In Death 17 - Imitation in Death

at her. "I'll make your life
     
     
"Why would I give it to the media, and let somebody write about it first?" He sat again. "This has best-seller written all over it. I know that sounds cold, but in my line of work I have to be as detached as you do in yours. I'll help however I can. I've got mountains of research and data accumulated on every major serial killer since the Ripper started it all, and a few interesting minor ones. I'll make it all available to you, pitch in as a civilian consultant, and waive the fee. And when it's over, I'll write it."
     
     
"I'll think about it." Eve got to her feet. And saw, under the mess he'd made of his desk, a box of cream-colored stationery.
     
     
"Fancy writing paper," she commented, stepping over to pick up the box.
     
     
"Hmm? Oh yeah. I use it when I want to impress somebody."
     
     
"Is that so?" Her eyes flashed to his like lasers. "Who did you want to impress lately?"
     
     
"Hell, I don't know. I think I used it a couple weeks ago' when I sent what my dad always called.a bread-and-butter note to my publisher. A- thanks for a dinner party thing. Why?"
     
     
"Where'd you get it? The paper?"
     
     
"Jule must've bought it. No, wait." He rose himself, looking baffled as he took the box from Eve. "That's not right. It was a gift. Sure, I remember now. Came through my publisher with a fan letter. Readers send stuff all the time."
     
     
"A token from a reader, to the tune of about five hundred dollars?"
     
     
"You're kidding! Five hundred. Wow." He was watching Eve more carefully now as he set the box back on his desk. "I should be more careful with it.",
     
     
"I'll want a sample of that paper, Mr. Breen. It matches the type left at both homicides I'm investigating."
     
     
"This is just too fucking weird." He sat, heavily. "Take it." Several emotions seemed to run across his face as he scooped a hand through his luxurious hair. "He knows about me. He's read my stuff. What the hell did the note say? I can't remember, just something about how he appreciated my work, my attention to detail or something like that, and my- what--enthusiasm for the subject."
     
     
"Do you have the note?"
     
     
"No, I wouldn't keep it. I answer_ some of the mail-personally, have a droid do the bulk. If it's snail mail, we recycle the paper after it's answered. He's using my work as research, don't you think? That's horrible, and really flattering at the same time."
     
     
Eve passed one of the sheets and envelopes to Peabody to seal into evidence. "Give him a receipt for it," she ordered. "I wouldn't be flattered if I were you, Mr. Breen. This isn't research, or words in a discbook."
     
     
"I'm part of it now. Not just an observer this time, but part of something I'll write about."
     
     
She could see he was more pleased than appalled.
     
     
"I plan to stop him, and soon, Mr. Breen. Things go my way, you're not going to have much of a book."
     
     
"I don't know what to think about him," Peabody said when they were outside. She turned back, studied the house and imagined the good-looking Breen swinging his handsome son onto his shoulders and taking him to the park to play. And dreaming of fame and fortune written in blood. "The stationery was right out of the blue. He didn't try to hide it."
     
     
"Where's the excitement if we don't find it?"
     
     
"I get ,that-and he likes the rush; no question. But his story sounds solid, especially if the killer has read his stuff."
     
     
"He can't prove where it came from, and we have to waste time trying to trace it. And Breen's juiced by it."
     
     
"I guess it's the sort of thing that'd juice him. His job's on the sick side."
     
     
"So's ours."
     
     
Surprised, Peabody hiked with Eve to the car. "You liked him?"'
     
     
"I haven't made up my mind. If he's no more than he claims to be, I've got no problem with him. People like murder, Peabody. They jive on it when it's got at least one of those degrees of separation. Reading about it, watching vids about it, turning on the evening news to hear about it. As long as it isn't too close. We don't pay to watch a couple of guys hack each other to death in an arena anymore, but we've still got the blood lust. We still get off on it. In the abstract. Because it's reassuring. Somebody's dead, but we're not."
     
     
She remembered, as she climbed into the car out of the vicious heat, how that thought raced through her head, again and again, when she'd huddled in the corner