Page 45 of Festive in Death

“Sit,” Mira invited, bringing her tea over to one of her pretty blue scoop chairs.

They suited her—elegant and functional. As the soft coral of her dress, the slightly bolder color of her ankle-breaking heels, the understated but excellent jewelry suited the department’s top shrink and profiler.

“He was a narcissist,” Mira began. “Extremely self-focused. His choice of career, and apparent skill at it, provided a service to others, but put him in control of them, physically and emotionally. Even spiritually for some who consider their physical regimen a kind of religion. It also put him in the spotlight.”

“Yeah, I get that. Add the photos—of himself—in the apartment, the mirrors, the clothes, the really extensive collection of hair and body products. He could’ve opened his own store there. I also get some people can self-focus, can indulge themselves without being narcissists. Or rapists.”

“Rapists.” Mira sipped her tea. “Tell me about that.”

“One of the women who slept with him—married, a client—described the experience.”

She laid out Martella Schubert’s statement, her suspicions, and the discovery of the tea.

“He laced tea to gain this woman’s—and you believe other women’s—acquiescence for sex. Tea he served them as if a kind of romantic gesture.”

“Exactly. He even used it on his former live-in girlfriend when she wasn’t in the mood.”

“He wouldn’t have seen it as rape.”

“That doesn’t change the fact.”

“No, but he would’ve seen it as a kind of seduction. Setting the scene. And it again, put him in control, physically and emotionally. To this man sex was another act of being admired, a validation of his prowess, his physical appearance, his body. He gave them a service, he’d think. He gifted them with his skill. And as with his other skills, why shouldn’t he be paid for it? A narcissist, a sex addict with sociopathic tendencies.”

“No friends,” Eve added. “Coworkers who could respect his skill, but only tolerated him at best. All that money in his locker.”

“His secret. Banking or investing money is so ordinary, isn’t it? He was extraordinary. And why should he make an effort to be friendly with coworkers when he was so obviously superior?”

“Too special, too superior to go through training and channels and get a license for sex.”

“Why train for something he excelled at? Be screened by some bureaucracy? A license? Far too regimented.”

“And it costs. Word is—and it’s bearing out—he was cheap with everything but himself. He dealt in cash, cash only. Unreported cash. And I think greedy enough to resort to blackmail.”

“Oh, absolutely, though again he wouldn’t have considered it blackmail. The exchange of pay for a service.”

Mira sipped her tea, recrossed her very fine legs. “In his mind, he deserved it all, and more. I believe he’d have escalated—sex and money—as he went on. The use of the illegals certainly demonstrates his driving need to have exactly what he wanted, to control the women he selected. They not only succumbed to his allure—in his mind—but paid for the privilege. Every success would reinforce his self-belief, and he would have wanted more.”

“The awards—the trophies—they played in.”

“Reinforcing again he was special, above the rest. You’re approaching this from a different angle,” Mira commented. “A profile of your victim rather than the killer.”

“The more I learn about him, the more it’s clear pretty much anyone who knew him could’ve done it. Temper, payback, an argument over sex, blackmail, a competition, a client. I think the murder itself was a moment of fury, impulse, but the rest...”

“Cold, calculated. Still angry. How could you drive a knife into a dead man unless there was anger? The message left? An insult. A brutal sort of sarcasm.”

“A definite fuck-you.”

“Precisely. The anger was personal and intense, but controlled. Absolute rage? You’d expect more violence. And I agree with your conclusion in your report that he knew his killer, had no fear, no time to defend. He was a very strong and fit individual. But there were no signs of struggle, no offensive or defensive wounds on the body, just the killing blows and the postmortem stab wound. And nothing taken?”

“Not that the ex-girlfriend knew. Plenty of easy money in electronics and jewelry, so not robbery, no. I can’t know if the killer gave him something the ex didn’t know about, then took it. Jewelry again or more cash. But he was packing to go out of town, and let this person in the apartment, and by the evidence at the scene, let this person into the bedroom.”

“He was fully dressed when killed.”

“Dressed, yeah. The blood spatter on the sweater from the head wound. I don’t think the killer came for sex, or Ziegler was looking for sex. He should have left for AC about thirty minutes after TOD, and he wasn’t fully packed.”

“Are you thinking one of the women he raped learned what he’d done?”

“I’ve got Peabody talking to a short list right now. Could be that. Could be a husband, a boyfriend, especially since you say he wouldn’t have considered it rape, wouldn’t see the wrong in it.”

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