3rd Degree

Chapter 7

WE GOT THE TOWN HOUSE ID'd pretty quickly. It did belong to the guy in the picture, Morton Lightower, and his family. The name rang a bell with Jacobi. “Isn't that the guy who owned that X/L Systems?”

“No idea.” I shook my head.

“You know. The Internet honcho. Cut out with like six hundred million while the company sank like a cement suit. Stock used to sell for sixty bucks, now it's something like sixty cents.”

Suddenly I remembered seeing it on the news. “The Creed of Greed guy.” He was trying to buy ball teams, gobbling up lavish homes, installing a $50,000 security gate on his place in Aspen, at the same time he was dumping his own stock and laying off half his staff.

“I've heard of investor backlash,” Jacobi said, shaking his head, “but this is a little much.”

Behind me, I heard a woman yelling to let her through the crowd. Inspector Paul Chin ushered her forward, through the web of news vans and camera crews. She stood in front of the bombed-out home.

“Oh, my God,” she gasped, a hand clasped over her mouth.

Chin led her my way. “Lightower's sister,” he said.

She had her hair pulled back tightly, a cashmere sweater over jeans, and a pair of Manolo Blahnik flats I had once mooned over for about ten minutes in the window of Neiman's.

“Please,” I said, leading the unsteady woman over to an open black-and-white. “I'm Lieutenant Boxer, Homicide.”

“Dianne Aronoff,” she muttered vacantly. “I heard it on the news. Mort? Charlotte? The kids...Did anyone make it out?”

“We pulled out a boy, about eleven.”

“Eric,” she said. “He's okay?”

“He's at the Burn Unit at Cal Pacific. I think he's going to be all right.”

“Thank God!” she exclaimed. Then she covered her face again. “How can this be happening?”

I knelt down in front of Dianne Aronoff and took her hand. I squeezed it gently. “Ms. Aronoff, I have to ask you some questions. This was no accident. Do you have any idea who could've targeted your brother?”

“No accident,” she repeated. “Mortie was saying, `The media treats me like bin Laden. No one understands. What I do is supposed to be about making money.' ”

Jacobi switched gears. “Ms. Aronoff, it looks like the explo-sion originated from the second floor. You have any idea who might've had access to the home?”

“There was a housekeeper,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “Viola.”

Jacobi exhaled. “Unfortunately, that's probably the third body we found. Buried under the rubble.”

“Oh...” Dianne Aronoff choked a sob.

I pressed her hand. “Look, Ms. Aronoff, I saw the explo-sion. That bomb was planted from inside. Someone was either let in or had access. I need you to think.”

“There was an au pair,” she muttered. “I think she some-times spent the night.”

“Lucky for her.” Jacobi rolled his eyes. “If she'd been in there with your nephew...”

“Not for Eric.” Dianne Aronoff shook her head. “For Caitlin.”

Jacobi and I looked at each other. “Who?”

“Caitlin, Lieutenant. My niece.”

When she saw our blank faces, she froze.

“When you said Eric was the only one brought out, I just assumed...”

We continued to stare at each other. No one else had been found in the house.

“Oh, my God, Detectives, she is only six months old.”