Page 34 of Passions in Death
“I guess that’s a good rule of thumb.”
“Whose thumb?”
“I don’t know,” Peabody decided. “I really don’t know.”
“Then give me the rundown on Stillwater.”
“Marcus Stillwater, age twenty-eight. Originally from Virginia, went to NYU. Employed at Fordam for six years. No marriages, no cohabs. Got a bump—indecent exposure, underage drinking, public lewdness. All one incident. At age nineteen he and a couple pals got loaded at a party, and took a dare to run naked around the track. Got busted.”
“Is that it?”
“On the criminal, yeah. Got degrees in communication and in public relations. One sib, female, age twenty-four, still lives in Virginia.”
When she couldn’t even find a loading zone on the street, Eve pulled into a shabby little lot, snarled at the obscene hourly price.
“Roarke should buy up all the parking lots in the entire city. He’d double his already ridiculous fortune.”
“How do you know he hasn’t?”
That gave her a moment’s pause. “No. He’d do something like have the scanner read my plate. Wouldn’t he? Or maybe he has, and he’s messing with me. ‘Well now, Lieutenant,’” she said in a reasonable approximation of an Irish accent as she got out of the car, “‘you had only to ask.’ Then he’d say something about how I actually own this one and that one, just to screw with my head.”
Then she shook it off. “But no. Crap parking lots aren’t challenging enough for him to bother with.”
The heat had already set in so the air itself seemed to sweat. Sunlight bounced off steel and window glass and lasered the eyes, making her glad she’d somehow managed to hang on to her kick-ass sunshades.
When they reached the steel and glass that held Fordam, the wide auto doors slid open.
Inside the busy lobby, the temperature dropped easily thirty degrees.
“Why do they do that? Why do they take it down to meat locker?”
Now she found herself grateful for her jacket as they crossed the black-veined white tile floor.
People walked purposefully or wandered dressed in business suits, business casual, or tourist-special tees and shorts. The lobby, ringed with cafés, delis, and shops and centered with a burbling fountain, echoed with voices.
Eve cut across to the security station, palmed her badge. “Marcus Stillwater, Fordam Publishing.”
“Got that for you,” said the oddly cheerful blonde working the station. “If I could just scan your badge?” She aimed a handheld, then blinked—and her oddly cheerful smile bumped up a couple more degrees. “Welcome, Lieutenant, to Houston Street Tower. Fordam Publishing is on floors twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and thirty. We have Mr. Stillwater on twenty-nine. Bank B, elevators one through three. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe not all the parking lots in the city,” Peabody speculated as they aimed for Bank B, “but it’s a pretty good bet Roarke owns this building.”
“Yeah, another way he screws with my head.” She shoved her hands into her pockets as she waited for an elevator. “If he keeps it up, pretty soon I won’t be able to bitch at any doorman, desk clerk, or security guard.”
“He’s diabolical.”
Eve spared her a glance. “You think you’re joking.”
She got on the elevator, ordered twenty-nine. The elevator smelled, very lightly, of citrus. And though several people got on, got off, got on, on the journey to the twenty-ninth floor, the air maintained that faint, fresh scent.
Roarke class, she thought. It, too, was diabolical.
The lobby on twenty-nine featured pale gray floors, cream-toned walls, a ribbon of windows overlooking downtown, and a sleek black counter manned by two people.
Since one worked on a comp and spoke into a headset, Eve aimed for the other. A bright-eyed redhead who might have been old enough to buy a legal brew.
“Good morning, how can I help you today?”
