Indulgence in Death - J. D. Robb [44]
“Can you think of anyone who’d want to cause you trouble?” Eve asked. “Want the cops at your door at three in the morning?”
He didn’t answer immediately, but frowned into the distance. “When you hold a position with a company like Intelicore as I do, you do generate some resentment, some anger, some hard feelings. People get fired or transferred, or written up. I can imagine there are some who wouldn’t mind seeing me hassled or inconvenienced. There are probably some who’d enjoy hearing I’d been questioned by the police. But this is more than that. This is using my name in connection with murder. No, I can’t think of anyone who’d do that.”
“I’m going to send e-detectives to your office and your home to do their own check of your equipment. Any problem with that?”
“No. I want answers on this, and quickly. I’ll have to tell The Third,” he muttered.
“The Third?”
“Sorry.” He shook his head. “The head of the company. I’ll need to inform him there’s been a breach, and that there’s a criminal investigation connected to it.” He dragged a hand through his hair.
“He can’t blame you,” Julia began.
“It’s my account. At some point, someone’s head’s going to roll. So believe me, Lieutenant, when I say I want answers. I don’t want that head to be mine.”
“We appreciate your cooperation.” Eve got to her feet. “If he’s the head of the company, why do you call him The Third?”
“Sylvester B. Moriarity the Third. His grandfather started the company.”
She had that information already, but circled around it. “And he takes an active role in the company.”
“He’s involved, certainly. I’ll walk you out.”
“They were sweet,” Peabody said when she got into the passenger’s seat. “Well, they were,” she insisted when Eve said nothing. “Him all blushy and flustered about having a woman there, and her making coffee and wearing his robe.”
“More to the point is he has a solid alibi, and he’s just not part of this. We check the admin and the admin’s boy. Cross-check them, and their family, tight friends, with Dudley. We run the weapon. Who buys a freaking bayonet? The same kind who buys a crossbow. A person who has access to high-tech jammers, and the shielding to get them through a scanner. Gotta have skills, or money, or both.”
“Probably have to be whacked, too. Killing two people, and it’s looking like those two people were pulled out of a hat—if you’re right and it’s not about the victim as much as the method and the killing.”
“Who hires the most exclusive LC in the city, then doesn’t take time to bang her? She gets paid a hefty deposit in advance, so it’s somebody who doesn’t mind pissing several thousand dollars away.”
“Not his money anyway, since it came out of Intelicore’s coffers.”
“Yeah.” Eve turned it over in her mind as she drove to Central.
“Back-to-back murders,” she said, crossing the underground lot to the elevator. “Both planned out, set up, both using somebody else’s ID, and both expensive whoever gets dinged for the cost. Big-ass corporations would probably be insured against this sort of fraud.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Bet they are. Sweet and Urich will take some heat, but if it can be proved they didn’t authorize the payment, they could squeak out of it—and the company probably will. The insurance company takes the hit. Let’s find out who insures these people.”
They switched to a glide. “Start the runs. I’m going up to EDD, see if they’ve got anything for us.”
For once EDD was almost peaceful. Only a handful manned the cubes and desks at this hour. They paced and pranced, snapped gum and fingers, but there wasn’t so much of a crowd. Noting McNab wasn’t at his station, she veered off to the lab.
She saw him behind the glass, prancing and snapping—and sucking down a jumbo drink—probably something so sweet it caused the teeth to ache. Roarke sat manning keyboard and screen, his hair tied back, what she assumed was a sensible