J. D. Robb - Strangers in Death

MURDER HARBORED NO BIGOTRY, NO BIAS. IT subscribed to no class system. In its gleeful, deadly, and terminally judicious way, murder turned a blind eye on race, creed, gender, and social stratum. As Lieutenant Eve Dallas stood in the sumptuous bedroom of the recently departed Thomas A. Anders, she considered that.

Only the night before shed caughtand closeda case dealing with the homicide of a twenty-year-old woman whod been throttled, beaten, then chucked out the window of her nine-story flop.

The rent-by-the-week flop, Eve mused, where the victims boyfriend claimed to have slept through her demise, smelled of stale sex, stale zoner, and really bad Chinese food. Anders? His Park Avenue bedroom smelled of candy-colored tulips, cool, clean wealth, and dead body. Death had come to him on the luxurious sheets of his massive, silk-canopied bed. And to Tisha Brown it had come on the stained mattress tossed on the floor of a junkies flop. The header to the sidewalk had just been the flourish.

The point was, Eve supposed, no matter who you weresex, race, tax bracketdeath leveled it all out. As a murder cop going on a dozen years for the NYPSD, shed seen it all before.

It was barely seven in the morning, and she was alone with the dead. She had the first officers on scene downstairs with the housekeeper whod called in the nine-one-one. With her hands and boots sealed, she walked around the edges of the room while her recorder documented.

Victim is identified as Anders, Thomas Aurelius, of this address. Male, Caucasian, age sixty-one. Vic is married. Spouse is reported to be out of town, and has been notified by Horowitz, Greta, domestic who discovered the body at approximately oh six hundred and placed the nine-one-one at oh six twelve.

Eve cocked her head. Her hair was a short, somewhat shaggy brown around a face of angles and planes. Her eyes, a few shades lighter than her hair, were all copsharp, cynical, and cool as they studied the dead man in the big, fancy bed.

Anders was reputed to be alone in the house. There are two domestic droids, both of which were shut down. On cursory exam, there are no signs of forced entry, no signs of burglary, no signs of struggle.

On long legs, she crossed to the bed. Over her lean body she wore rough trousers, a plain cotton shirt, and a long coat of black leather. Behind her, over a gas fireplace where flames simmered gold and red, the view screen popped on.

Good morning, Mr. Anders!

Narrow-eyed, Eve turned to stare at the screen. The computerized female voice struck her as annoyingly perky, and the sunrise colors bleeding onto the screen wouldnt have been her choice of wake-up call.

Its now seven-fifteen on Tuesday, March eighteenth, twenty-sixty. You have a ten oclock tee time at the club, with Edmond Luce.

As the computer chirpily reminded Anders what hed ordered for breakfast, Eve thought: No egg-white omelette for you this morning, Tom.

Across the room in an ornate sitting area, a miniAutoChef with bright brass fittings beeped twice.

Your coffees ready! Enjoy your day!

Not so much, Eve murmured.

The screen flipped to the mornings headline news, anchored by a woman only slightly less perky than the computer. Eve tuned her out.

The headboard gleamed brass, tooall of its sleek, shiny rungs. Black velvet ropes tied Anderss wrists to two of them, while two more ropes bound his ankles by a length to the footboard. The four matching ropes were joined by the fifth that wrapped around Anderss throat, pulling his head off the pillows. His eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open as if he was very surprised to find himself in his current position.