.

When the doors opened, she strode out, a tall, lean, pretty pissed-off woman with a shaggy cap of hair nearly the same color as her eyes.

Before she could bang a fist on the door, it opened. There stood the woman who cut her hair—often whether Eve wanted the service or not. Who’d seen her naked—and that Eve never wanted.

“If you’re fucking with me, I’m hauling your ass in for filing a false report.”

“Hand to God.” Trina shot up a hand—fingers tipped in swirls of holiday red and green—then used the other to yank Eve inside. “His name’s Trey Ziegler, and he’s really dead in the bedroom.”

“Who’s that?” Eve demanded, jerking a head toward the woman with an explosion of red curls smashed under a black watch cap who was currently holding some sort of red-and-blue plastic golf club and blubbering.

“That’s Sima. His ex. She lived here.”

“You live here?” Eve asked Sima.

“Yes. No. I did, but he—then he . . . He’s . . . he’s . . . he’s . . .”

When Sima dissolved, Eve turned back to Trina. “Stay here, don’t touch anything. Don’t let her touch anything.”

She took the short five steps to the bedroom door, looked in.

Okay, that was a dead man.

She set down her field kit to pull out her ’link. She called it in, arranged for her partner to be notified.

“You.” She pointed at Sima. “Sit over there. Don’t touch anything.” Then she gestured Trina over to the kitchen bump. “If she doesn’t live here, how did you get in?”

“She still has her swipe. Or the copy she made for me when she hooked into the place with him. He only kicked her out a week ago.”

“Why did the two of you come here—and you’re both lit. I can see it, hear it, smell it.”

“About half lit,” Trina corrected with the faintest smirk. Eve’s flat, narrow gaze had her shifting side to side, giving her tower of hair—swirled in the same color and pattern as her nails—a little toss.

“Okay, look, full disclosure, right? Trey dumped her. She came home from work and he’d packed her stuff, said they were done and to get out.”

“They had a fight.”

“Hell no. She’s got the spine of a worm—can’t help it—so even though she’s been paying the rent, he said half but I know what this dump should go for and it was plenty more than half. And she paid for December, so she paid this month’s rent, and she has rights. Right?”

“Just keep going,” Eve ordered.

“Okay. So she just starts crying, takes her stuff and goes. Anyhow, she got a flop for about a week, doesn’t tell me or any of us ’cause she said she was all embarrassed, then finally spills it. I have her at my place, on the pullout until she can get it together.”

“And?”

“And?”

“Let us wind around to tonight and the dead man.”

“Right. Well, tonight, a bunch of us were hanging after work, and there was tequila. And we got this idea about payback. He’s supposed to be in Atlantic City for a couple days, so we bought the toy golf club and some itching powder. We were going to unravel the toes of his socks, put the powder in his face cream, replace one of his clubs with the toy, then book. That’s it. We came in, headed back there, saw him. I pulled her out, tagged you.”

“Itching powder?”

“Serious shit.” Trina nodded wisely. “He’d’ve wanted to scratch his face down to the bone. He deserved it. Look at her.”

Sima sat, head bowed, tears dripping.

“Jesus Christ. Did you know this guy?”

“Yeah, some. Massage therapist, personal trainer. He worked at Buff Bodies, the fitness place near my salon. Most of the staff there use my salon. Sima works for me. That’s how they met.”

“Did you ever roll with him?”

“Shit no.” Trina’s eyes—a bold Christmas green lidded with gold glitter—reflected both insult and disgust. “Guy was a prick and a player. I can do better. Sim didn’t think she could. Self-esteem issues, you know?”

“Whose red shoes, whose underwear?”

“No clue. Not Sim’s.”

“Stay here.”

“Hey, Dallas, go easy on her. She’s a real sweetie, and I talked her into this. I thought giving him a punch would make her feel, you know, empowered. Otherwise, somebody else would’ve found him, and she wouldn’t have that in her head.”

“For all I know the two of you did him, and pulled me in to cover it up.”

Trina snorted out a laugh, sobered instantly at Eve’s stony stare. “Shit. Really? Come on!”

“Stay here.”

She walked back over to where Sima sat quietly hiccuping through tears.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Trey’s dead. Somebody killed him.”

“Before that. How did you and Trina end up here?”

“Oh, well, after work we—me and Trina and Carlos and Vivi and Ace—we all went to Clooney’s.”

“Clooney’s?”

“It’s a bar. We hang there sometimes. Their twisted onions are pretty good, so we got some and some cheesy bits and some margaritas. Then we did some shots because I was feeling bad about Trey dumping me. So Ace said—I think it was Ace, or maybe Vivi, how I should get some of my own back, then somebody said I should come over and toss his stuff out the window, but Trina said no. She said that was too obvious, and I could get in trouble. I should do something more subtle-like. Then we went and bought the trick club and the powder, and we came here, and—and—Trey!”

“Okay.” Eve held up a hand, hoping to ward off hysterics, then quickly wound Sima back, pulling out details.

Details, she thought, that lined up with Trina’s statement.

“Did he ever knock you around, Sima?”

“What? Who? Trey?” Her tear-drenched eyes, outlined in shimmering blue and silver, widened to horrified saucers. “No! He’d never do that.”

“Not physically,” Trina said from across the room, and earned another stony stare. “I’m just saying. He didn’t tune her up, but he picked at her self-esteem. He knocked that around plenty. He wasn’t good to you, Sim.”

“Sometimes he was. He used to be.”

“Did he cheat on you?” Eve asked her.

“I didn’t think so, but . . .” She pointed to the shoe and bra. “Those aren’t mine.”

“Was he in trouble with anybody? Women, work, illegals, gambling?”

“No . . . I don’t think. He, I guess, was sort of distant lately, and spending more time at work or on his computer working on routines for clients and stuff. I asked him if something was up at work, since he was there late a lot, but he said no. And how I should mind my own business.”

“He was up to something.” When the comment got Trina another stare she tossed her hands in the air. “I can hear you over here, and it’s stupid to pretend I can’t. He was up to something.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know such as, I just know something. A lot of my people—staff, clients—use BB, and some of them use Trey for personal training, or for massages. Word was going around he was acting weird—more than usual—the past couple months maybe. Put a second lock on his locker at the gym, spent a lot of after-hours time there when he didn’t have a client. A couple mutual clients told me he was talking about opening his own place, like a high-class spa deal, maybe on St. Bart’s or Nevis or some shit.”

“You never told me!”

Trina shrugged at Sima. “I was going to, but then he dumped you. I didn’t see the point since it was only the rumor chamber. And I figured if we did the deed here tonight, maybe we’d see something lying around. Like confirmation.”

“Did he have any valuables?” Eve asked Sima. “Anything worth stealing?”

“Oh . . .”

“I see a mini-comp there—pretty high end, the entertainment screen, good-sized but portable. How about jewelry, art, cash?”

“He has a really good wrist unit for work—a sports model—and a really nice dress one. And, um, his collection of ear hoops, and a couple rings. One yellow gold, one white gold. He never wore them when he was working because they got in the way. He’s got the golf clubs, and like golf accessories. He didn’t keep any money around that I know of. We didn’t really have any art, except a couple photographs he had taken and framed.”

She gestured to the photographs—of the dead guy in sports skinwear, posing to show off his biceps, his delts. They flanked a shelf that held several trophies topped with a figure dressed the same, doing the same.

“Hold on.” Eve turned to open the door at the knock, then stepped out—leaving the door open—to instruct the two uniforms who’d reported to the scene.

“Okay, I need some information,” she said when she stepped back in, closing the door. “The name of his employer or immediate supervisor, a list of friends and/or coworkers. Did he have a live-in or serious relationship prior to you, Sima?”

“Oh, well, I guess. Sure.”

“He bounced around on Alla Coburn right before Sim,” Trina said helpfully. “Mutual client. She owns Natural Way, a health-food place near BB. And FYI, she was pretty ripped about their breakup. Put on the good-riddance face, but she didn’t mean it. I know what’s what with people who sit in my chair. Plus he banged a lot of his clients.”

“He stopped that when we got together,” Sim said, blinking at Trina’s look of frustrated sympathy. “He didn’t? But—but he said . . .”

“We’ll talk. Anyway, his supervisor’s Lill Byers, and she’ll talk to you straight. You’d do better with coworkers. He didn’t hang with anybody for long outside of work.”

Sensing there was more, Eve only nodded as she noted down the names. “An officer’s going to drive you home.”

“We can just go?” Sima asked.

“Stay available. You’re at Trina’s for now?”

“Well, I—”

“She’s with me until this all shakes out. You’re with me, Sim, don’t worry about it.”

That started fresh waterworks, so Eve opened the door. “Go down with Officer Cho,” she told Sima. “Trina will be right down.”

Once Eve got Sima out, she turned to Trina. “Spill.”

“Okay, I wanted to be careful around her. He was an asshole. I’m sorry he’s dead and all that, but that’s mostly for her. Look, he’d barely rolled off Alla before he rolled onto Sima. Guy was a player, and a user. Some of the stuff in here? It’s hers, but she didn’t think of saying hey, my stuff. She did all the work around here, you know what I’m saying? Picking up after him, stocking the AutoChef, seeing about the laundry and the dry cleaning. Fucker dry-cleaned his freaking socks.”

“Get out.”

“Hand to God! You’re going to find a lot of slick clothes in his closet, lots of top-drawer face, hair, body products. Asshole was a peacock. He looked good, I’ll give him that, but he swept women up, then swept them out after he got what he was after—and not just sex.”

“What else?”

“You can bet he didn’t buy those wrist units for himself, or half that slick wardrobe. He scouted out rich, older women. Clients, like I said. Or that’s the word. Probably one of them jammed that knife in his heart, but it wasn’t Sim. She didn’t kill him.”

“I know that.”

“She couldn’t—oh. Well, solid.”

“Do you know who belongs to the shoes and the polka dots?”

“No, but I could maybe find out.”

“Leave that to me. Go home. And next time you do a bunch of shots, go home.”

Emboldened, Trina ticked off points on her festively tipped nails. “She paid the rent. She had a key. Some of her stuff’s still here. She’s got a right to come in.”

“Got that. But the itching powder could be considered assault, the socks destruction of property and the golf club theft. It’s inventive payback, but it’s not worth the legal fees.”

Trina shrugged it off. “Anyway, thanks for handling it.” Trina narrowed her eyes, got the look in them that chilled Eve’s blood. “You could use a little shaping on the do, and a hydrating facial. Winter’s a bitch on skin.”

“Push it, Trina, and I’ll have you taken into Central, put in the box and make you go through all this again.”

“Just saying what I know. We’ll give you the works before your big bash.” She stepped to the door, paused. “Sim’s a little naive and way trusting. Some people never get over that, even when they end up covered with bruises.”

True enough, Eve thought.

Eve walked back toward the bedroom, picked up her field kit. She’d gotten over any naivete and excessive trust long, long ago, she decided as she pulled out a can of Seal-It to coat her hands, her boots.

A cop did better cynical and suspicious. Considering herself armed with healthy portions of both, she went in to deal with death.

She took a slow scan to allow her lapel recorder to document the scene, including the blood spatter on the wall, the smears of it on the floor. And the gore clinging to the base of what appeared to be another trophy.

An open suitcase holding precisely folded clothes sat on the foot of the bed, opposite side from the body.

“It appears the vic was packing—nearly done with it—for a scheduled trip. Wits state a work-related seminar in Atlantic City. A lot of clothes for a couple days,” she commented. “Which would coincide with wits’ opinion of vic as a peacock. Nice threads, top line,” she said after a quick look. “Also verifying wits’ statements.”

She poked in a little more, came up with a small baggie filled with dried leaves.

“What have we here? It looks like . . . tea leaves.” She opened it, sniffed—and had a flash of the flowery tea Mira, the department shrink, swore by. “Smells like tea. Doesn’t look like any illegal substance I’ve come across. Bagging for analysis. Not a priority as we’re not going to bust the dead guy for possession.”

She crossed back, crouched to examine the large trophy with the figure of a seriously ripped male, clad only in compression shorts, flexing both biceps. “A couple trophies like this in the living room. The blood and gray matter on this one—Personal Trainer of the Year, 2059—indicates it was used to strike the victim on the left side of the head.”

She lifted it, pursed her lips. “Yeah, it’s got some weight to it. A couple good whacks would do the trick.”

Setting it down again, she rose, walked back in the living room, lifted the other trophies.

Twin circles of clean under them. Dust skimmed the rest of the shelf.

“The murder weapon wasn’t here with these two.” She walked back into the bedroom, found a similar circle on the dresser.

“The murder weapon sat right here. The killer and vic are in the vic’s bedroom. No overt signs of break-in, so it’s probable the vic knew his killer. No signs of a struggle—none from a vic who wins personal trainer trophies, so it doesn’t look like a physical fight. No scuffle, but maybe an argument. The killer picks up the trophy, and bashes.

“But doesn’t leave the body where it falls, and that’s interesting. The killer drags the body to the bed—leaves some blood smears on the way, hefts it on there, props it up. Takes the time—and has the rage or coldness—to get the knife, write the message, and stab what I’m betting was a dead man in the chest just to ice the cookie.”

She took her Identi-pad, her gauges, out of her kit, rose to walk over to the body.

Victim is identified as Trey Arthur Ziegler, mixed race male, age thirty-one. Resided this apartment. Single. No marriages, no legal cohabs, no offspring on record.

She heard the door open, paused until she heard the clomp of her partner’s boots.

“Back here,” Eve called out. “Seal up.”

Detective Peabody came to the bedroom door. Pink cowboy boots, big puffy coat, a couple miles of rainbow-striped scarf and a bright blue hat with earflaps.

She looked, Eve thought, like an Eskimo running away to the circus.

“I saw Trina downstairs,” Peabody began, then looked at the body on the bed. “Wow, ho, ho, humbug.”

“Yeah, he won’t be going home for Christmas.”

“I got from Trina this was her pal’s ex-boyfriend.”

“Who they found when they snuck in to put itching powder in his face gunk.”

“Fun.” Peabody pulled the cap off her dark hair, stuffed it in her pocket. “You don’t think Trina had anything to do with the dead guy.”

“I wish I did, then I could toss her in a cage.”

“Aw.” Peabody began unwinding her scarf.

“But according to my on-site,” Eve continued, removing the gauges, “it looks like he bought it about eighteen-thirty hours. We’ll check Trina and Sima’s alibi, but it’s going to hold up. Besides, Trina’s too cagey to kill somebody this way, and the friend doesn’t have the balls.”

Eve replaced her gauges, pulled out microgoggles. “Check and see if there are any security cams, then go ahead and call in the ME and the sweepers. Let’s get the uniforms started on a canvass of the building. Maybe somebody heard or saw something.”

“Oh boy, a bunch of pissed-off neighbors.”

“Not once they find out there’s been a murder. People love finding out somebody’s dead and they’re not. Get that going, then we’ll go through the place when I’m done with the body.”

Eve fit on the goggles, leaned over to peer at the shattered side of the skull. “So, Trey,” she murmured, “what have you got to tell me?”

Death killed any illusion of privacy. After she’d examined the body, Eve began a systematic search of the bedroom.

As Trina stated, Trey owned an extensive wardrobe. Slick, sexy workout gear, spiffy suits, stylish club wear.

“He coordinated his socks and underwear,” she commented when Peabody came back in. “Colors and patterns. Who does that, and why?”

“I read this article about how what you wear under your clothes is all about what m