"Well, I don't…"
"Set aside the fact you like her." Eve merged into traffic. "What's her motive for selecting, stalking, and killing two attractive college students?"
"Art. It all deals with art."
"Deeper, Peabody."
"Okay." She wanted to take off her cap, scratch her head, but resisted. "Controlling the subject? Controlling the art in order to create?"
"On one level," Eve agreed. "Control, creation, and the accolades that result. The attention, anyway, the recognition. In this case we have a teacher. She instructs, she gives her knowledge, her skill, her experience, and others take it and go on to become what she hasn't. She's written a couple of books, published some images, but she isn't considered an artist, is she? She's considered a teacher."
"It's a very respected, and often under-appreciated vocation. You're a really good teacher, for instance."
"I don't teach anybody. Train maybe, but that's different."
"I wouldn't have the shot at a gold shield, not this soon, if you hadn't taught me."
"Trained you, and let's stay on target here. The other level is taking from the subject and seeing them as just that. A subject, not a person with a life, a family, with needs or rights. A subject, like-I don't know-a tree. If you've got to cut down the tree to get what you want, well, too bad. Plenty more trees."
"You're talking to a Free-Ager here." Peabody shuddered. "Talking about indiscriminately mowing down trees hits me in a primal area."
"The killer isn't killing just for the thrill of taking a life. It isn't done with rage, or for profit. It isn't sexual. But it is personal. It's intimate-for the killer. This person, this specific person, has what I need, so I'll take it. I'll take what they have, then it becomes mine. They become mine, and the result is art. Admire me."
"That's a pretty twisted route."
"It's a pretty twisted mind. And a smart one, a cool one."
"You think it's Professor Browning?"
"She's connected, so we line up the connections. Who knows her, and Hastings, and the two victims? Who had contact with all of them? Let's find out."
She started at Juilliard, at the theater department. At some point in their young lives, Rachel Howard and Kenby Sulu had intersected.
She sent Peabody off to make the rounds with the photograph of Rachel while she made her own.
When her 'link beeped, she was standing at the back of a rehearsal hall watching a bunch of young people pretend to be various animals.
"Dallas."
"Hello, Lieutenant." Roarke's face filled her screen, and almost immediately shifted from an easy smile to puzzlement. "Where are you? The zoo?"
"In a manner of speaking." Wanting to cut out some of the background noise, she stepped out into the hall. "Everything okay?"
"Well enough. Eve, I have to go out of town for a few days."
"Oh." It wasn't unusual for him to have to buzz around the planet, or off it. The man had interests all over the developed universe. But the timing was poor. "If you could-"
"I have to go to Ireland," he said before she could finish. "I need to go back, and deal with this."
Stupid, she thought immediately. Stupid to have this blindside her. Of course he'd need to go back. "Look, okay, I can see how you'd feel that, but I'm in the middle of things here. I need to stick with this until I close the case, then I can take some time. I'll put in for it when I get back to Central."
"I need to deal with this myself."
She opened her mouth, ordered herself to breathe before she spoke. "Right."
"Eve, it has to be done, and isn't something you need to worry about. I don't want you to worry about it, or me. I'm sorry to leave you to handle Summerset, and I'll try to make it as quick as I can."
She kept her face blank, her voice even for both their sakes. "When are you leaving?"
"Now. Immediately. Fact is, I'm on the shuttle now. I can't tell you precisely where I'll be-I don't know yet. But I'll have my personal 'link with me. You'll be able to reach me anytime."
"You knew you were going." She lowered her voice, turning her back on the corridor as students rushed by behind her. "You knew this morning."
"I had to see to some details first."
"But you'd already made up your mind to go."
"I had, yes."
"And you're telling me like this so I can't do anything to stop you."
"Eve, you wouldn't stop me. And I won't have to put your work in a holding pattern so you can come along and nurse me through this."
"Is that what you did when you went with me to Dallas? Nursed me through it?"
Frustration ran over his face. "That was a different matter."
"Oh yeah, with you being a man and all, with unbreakable balls. I keep forgetting."
"I have to go." He spoke coolly now. "I'll let you know where I am as soon as I can manage, and I'll be back in a few days. Probably sooner. You can kick my unbreakable balls then. Meanwhile, I love you. Ridiculously."
"Roarke-" But he'd already ended the transmission. "Damn it.Damn it." She kicked the wall, twice.
She marched back into the rehearsal room and vented her frustration by stalking through the slinking tigers and leaping chimps.
The instructor was a pencil-thin woman with a high shock of blue hair. "Ah," she said, "and here we have the lone wolf."
"Shut them down," Eve ordered.
"Class is in progress."
"Shut them down." Eve whipped out her badge. "Now."
"Oh damn it, not another Illegals sweep. Stop!" For a thin woman, she had a big voice, and her order shut off the din.
Eve stepped in front of her. "I'm Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD." There was a communal groan at the announcement, and two students edged toward the rear doors. "Hold it! I'm not interested in what you've got in your pockets or your bloodstream, but anybody goes out those doors, I will be."
Movement stopped.
"I have a picture. I want you to come up here, one at a time, and look at it. I want to know if you know this girl, have seen her, or have any information on her. You." She pointed at a boy in a black unitard and baggy shorts. "Here."
He swaggered up. "Nope."
"Look at the picture, smart-ass, or this is going to turn into an Illegals sweep."
He smirked at her, but he looked. "Don't know her, never seen her. Can I go, Officer?"
"Lieutenant. No. Stand over there." She pointed to the right wall, then gestured to a girl, also in black.
She started up, flicking a toothy grin at the boy now lounging against the wall, as though they shared a private joke. But when she looked at the photo, the humor drained out of her face.
"On the news. I saw her on the news. It's that girl from Columbia who was killed. Like Kenby."
The murmuring started from the crowd of students, and Eve let it roll. "That's right. Did you know Kenby?"
"Sure. Sure I did. Everybody did. Man, oh man, this sucks so large."
"Have you seen this girl before?"
Even as she shook her head, someone called out. "I have. I think."
Eve shifted, looked at the boy who stood with his hand raised. "Come up here. Go stand over there," she told the girl.
"I sort of think I saw her." The boy wore the black uniform, and a forest of silver loops along the curve of his ear. He had a trio of matching hoops at the peak of his left eyebrow.
"What's your name?"
"Mica, Mica Constantine. Kenby and I had a lot of classes together, and we hung out sometimes. We weren't real tight, but sometimes we partied with the same group."
"Where did you see her?"
"Ithink I saw her. When I saw her on the news reports, she looked sort of familiar. And when Kenby-when I heard about what happened to him, like with her, I thought, hey, isn't that the chick from the club?"
Eve felt the vibe at the base of her spine. "What club?"
"Make The Scene. Some of us go there sometimes, and I think I've seen her there. I think I remember seeing her and Kenby dancing a couple of times. I'm not absolute about it, just it seems to me."