“Your pants are loose, Peabody.”
“Damn it.” As she rushed after Eve, Peabody glanced back at the refreshment table. “Having loose pants means I could eat a little cake.”
“Having loose pants means you can get out of them quicker so we can get back in the field.”
“Somebody said it was buttercream frosting.” But with a heavy sigh, Peabody got in the elevator.
—
Back in her street clothes, Eve took a few minutes in her office to connect with Hanson. Still no communication from Senator Mira, or his probable abductor. Hanson and his partner would interview Vinnie, the driver, and had already spoken to Silas Greenbaum. They’d work their way through the Mira Institute while Eve and Peabody took on the list of women.
By the time she came out Jenkinson and his tie were back at his desk, Santiago at his, and some of the uniforms had trickled in.
“Is anyone actually working today?”
“We’re on it, Dallas.” Knowing her sharp eye, Jenkinson hastily brushed cake crumbs from his shirt. “It was a good thing.”
“Yeah, it was a good thing. You know what else is good? Catching murdering bastards.”
“I like that even better than buttercream frosting,” Santiago said, earning a glare from Peabody.
“You guys are just mean.”
“Then catch me some murdering bastards,” Eve advised. “Peabody, with me.”
“You on a hot one, Dallas?”
She glanced back at Jenkinson as she strode toward the door. “I’ll let you know when I know. Don’t even think about whining over buttercream frosting,” Eve warned, and Peabody settled into a pout as she got on the elevator.
“We’ll hit the baby skirt at the gallery where she works. We’re going by the crime scene first. I want another look around, and you haven’t seen it firsthand.”
“Mira said Mr. Mira was okay, but she looked really stressed. She hardly ever looks stressed.”
“She’ll deal.”
Eve considered herself lucky that the elevator only stopped five times on the descent, and no more than a dozen people filed on, filed off.
“We’ll make a circuit with the known sidepieces,” Eve said as they got in the car. “Say he’s still seeing the artist, but she’s starting to make noises. Oh, Senator Granddaddy—”
“Eeww.”
“Yeah, well. She’s all, If you get a divorce we could be together all the time. And he’s, Now, now, Sweet Baby Sidepiece—”
“Ick, ick, mega ick!”
“Can’t ditch my marriage: appearances, finances, blah blah. How about some ice cream!”
“This is really turning my stomach, so I don’t even want any buttercream frosting. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Or she’s got a former, more age-appropriate but poor boyfriend—maybe even current—and they figure they’ll pound and intimidate a nice fat chunk of the change out of him. Maybe start off the blackmail with a black eye. Then Mr. Mira walks in, and panic changes their plans.”
“I like it.”
“Or, the next up the line gets steamed, stews, and thinks how he’s dumped her more mature ass for this baby slut. Now he must pay. Also requires a partner.”
“To pose as the Realtor to get him in the house.”
“Then it’s, Surprise, you horny bastard, we’re going to tune you up.” She paused at a light. “I’ve got problems with all those scenarios, but they’re a launch point.”
She played with all the problems as she drove, then shot out another launch point. “MacDonald’s alibied tight. Hanson will follow up, but her alibi’s going to hold. So maybe if she’s been a sidepiece, or there’s another issue, she hires somebody to deal with him. We’ll look at her finances, but we’re not looking at a pro. Still, a lawyer’s bound to know some shady types, especially a political lawyer.”
She studied the neighborhood as she approached the brownstone. “Quiet, established, upper end. The canvass got nothing, but then most people would be at work, or occupied. Who stares out the window checking for activity on the street or around their neighbors on a crappy day? That’s just luck, and it bothers me. It’s just luck getting an injured man out of the house, into a vehicle without anybody seeing anything.”
“Lucky that it was crappy, gloomy daylight and not broad.”
“Yeah, nobody can plan that.”
Eve got out, took another minute to study the house, its position.
“It’s really beautiful,” Peabody commented. “Old, but in a dignified, ageless sort of way. I can see why Mr. Mira wants to keep it.”
“It’s more what’s inside—I don’t mean the stuff. It’s what he remembers, what he felt, the pictures in his head. And he promised, that’s the big one. If Edward Mira knew him at all, he’d know Mr. Mira wasn’t about to break his promise.”
“Wait! What if this is all a ploy to get him to do that?” Running with it, Peabody loosened her scarf as they walked through the little gate. “He stages it all, and it’s Mr. Mira who’ll be contacted after he’s worried half to death.”
“Sign off on the sale of the house or your cousin gets it? Why would anyone buy that?”
“You said the senator needed money, right? So the fake kidnapper claims he owes him a bundle. Now sell the house so I get paid or I kill him until he’s dead.”
Eve frowned, worked it around. “That’s actually a launching point, no shakier than . . . Seal’s compromised.”
She held up a hand to stop Peabody, studied the police seal she’d affixed herself. “Somebody got through it and went in. Recorders on.”
Without another word they both drew their weapons.
Eve stepped to the door, glanced at Peabody, nodded.
They went through, high and low, right and left.
Eve straightened, kept her weapon at the ready as she looked up.
Edward Mira hung from the crystal chandelier. His face was blackened from bruising, his throat gouged and smeared with dried blood. And he was naked but for a computer-generated sign that covered his torso.
JUSTICE IS SERVED
“Well, fuck.”
“I guess it wasn’t a ploy.”
“If it was, it sure went wrong. Let’s clear the house, Peabody, and call this in.”
5
They cleared the house, every step on record. While Peabody called it in, Eve located the mechanism for lowering the chandelier. Something she only knew about because she’d seen them work in her own foyer.
“You can clean it and stuff without hauling in a ladder,” she told Peabody.
“Handy. Man, they messed him up good before they hanged him.”
“I’d say he was alive when they hauled him up there. Gouges on the neck likely self-inflicted. Skin and blood under his nails is likely his. ME will determine that and COD.”
As Peabody had brought in their field kits, Eve opened hers. While they sealed up, she studied the body. “Beat his face, his genitals, stripped him naked. That says personal, really pissed, and probably sexual.”
“Sure doesn’t read trying to score a bunch of money. One of the women he diddled with, but like you said before, getting him in and out? Probably had to have a partner.”
Eve got out tools and gauges, first verified his identity for the record with the Identi-pad.
“Victim is Mira, Edward James, age sixty-eight. Severe facial contusions and lacerations. Looks like both cheekbones are broken as well as some teeth.” She put on microgoggles. “Check TOD, Peabody. I don’t think these were caused by fists,” she said as she peered closer. “Maybe a sap, likely weighted. Same with the genitals, but there’s some . . . almost like punctures in the groin area.”
“TOD oh-three-thirty-six.”
“So, worked on him for while. Bruising on the wrists, look at the pattern.” Rigor mortis had yet to pass, so she used her own wrists to demonstrate, holding them up and together, palms facing. “Looks like he was restrained, hung up, see the pattern? Restrained by the wrists, hoisted up. No sign of bruising on the ankles. Kicked him in the balls, repeatedly. Those shallow punctures? I’m betting shoes with those ridiculous pointed toes.”