“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” To settle it, Peabody pushed the elevator button. “I can’t get this image of a bunch of drunk dolls doing it all over the dollhouse. Gay dolls, straight dolls, threesomes. It’s my new nightmare.”
“They probably make doll strap-ons.”
“Oh God, I beg you to stop.” Peabody all but jumped into the elevator when it opened. “Loose pants, loose pants. Don’t kick my ass, I’m trying to take my mind off having to pee. And sex-crazed dolls. I’m seeing Gracie Magill with a strap-on.”
“Who?”
“My favorite doll as a kid. Loose pants, loose pants.”
“You had a doll with a last name?” Eve pressed the buzzer on the MacKensie apartment. “Why do dolls need last names?”
“For their ID, to buy the brew and the strap-ons.”
“I figured they just stole them when they climbed in and out of windows at night to burgle houses.”
“You’re just being mean now.”
“I could keep this up all day.”
The intercom buzzed. “Yes?” And Peabody breathed a quiet, “Thank you, Jesus.”
“NYPSD,” Eve announced, and held up her badge. “We’d like to speak with you, Ms. MacKensie.”
“What about?”
“Edward Mira.”
After a moment, locks clicked off, the door opened a couple cautious inches. Eve saw pale red hair messily bundled into a top bun and a pair of suspicious blue eyes.
“What about him?”
“Do you want to discuss your relationship with him out here, Ms. MacKensie?”
Eve saw the lips compress, the eyes dart left then right. “We don’t have a relationship,” she said, but opened the door.
She wore baggy sweatpants and a hoodie with thick socks. Her skin was so white it nearly glowed beneath its scatter shot of ginger-colored freckles.
“You did have,” Eve said and stepped in.
“I haven’t seen or talked to Edward in weeks, since the end of November.”
“Excuse me. I’m sorry,” Peabody interrupted. “Could I use your bathroom?”
Now Carlee bit her bottom lip, but nodded. “Ah, okay. I guess. It’s . . .” She gestured, but Peabody was already on the move.
“Thanks!”
“I guess you want to sit down.”
“I can stand if you’d rather,” Eve told her.
“I guess we’ll sit down.”
She had a couch and a couple of chairs, facing an entertainment screen—and facing away from a workstation under the window.
Carlee chose a chair, sat with her knees together, her fingers linked in her lap. “I don’t understand why you want to talk to me about Edward.”
“He’s dead, Ms. MacKensie.”
Carlee’s tightly pressed lips fell apart. “What? How? When?”
“He was murdered last night.”
“Mur-murdered?”
“You say you haven’t seen him since November.”
“That’s right. Are you talking about Senator Mira?”
“Yes. How did you meet him?”
“It was— It was a political fund-raiser. I had a media pass because I was researching an article, and . . .” She paused as Peabody came back.
“Thanks,” Peabody said again, and sat beside Eve.
“That’s okay. I, um, usually tend to observe rather than ask a lot of questions. I guess I was about the only one there with a media pass who wasn’t asking questions, so he came over to me when I was sitting, taking notes, brought me a glass of wine. He said how if I didn’t have any questions for him, he had some for me. I was a little flustered, but he was so charming.”
“How soon did you begin a sexual relationship?”
Carlee flushed brightly, hotly pink, and her eyes darted away. “I know it was wrong. He was married—I knew he was married. He said he and his wife had an arrangement, but that doesn’t make it right.”
“We’re not here to judge you, Ms. MacKensie,” Peabody told her. “We need to gather information.”
“I knew it was wrong,” she repeated. “He said we’d go have a drink, and I thought how I could get a bigger article, or maybe a couple of stories, so we left there and went to have a drink. Then two. He had his driver take me home. Nobody’s ever done that for me. And he paid such attention. I don’t know how to explain it, but he made me feel pretty and sexy.”
She looked down at her hands. “So when he contacted me the next day and said he was taking me out to dinner, I went. I knew where it was heading. He was married and, okay, a lot older, but I knew where it was heading. I went anyway. And I went with him to the hotel. The Palace. He has a suite there, just beautiful, like something in a vid. And dinner was waiting, and a bottle of champagne. I slept with him. We only saw each other like that for about five weeks, then he sent me flowers—white roses—with a card. It said how all good things had to end, and it had been lovely.”
“That must’ve pissed you off.”
“A little, but more it was hurtful. He could have told me in person. I’m not stupid; I knew it wasn’t going to last. But he should have told me face-to-face. I thought about contacting him, but I didn’t. And he never contacted me again.”
She let out a breath. “It was like it never happened.”
“Were you in love with him?” Peabody’s tone was gauged to sympathy.
“Oh, no.” MacKensie’s blue eyes rounded—guileless. “No, but it was exciting, those few weeks. Maybe, at least partly, because I knew it was wrong. I felt a little . . .” She trailed off with a quick little gasp. “Am I a suspect? You think I killed Edward?”
“Did you?” Eve asked coolly.
“Oh my God, my God.” She trembled all over, hunched her shoulders, gripped her hands together under her chin. “No. No, I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill anyone. You said last night?”
“That’s right,” Eve said, and left it there.
“I-I-I was here, working.” She gestured to her workstation with a hand that shook. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
“Did you see or speak to anyone?”
“No. No. I was working on a piece, and I stuck with it. I had leftover Chinese and went to bed early. I think it was around ten because my brain was tired. Do I need a lawyer?”
“That’s up to you. Have you ever been to his property on Spring Street?”
“Spring? I didn’t know he had any. We always met at the hotel. Officer—”
“Lieutenant.”
“Lieutenant, I lead a quiet life, by choice, by inclination. This was a few weeks of excitement, and, and”—she flushed again—“sex.”
“Which he ended with flowers and a card.”
“You don’t kill somebody for ending an affair.”
Eve lifted her eyebrows. “You’d be surprised.”
They left MacKensie wrapped in jittery nerves, rode back down to the lobby.
“Impressions?”
“Not used to being noticed or singled out, I’d say,” Peabody responded. “A little OCD. The bathroom was as clean as an operating room, and more organized. Everything matches. Same with the bedroom. I glanced in. Bed’s perfectly made, no clothes or shoes tossed around. She’s the type who figures she’s going to get dumped, so isn’t surprised when it happens. She didn’t buzz for me.”
“She doesn’t have an alibi.”
“If I planned to kill a former U.S. senator, I’d have one wrapped tight.”
“Having absolutely none’s not a bad strategy,” Eve countered. “She asked how he was killed when we first got there. I never gave her an answer, she never asked again. How do you write articles on anything without asking questions, pushing the follow-up?”
“She seemed really flustered and embarrassed.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Right now, she stays on the list. Let’s talk to the next.”
7
The Brighton Group proved both efficient and unimposing. It held offices over a bustling deli in a squat building tossed up post-Urbans. The casually dressed staff worked together in a cacophony of noise that struck as cheerful. Some glass partitions separated the higher-ups.
Personal photos, plants, files, paperwork jumbled together on desks. The air smelled candy sweet—which Eve understood as they were offered birthday cake minutes after arriving.
“Asha’s through there.” The cake-bearer gestured to one of the glass-walled offices. “We’re all just getting back to it after celebrating Sandy’s birthday at lunch.”