Secret Admirer

Drawing back the door a crack, he glanced into the hallway. Eve stood there, looking as fresh as a daisy in a white blouse and gray pants.

“What the hell—”

She pushed against the door, shoving it open and walking past him. “Where’ve you been? Clare’s been trying to reach you.”

“Clare…” He felt as if he were lagging at least two laps behind, trying to catch up. “What’s going on?”

He saw then that Eve wasn’t quite as pulled together as he’d first thought. Her hazel eyes were a little too bright, and her hair looked as if she’d combed it with her fingers. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, either, and her face was pale, blanched.

“Bill Stringer’s daughter was found dead in her apartment about an hour ago. She was murdered.”

The pounding in Tony’s ears suddenly grew louder, the pain in his head excruciating. He wiped a hand across his mouth, feeling the prickle of his whiskers. “Man,” he said. “Oh, man.”

“We’re catching this one.”

That didn’t sound right to Tony. What was Clare up to? “Why us?”

“She said she wanted a woman on the case, and she wanted the best. The latter wasn’t referring to me, I’m willing to bet,” Eve said without rancor. “We need to get over there.”

“Yeah. Sure. Just give me a minute.” Tony walked out of the room, feeling as if fireworks were exploding inside his head. This isn’t good. This isn’t good, his mind kept screaming.

He unscrewed the cap off a bottle of aspirin and downed a couple without water. Stripping, he gave himself two minutes under an icy shower, standing with his hands propped against the tile wall as the water pummeled him back to semiconsciousness.

Lucy Stringer had been murdered tonight. Tony closed his eyes, shuddering. He could see her pretty face, hear her voice complaining to him that her father still treated her like a kid. “He still thinks I’m about ten years old,” she’d grumbled at a Christmas party a couple years back. She’d pouted like a ten-year-old, but the look she’d slanted Tony was anything but childish. Lucy had liked to flirt, especially with cops, but everyone knew she was off-limits. Besides, she was a good kid. Never into any trouble that Tony was aware of.

He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her. At that Christmas party? No, more recently than that.

She sometimes came to the pub. She’d been there a few nights ago, hadn’t she? Or was it last night?

Tony struggled to remember, catching glimpses of her in his mind at the pool table, at the bar, in the corner talking to someone…but who?

Or was all this his imagination, induced by a killer hangover?

Bad word choice, he realized with a grimace, climbing out of the shower. He dried off, pulled on a pair of jeans, then picked up his shirt, shoes, gun and wallet, and carried them all out to the living room.

Eve glanced at him in surprise.

“You’re driving,” he said, and walked past her out the door.

TONY FINISHED DRESSING while Eve drove them to the address Clare had given to her earlier. Eve knew the area fairly well, but she was still surprised to find that Lucy Stringer’s apartment was only a few blocks from Tony’s.

She glanced at him as she turned down the street. He looked like death warmed over, she thought, and grimaced at her word choice. He’d taken a quick shower, but he hadn’t bothered to shave, and the stubble on his lower face was dark and thick, the shadows under his eyes almost purplish. He wore jeans and a faded CPD T-shirt, as usual not exactly the image a detective should cultivate, but then, Eve suspected his manner of dress was yet another way Tony tried to keep people at a distance.

Lucy had rented a garage apartment in a nice, middle-class neighborhood. The street was lined with police cars, and a Crime Scene Unit was pulled to the curb in front of the walkway. Eve maneuvered into a space, and she and Tony got out. As they walked across the damp grass, she could hear the faint sounds of traffic a few blocks over on the freeway, almost drowned out by the static transmission of a patrol unit radio.

She clipped her shield to her waistband as they walked by the two young patrolmen manning the yellow-ribboned perimeter. At the top of the stairs, she and Tony paused and gazed around. A mail slot had been cut in the front door, and the metal plate had already been dusted for prints.

Inside the apartment, the tiny rooms spilled over with people. The decor was typical college girl—cluttered, worn, eclectic. The only items of value that Eve could immediately discern were a computer and a stereo, and neither had been touched.

Through the open doorway, she glimpsed the dead girl lying on the bed, fully clothed, her eyes open, her arms and legs sprawled in an unnatural pose. Looking on while a Crime Scene Unit tech videotaped and narrated the setting was Vic D’Angelo.

When he saw Eve and Tony in the doorway, a curtain of rage descended over his features. Head down like a charging bull, he lunged toward Tony. Eve quickly stepped between them.

“What the hell is he doing here? I don’t want him here.”

“You don’t have anything to say about it,” Tony offered unhelpfully. “And by the way, what the hell are you doing here?”

D’Angelo was clearly in a state. Lucy Stringer had been his partner’s daughter. He’d probably known her for years, maybe even since she was a little girl. Eve realized if she didn’t do something to diffuse the situation and quick, both D’Angelo and Tony might end up with suspensions.

“We’re following the lieutenant’s orders,” Eve told him, then took his arm. “Come on. Let’s walk outside for a minute.”

He looked as if he wanted to balk, then shrugged, a shudder ripping through his body. He wore the same black shirt and tight pants he’d had on earlier, and Eve wondered if he’d even been to bed, or if he’d been in someone else’s bed when he’d gotten the call.

She guided him outside, past the crime scene tape and down the street a few steps where they could talk in private.

“I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “What am I going to tell Bill?”

“I know this is rough,” she said softly. “You and Bill Stringer have been partners for a long time, haven’t you?”

He closed his eyes briefly. “I know the whole family. His wife used to have me over for Sunday dinners. Lucy was always there, helping out in the kitchen. She was a real sweet kid. Used to have a crush on me.”

He’d have liked that, Eve thought. A pretty young coed thinking of him as the studly detective.

“I don’t know what I’m going to tell Bill,” he said again.

“He probably already knows. I think Clare was going over there herself.”

“Clare?” The name seemed to register only faintly with him.

“The lieutenant.”

“Clare,” he said, and drew a long breath. “She called you and Cowboy?”

Eve nodded. “We’re catching this one.” At the belligerent look on his face, she reached out and put her hand on his arm. “Tony’s a good detective. The best. You know that as well as I do. His instincts are nothing short of phenomenal.”

For a moment, D’Angelo looked as if he might fly into a fury again, but then he gave a brief shrug. “I guess I don’t have any complaints with his investigations.”

“What do you have a complaint with?”

He glanced down at her, scowling. “He’s not the kind of man you need to get involved with, Eve.”

He’d never called her by her first name before. That alone surprised Eve. “He’s my partner. Who says we’re involved?”

“He’s dangerous. Ask Clare about him.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Eve said, although she didn’t. She didn’t like thinking that she and Tony had already become the subject of department speculation. “I can take care of myself.”

He gave her a hint of the old smirk. “Yeah. I kind of figured that out.” Glancing toward the street, he shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “So what am I supposed to do now?”

“Why don’t you go over to Bill’s? He could probably use a friend.”

D’Angelo’s gaze turned bleak as he stared at the flashing lights on top of the patrol cars. “I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think I can face him right now.”

Something in his tone sent a shiver coursing through Eve. “Then go home,” she said softly. “Get some rest. We’ve got a lot of hard work ahead of us.”

He nodded absently and started down the street. Eve didn’t see his car, but it had to be parked around here somewhere. He was halfway down the block before she realized she hadn’t asked him how he’d known about Lucy Stringer.

Had Clare called him, too?

WHEN EVE WALKED BACK into the room, she saw Tony glance up at her, but then he went right back to work. His face was an inscrutable mask as he bent over the dead woman, cataloging the stab wounds and the bruises marring an otherwise flawless face.

There was a lot of blood. The sheets were stained almost completely red.

A wave of nausea rolled over Eve, but she fought it back.

“Landlady found her,” Tony said, without looking up. “She’d gotten up to take her heart medication and saw lights on in the apartment. Said she was afraid Lucy might have been sick so she came over here to check.”

“Where is the landlady?” Eve asked.

“Downstairs. Roswell says she’s not in very good shape,” he said, referring to one of the uniforms. “Why don’t you go talk to her? I’ll finish up in here.”

Eve was absurdly grateful. She hated to admit how anxious she was to get out of that bedroom. She’d never thought she was cut out for homicide, and now she knew the truth of it. Turning, she strode from the room, inhaling gulps of fresh air as she clambered down the stairs.

The landlady, Betty Jarvis, was an older woman, in her late sixties or early seventies. She sat at her kitchen table, intermittently twisting a damp tissue in her hands and lifting it to wipe at her red-rimmed eyes. This wasn’t going to be much fun, either, Eve thought.

She sat down at the table and took the woman’s hand in hers. “I’m Detective Barrett. I know this is going to be difficult for you, but I’ve got to ask you some questions.”

IT WAS ALMOST TWO HOURS before Eve and Tony hooked back up. She’d finished her interview with Mrs. Jarvis, and Tony had already talked to the immediate neighbors, as well as the patrol officers who had first responded to the call.

They stood in the living room of Lucy’s apartment as her body was lifted onto a stretcher and carried down to the coroner’s van. Once the body was removed, the apartment took on an air of abandonment, a hushed quality that sent a shiver up Eve’s backbone.

The CSU team was finishing up in the other rooms of the apartment, checking sink traps and trash cans. Other than the bedroom, where the victim had been found, the bathroom would take the longest. The tile and porcelain could be an especially fertile ground for trace evidence.

Eve glanced around, seeing signs of the crime almost everywhere. The bloody bedclothes had been bagged, sealed, labeled and placed near the door, along with several other paper packets of evidence. The stack would grow as the CSU techs continued their work. Hopefully, something inside one of the bags would lead them to the killer.

Tony came over to stand beside her. “Thanks for getting rid of D’Angelo earlier.”

“No problem. I didn’t think this was the time or place to air personal problems.”

Tony gave her a strange, probing look. “No, you’re right. You did good.”

“Thanks.” Maybe not much of a compliment to anyone else, but it was a start, Eve thought.

“So did you find out anything from the landlady?”

Eve shrugged. “Maybe. She and Lucy were pretty tight, it seems. Lucy was like a surrogate granddaughter or something. Mrs. Jarvis liked to keep an eye on her.”

“Spy on her, you mean,” Tony said, frowning.

“No, I don’t think it was that way.” Eve paused. “I think she genuinely cared about Lucy, and from everything I’ve been able to gather, that wasn’t unusual. Lucy was a personable young woman.”

Something flashed in Tony’s eyes, an emotion Eve couldn’t define, but he said nothing.

“Mrs. Jarvis thought there was a possibility that Lucy may have had a new boyfriend.”

“That seems to fit.”

Eve knew he was referring to the setup of the crime scene—no tool marks at the front door, no sign of a struggle. It appeared Lucy Stringer had known her killer.

“Does she know who he is?” Tony asked.

Eve shook her head. “No. She never even saw him, but she said Lucy had been acting a little strangely the last few days. Secretive. And she hadn’t been getting home until all hours.”

“What’s ‘all hours’?”

“Three and four o’clock in the morning, according to Mrs. Jarvis. She thinks Lucy may have brought him home with her a time or two.”

“Did she see a car?”

Again Eve shook her head. “No. And she said she checked, too, but there was never a vehicle, besides Lucy’s, parked at the curb or in the driveway. She thinks maybe he rode with Lucy, and then either called a cab or walked home.”

“Which means he could live nearby,” Tony said, without expression.

Eve had thought about that, too. “Maybe Lucy gave him a lift the next day.”

“Maybe. We’ll need to find out the guy’s name, which means talking to Lucy’s friends and family. People she went to school with.”

“Mrs. Jarvis knew a couple of Lucy’s girlfriends. I’ve got their names in my notebook. There’s another thing.” When Tony glanced at her, Eve said, “A couple of weeks ago, Lucy received an anonymous love letter. She showed it to Mrs. Jarvis.”

“Was the letter signed?”

“Unfortunately, no, and Mrs. Jarvis’s memory is hazy on the content. But she remembers teasing Lucy about having a secret admirer, and then a few days later, Lucy received flowers. Pink roses, and the card wasn’t signed.”

“She have any idea where Lucy might have kept the letter and the card?”

“No, but she thinks Lucy’s new boyfriend was the same person who sent her the letter and the flowers. Maybe that was why Lucy was so secretive about him. She didn’t want his identity known.”

“Married?”

“That was my first thought,” Eve agreed. “But it could be someone prominent or older. Someone Lucy knew Mrs. Jarvis wouldn’t approve of.”

Tony nodded, distracted. “We’d better get the reports written up,” he said. “Then we can start the legwork.”

They started down the apartment stairs just as the coroner’s van pulled away from the curb and headed down the street. Some of the patrol cars had already dispersed, but a few officers remained, guarding the crime scene until CSU finished up.

Silently, Eve and Tony walked down the street to her car. But instead of opening the door and climbing in, Tony sat down on the curb. He dropped his head to his knees.

Startled, Eve hesitated, then sat down beside him. “Hey, you okay?”

He glanced up at her, his gaze dark and haunted, his expression almost tortured. Without thinking, Eve reached out and touched his arm. He jerked, as if burned, and for a moment she thought he meant to fling aside her hand. But instead he grabbed her fingers, clutching them as though they were his lifeline.

“Didn’t you see it?” His voice was like nothing she’d ever heard before.

Eve stared at him in shock. “See what?”

“I can’t believe I never noticed it before. I can’t believe I never saw it.”

An icy chill rolled through Eve. “See what?” she repeated.

Tony’s eyes closed briefly and he shuddered. “She looked enough like Ashley to be her sister.”

A LITTLE WHILE LATER they sat behind their desks, face-to-face, typing their reports into their computers. Tony glanced up at Eve, but she didn’t return his look. She’d been avoiding eye contact ever since they’d left the scene, and he couldn’t really blame her. He must have sounded pretty freaked back there. What the hell had possessed him to make such an asinine comment? Lucy Stringer looked nothing like Ashley. Nothing.

Oh, sure, they’d both been blondes, both tall and fair. Lucy had been a pretty girl, but nothing spectacular.

What, then, had made him think even for an instant that she looked like Ashley?

Because of the wounds.

The revelation hit him like a bolt of lightning, and for a moment the last meal he’d had—whenever that had been—bubbled up in his stomach, threatening.

He hit the save button and stood. “I’ll catch you later.”

Eve glanced up in alarm. “Where are you going? The lieutenant will want to see our reports.”

“I’ve got to check on something,” he muttered, then turned on his heel and exited the office.

In the men’s room, he ran cold water in the sink, scrubbing at his face almost brutally, as if he could somehow wash away the terrible premonition taking hold somewhere inside him.

Seven stab wounds. There had been seven vicious stab wounds on Lucy’s body.

Just like on Ashley’s.

THE REST OF THE DAY was devoted to searching Lucy Stringer’s apartment from top to bottom, canvassing her neighborhood, interviewing neighbors, friends, relatives, anyone who might give them a lead.

They split up after lunch, Tony going to the morgue to oversee the autopsy and Eve to talk to Mrs. Jarvis yet again. They were to meet back at the station by five o’clock for a briefing with Clare, which was to become their regular pattern over the next few days.

At the end of the second day, Clare drummed her fingers impatiently on the desk as Tony and Eve filled her in on the progress of the investigation.

“Look,” she said, when the two of them had finished. “It’s been thirty-six hours. I don’t want this to become a mystery.”

“We don’t want that, either,” Eve said, knowing that the lieutenant was referring to the status of a case once forty-eight hours had passed and it remained unsolved. “We’re doing everything we can.”

“I’m bringing Sutton and Wilson in on this. The two of you can brief them when we finish.”

Tony said nothing, but Eve could feel the tension emanating between him and Clare.

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