Page 41 of Framed in Death (In Death #61)

When Roarke stepped out with Carter, Eve turned to Feeney. “I could use the van and McNab. We need to verify he’s inside, and it may be necessary to shut down security and locks.”

“You can have the boy. I’ll take the wheel and tag along. Sheila’s going to make a night of it.”

“Fine with me. The rest of you are dismissed. Good work.”

“Hey now,” Baxter said. “We do good work and get tossed before the takedown? Come on, Dallas.”

“He’s one spoiled coward of an asshole. I don’t need a squad to take him down.”

“Seems like we’re being punished,” Carmichael put in. “Me and my hat-wearing partner dug pretty deep.”

“Takedowns, they’re the icing,” Reineke added.

“I talked about silk and straw hats with a French lady.” Trueheart added his earnest smile.

“You want to ride along? Ride along. Anyone else gets dead, the first up are out.”

“She’s a stern boss, but a fair one,” Baxter concluded.

“Take ten, then conference room one.”

She walked out, met Roarke in the corridor. “Tell me about Ebersole.”

“Twenty-eight. Youngest child and only son of Phoebe Harper and Michael Ebersole. He has two older sisters. One, Laurin Ebersole, is the senator from New York. The other, Olivia Ebersole, heads their health supplement division. There’s a seven-year gap between the younger sister and the son.”

“The little brother, the baby boy. Does he do anything in the company?”

“He doesn’t, no, not in a real sense. He has a substantial trust fund.”

“What’s substantial?”

“Fifty million a quarter.”

“Two hundred million a year for doing nothing? That’s above ‘substantial.’”

“That doubles when he reaches the age of thirty. The Harper Group’s in its fourth generation, successful, diverse. His parents steer the ship, primarily, though his grandparents—maternal—remain involved. The family enclave is in the Hudson Valley.”

“Upstate, sure. Somebody—it’ll be his mother—paid for him to show off his art up there. He doesn’t have a job.”

“He’s listed as a consultant, and has another income stream as a voting member of their family foundation.”

“He doesn’t have a job,” Eve repeated.

“Essentially, he doesn’t, no. His data lists him as an artist, a portraitist, based in New York. He claims to have studied in Paris and in Florence. No marriages, cohabs, offspring.”

“Criminal?” she asked as she paused at the conference room door. Because, she knew, he’d have looked.

“None that show.”

“Financials beyond the trust fund and the bogus income streams you told me?”

“As a matter of fact.”

Because he knew they’d be tense, he rubbed both hands lightly on her shoulders.

“He inherited around eighty million when his maternal great-grandmother died about three years ago. For his consultant and foundation work—using that term loosely—he adds another seven and a half million annually. He pays no rent or mortgage, no property taxes or insurance. No vehicles are registered in his name, and he has liberal use of the company card.”

“So he’s rolling in it, and his family picks up the majority of his expenses. Got it.”

She checked the time again. “We’re okay. I’m going to ask Mira if she’ll holo in. If she can do that, can you set it up?”

“I can. I got the impression, which Jenkinson verified, no one’s had time to eat. Pizza’s on the way.”

“You shouldn’t… Oh, never mind. I need his place. Exterior, interior, the security system, locations of cameras. With this time frame, he could be out already. He won’t kill his target, not this soon, but he could already be out.”

“We’ll set that up for you, won’t we?” He put a hand on her shoulder again.

“You’ve managed, with considerable obstacles, to identify him, compile a veritable international mountain of evidence against him in a matter of days.

Your team’s exceptional, Lieutenant, and exceptional begins with command. ”

“Three people are dead.”

“And a fourth won’t be. You’ll carry the dead,” he murmured, “but don’t lose sight of the ones you’ll save.”

“I want him in a cage.”

“And you’ll put him there. He’s pathetic, Eve, but that doesn’t make him less vicious, and he’s been shielded by a multibillion-dollar company that’s not only allowed him to use their resources to kill but, I imagine Mira will conclude, indulged him to the point he feels he’s entitled to whatever he wants, including murder. ”

“All of that.” It churned in her belly. “Yeah, all of that. I need to update Whitney, then we’ll get started.”

She lingered in the hallway to contact her commander. “We have his name, his face, sir. And an address.”

“And within your deadline. What do you need from me?”

“I have what I need, Commander. I’m about to contact Reo, then brief the team, then we’ll bring him in.”

“Let me know when he’s in custody. Who is he?”

“Jonathan Harper Ebersole. His family’s the Harper Group, multibillion global company.”

“Yes, I know the Harper Group.”

“He’ll have the best team of lawyers that money can buy.”

“You have the evidence?”

“Oh, yes, sir. I do. I could bring him in now, sir. But…”

“You intend to catch him in the act.” He may ride a desk, but Jack Whitney was all cop. “Seal it up tight.”

“It’s a risk, Commander. I think it’s one worth taking.”

“Your call, Lieutenant. I’ll contact Reo. Go brief your team.”

Her call, she thought, and tucked her ’link away.

“McNab, find me any other properties owned by the Harper Group in the city. I want any that could be used as an art studio.”

“We pulled them, Lieutenant. They’ve got what people like to call a pied-à-terre on the Upper East. A penthouse. The cap talked to the building manager. It’s used when the family or a guest or exec, whatever, comes in.”

“Not that. Anything else?”

“They’ve got offices downtown, Financial District, and own the building. No residential in it.”

“No.”

“They’ve got warehouses, one in Brooklyn, one over by Kennedy. No residential, used for housing product and shipping. That’s it unless you want us to go wide.”

“No, that’s good.” And it lowered the risk.

“He takes his targets home. Peabody, bring the suspect on-screen.”

The eyes, she thought. The eyes weren’t quite right.

Other than that, he looked ordinary enough.

Not unattractive, but not striking, not especially memorable.

A narrow face, soft in the chin. Carter had that right.

A high forehead with the brown hair pulled back and wound into a tight knot just behind the crown of the head.

“Jonathan Harper Ebersole,” she began. “Age twenty-eight, five-eight, a hundred and thirty-five. Rich bastard who’s done nothing to earn it. Mira?” she asked Roarke.

“She’s ready when you want her.”

“Please bring her in.”

It always surprised her to see Mira in casual clothes. Instead of a suit, she wore pants cropped at the ankles with tennis shoes and a flowing shirt.

“Thank you for making the time, Dr. Mira.”

“More than happy to.”

“Ebersole, Jonathan Harper, the youngest child and only son of Phoebe Harper and Michael Ebersole, who own and operate the Harper Group.”

“Ah,” Mira said. “A multigenerational family company. Highly successful. They make the chips Dennis is so fond of and the organic dish soap we use. As well as scores of other things found in most households. Their family foundation does good work.”

“He doesn’t. He lives on a two-hundred-mil-a-year trust fund, inherited money, and a bogus consultant fee, lives free in one of the company properties, drives—I’m damn sure—vehicles owned by the company.

He has—what do you call it?—carte blanche with the company card, and has made considerable use of it in his plans to kill.

“He has two older sisters. One a U.S. senator, the other the head of one of Harper’s many arms. He is seven years younger than his second sister.”

Mira sat, crossed her legs.

“The subject is twenty-eight years old, lives without cost in a family residence, has no employment, is not pursuing further education. And while he has an annual trust fund in the millions, he also has full use of the company card? Correct?”

“Yes.”

“It’s unlikely the subject has ever paid a real price—not just monetarily, but in any way—for any behavior or decisions, however poor. The only son, two successful older sisters.”

“Betting he was the prince in that house,” Jenkinson commented.

“I agree,” Mira said. “He has decided he’s an artist, and even though he’s had no success in that area, his family—or certain members of it—continue to indulge him.

That indulgence is, at least partially, responsible for his lack of conscience, for his choice to take lives for the purpose of, somehow, bringing his art into the public eyes.

Gaining the praise and adulation he believes he deserves as, I believe, he has always received praise and adulation from, most likely, his mother. ”

On hologram, Mira turned from the screen toward Eve. “He won’t surrender easily. No one has the right to stop him, to accuse him, to punish him. He will certainly try to protect his art, and do whatever he can to finish what he began.”

“I think we can handle that.”

“No doubt. I’m sure you realize he’ll have the best defense attorneys his family can find. And they have plenty of resources.”

“Understood. It’s why we’re going to move in after he takes his next target. I don’t care how many lawyers they pull in, they can’t whine ‘innocent’ when he’s got the next in there, in costume. When he’ll have the barbiturates handy.

“Tell me: How big a risk to the target?”

“If he believes the target could somehow block his arrest, he may attempt to take them as a hostage. But harming the model? He can’t finish the work, or what he’s decided, as with the others, he needs before killing them.”

“I’m betting on ten cops and a consultant against one spoiled rich kid killer.”

Mira smiled. “I would, too.”

“He’ll have a male this time. Girl, boy, woman—the next is a male. For balance. He’d want balance. Male or female, once cops get there, if he tries to take a street LC by force? He’s going to have a fight on his hands.