5
Roarke programmed spaghetti and meatballs, a particular favorite of hers, so it would be a comfort. He poured them both a generous glass of Chianti.
“You’ll work better for it,” he told her when she simply stood in the middle of her home office, staring at the murder board she’d barely begun to set up. “Eat, and tell me from the beginning. A fresh eye,” he reminded her. “And viewpoint.”
“Okay.” She let out a breath. “Okay.” She joined him at the little table by the window. “I want to say, first off, I forgot about this deal tonight. I just forgot it. I don’t know that I’d have remembered if this had been… well, a more usual case. I don’t know if I would’ve remembered.”
“I was a bit busy myself today.” Watching her, he drank some wine. “I hadn’t given this evening a thought until Caro reminded me late this afternoon. Maybe what you need, Lieutenant, is an admin of your own.”
“The last thing I want is somebody telling me about stuff when I’m trying to do other stuff. And the department can’t afford sticking me with a keeper if I wanted one.”
She poked at a meatball. “Don’t say Caro or a Caro-like substitute could send me reminders. I’d want to rip their lungs out and play a tune with them within two days.”
“It takes years of practice and dedication to play a proper tune on the lungs.”
“Maybe, but I’d be up for it. It’s a charity thing, right, this thing tonight? They were probably counting on you and your big buckets of dough.”
“The ticket price covers at least a bucket or two, and we’ll make a donation.”
“I should do it.” Guilty, annoyed by the guilt, she poked at another meatball, decided maybe pasta first. “You could tell me how much and where it goes, and I should do it.”
“Easy enough. I was thinking in the neighborhood of five million.”
She swallowed – hard – the spaghetti she’d wound around her fork. “I don’t have that big a bucket, or spend much time in that neighborhood. You make it.”
“Done.” He reached over, squeezed her hand. “Let that go, Eve. It’s just a night out in fancy dress.”
“You like those.”
“Well enough. I find I like this more. Having dinner with you, here in the quiet. And while murder might not be a particularly appealing dinner conversation for some – those some aren’t you and me. Now tell me, from the start of it.”
However guilty and unsettled she felt, knowing he spoke the absolute truth reminded her just how lucky she was.
“Her admin, speaking of them, found her this morning,” Eve began, going step by step.
“I’d like to see the security run. I assume you’ve had it enhanced, analyzed.”
“Feeney’s on that. The best guess is on race – killer’s white or mixed race. And the height, unless there’s lifts in the boots, hits about five feet ten inches. Estimate on hands and feet – small side for a man, but not unusually small. The clothes? Common, nondescript. No way to pin them down.”
“He’d cased the building prior.”
Really lucky, Eve thought, because Roarke caught on, and quick.
“Yeah, had to. The feed automatically overwrites every seventy-two hours, so there’s no way to go back and… Vacancies.” As it hit her, she jabbed a finger in the air. “I need to check, see if there’s any unit or units in there that have been shown in the last few weeks. Hell, the killer could have walked through the place months ago, but it’s likely he did at least one fresh pass in the last few weeks, to make sure nothing changed.”
“Requests for building schematics?”
“I’ve got that working, but everything’s slow because of the damn holidays.”
“It’s unlikely to matter. This one strikes as too efficient to make it that easy.”
“Efficient, professional, dispassionate.”
“You’re considering a pro?”
“Peabody likes the angle.” Now that she could talk it through – facts, evidence, probabilities – the food went down easier. But she still couldn’t find her appetite.
“Somebody Bastwick knew hired the hit, is using me as that herring thing.”
“Red herring.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it’s red. I don’t know why it’s red. A purple herring makes more sense – or less, which is kind of the point – but I got it’s red.”
“I love you.”
She smiled a little. “I got that, too. We ID’d the murder weapon, but that’s not going to get us far. Piano wire, as easy to come by as brown pants. The tongue – Morris said it was a clean cut, no sign of hesitation marks. The symbolism there’s pretty obvious.”
She wound, unwound, wound pasta on her fork without eating.
“What about her electronics?”
“McNab’s on that. So far nothing that rings. She didn’t have close friends, that’s how it’s reading. No exclusive lover, or, apparently, the wish for one. She made a play for Fitzhugh – dead partner – back when he wasn’t dead.”
“Ah yes, I remember something of that. He had a spouse.”
“Spouse is in Hawaii and covered. I can’t find anything that indicates she was making another play. Fitzhugh had some punch and power, so there was motive for her there. She was, essentially, top dog once he kicked, so why bother?”
“For the fun?” Roarke suggested.
“Seems she went another way for her fun. She booked a hotel room and an LC for Christmas. She had three LCs she used on a kind of rotation, and what we get is she’d settled into a kind of routine there when it came to sex.”
“Safe, unemotional, and she remains in control.”
“Yeah, my take. She had a short ’link conversation with her family on Christmas Day, didn’t travel, didn’t party that we can find. She worked – that was her focus. I see her pretty clear. I used to look in the mirror at her.”
“Not true. Not at all true,” Roarke countered. “You had Mavis – and she’s been family as well as friend for a very long time. Feeney’s the same. He wasn’t just your trainer, or your partner. He was, and is, a father to you.”
“I didn’t go out looking for them.”
“You didn’t shut them out, either, did you?”
“Nobody shuts Mavis out if she doesn’t want to be shut.” She brooded down at her spaghetti. “I tried shutting you out.”