She turned a tube of cleanser in her hand, sorely tempted, but put it back.
“Lilies and white. Lily-white. Maybe the guy wanted that from the wife. Or wanted her to project that. That image shattered when she was raped.”
“You think the killer knew them, or one of them?”
“He knew enough to get into the bedroom undetected,” Eve said as they started out. “He knew enough. Daphne Strazza said he was in the bedroom when they came up for the night after the party. She said he was the devil. She’s still in shock, but that’s how she described him.”
“A mask?”
“That’s my take. We need the name of whoever catered the party, any outside staff. Valets, bartenders, servers, extra housekeeping, decorators. Some of that’s on her tablet, as is the guest list.”
“Handy.”
“Considering, to the best of my knowledge, all the regular household staff are droids, now kicked to hell and back, it is pretty handy.”
“Next of kin?”
“He has parents—divorced. Mother’s in France—a retired physicist, remarried. Father’s a neurologist, department head in a private hospital in Switzerland. Her parents were killed in a tsunami in Asia while the whole family was vacationing. She was nine. She was raised by Gayle and Barry DeSilva—family friends and the appointed guardians through the parents’ wills. They, like Daphne Strazza’s deceased parents, live in Minnesota. I haven’t made any notifications, or done any deeper runs.”
They stood outside Strazza’s home office, looking in.
“I can start the runs,” Peabody said.
“Do that, and check on the e-geeks. They’ve obviously been here, taken Strazza’s desk comp and comm center. I want to look around.” Eve checked her wrist unit. “I’ll contact Strazza’s parents shortly. We need to see about another interview with Daphne Strazza, and we’ll see if she wants her guardians contacted.”
“She has to have a pal,” Peabody pointed out. “Probably on the guest list. Everybody’s got a pal.”
Though Eve nodded as she moved into the office, she knew differently. She hadn’t had anyone remotely like a pal. Until Mavis Freestone. She’d lived two decades of her life without someone close enough to be considered a friend.
A short round in Strazza’s office added weight to Peabody’s OCD diagnosis. Everything in the room was meticulously organized. Every drawer and door secured. Roarke or McNab—or both—had bypassed the locks and codes, so she sat in Strazza’s custom-built leather chair, fishing through his desk.
McNab pranced in on plaid airboots, his blond hair streaming back in a tail, earlobes forested with glittery hoops. He wore a sweatshirt sporting a madly gyrating Elvis over sapphire-blue baggy pants with a half dozen emerald and ruby pockets.
“Hey, Dallas, early start. Wanted to let you know I had a team come in to haul in the murdered droids. We got some non-humanoid domestics. We’ll look at them, but don’t expect much there. Gathering up ’links and comps and tabs. Peabody said you got his-and-hers tabs from the bedroom.”
“His passcoded, hers not.”
“Follows what we’re finding. He had that desk customed for his thumbprint on the drawers. Even the supply closet has a lock code. Same with the half bath there.” He jerked a thumb. “Who puts a security code on their office john?”
“Apparently Dead Strazza.” She looked up again, winced. “Can you turn that thing off?”
He glanced around, his pretty face puzzled. “What thing?”
“That thing on your bony chest. It’s distracting.”
He looked down at Elvis, grinned. “Oh, sure. Forgot.” And tapped a finger on Elvis’s midsection. The long-dead king froze mid swivel.
“So, anyhows, we looked at the three safes, including the one inside a cabinet in a man-type den on the main level. All cleaned out—all opened with codes. Looking like one of the vics gave him the codes.”
“Strazza—it’s pretty clear his wife wouldn’t have them.”
“Right. Burglarizing, raping killer didn’t bother with electronics—at least there are plenty of high-end and portable still on the premises. Roarke says there are empty spots around where maybe art’s gone missing.”
“We’ll get insurance info, cross-check. Art, jewelry, any cash that may have been in any of the safes. Passports and IDs, credit and banking info. All that’s lucrative if you know how to turn it, and I’m not finding passports, IDs.”
“We’ll check the comps for financial info. We can take a whack at the security system, but like the house droids, whoever bashed them knew how to bash. And took the main drive with him.”
“You talk to the machines.” Eve pushed out of the chair. “I’ll be talking to people.”
“We do what we do. Hey, you look good.”
Eve narrowed her eyes. “What did you say?”