by J. D. Robb
The quick flush came from irritation on Eve’s gauge, not embarrassment. “I’d forgotten I’d told you that. Obviously I told you that because I didn’t want you to know I had a key.”
“Where is it?”
“I threw it away.”
“When? Where?”
“This morning. I broke it in half, threw it in a recycler bin on the street.”
“Where? Near her place or yours?”
“Near the wineshop, before I got a cab.”
“Then you waited nearly an hour to call nine-one-one.”
“I was in shock.”
“But not so much you couldn’t think to ditch the key card. Bullshit on shock. You used the time it took to get back uptown to calculate what to do, what worked best to protect yourself. No signs of shock when you entered the lobby, the elevator, the hallway to your apartment. We can run that feed for you.”
“You don’t know what I felt. You don’t know my mental or emotional state.”
“Sure I do. You ditched the card in an attempt to remove a connection that might be seen as too close. It occurred to you on that trip uptown someone might have seen you go in or out of Ariel’s apartment. Not such a worry during the affair—just visiting a friend—but now that friend’s dead, and the cops are going to ask questions.”
Rising, Eve wandered the room.
“You have to be the one to call it in. You have to come up with a story that portrays a friendship—close, but still casual, and certainly not romantic. You have to have a reason for going downtown so early in the morning. You worked it all out while you came back uptown, while you put the DND on your apartment. Took a shower, removed the makeup, changed your clothes.”
Pausing, Eve edged a hip on the table.
“The virgin white was a nice touch. Work hysteria into your voice when you call it in, then go over and over how you’ll play it before you tag your fiancé, the lawyer.
“That sound about right?”
“Ariel was dead, and I couldn’t change that. I reported it, and I looked after myself. That’s not a crime.”
“You’d be surprised. Who did you contact after your fight with Ariel? Who did you tell about her threat to go to your fiancé? Who did you ask to take care of it?”
“No one! Are you crazy?”
“Speaking of crazy, maybe you tagged one of your friends in Natural Order.”
She didn’t flush this time; she blanched.
“The order likes to target gays, the trans, the mixed race, LCs—and the list goes on. So, you tell them to meet you where the cab dropped you off, pass them Ariel’s key card—because a copy of her card, like yours, was used to gain entry minutes before she died.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It’s fact. Your parents are longtime members of Natural Order.”
“That’s not a crime, either.”
“Not yet, no, but some members have been known to commit crimes. Violent crimes. Maybe you called Daddy.”
“I would never—For God’s sake, why would I go through all this so my parents wouldn’t find out, then tell my father?”
“You’re good at making up stories,” Eve speculated. “ ‘Daddy, I’m in trouble. A friend—oh, I made a terrible mistake becoming friends with her. I was visiting her tonight because Merit’s working late. Just having some wine, some girl talk, and she—she tried to—she wanted me to—I refused, I pushed her away, and she got so angry. She’s going to tell Merit I’ve been with her, intimately with her. She said unless I slept with her—she said I led her on all this time, and if I didn’t do what she wanted she’d tell Merit I did, have been.’ ”
“I never did any such thing.”
“Prove it. Let’s see your ’link.”
“You want my ’link? Fine.” In a jerky movement, Gwen pulled it out of her handbag.
Eve took one look, held out her hand, turned the shining gold ’link over. “This looks brand-new. Doesn’t this look—what is it?—brand-spanking-new, Peabody?”
“It sure does.”
“Are we going to find out you bought this ’link today, Gwen?”
“So what?”
“Where’s your old one?”
“Recycled. It had texts on it to and from Ariel, and I realized if Merit saw them, he’d wonder. It was my personal property.”
“Destroying evidence. We’ll add that to the list. Who’d you tag on the other ’link? Who did you tell about Ariel?”
“No one. No one. No one.” She banged her hands on the table with each denial. “My parents could cut me off like they did my brother if they find out about any of this. Merit will call off the wedding.”
“And those are very strong motives to kill the person who knows all of it.”
“I was in my apartment.”
“Yeah, got me there. For now. And for now, Gwendolyn Huffman, you’re under arrest for—”
“What! You said you’d help me if I told you the truth.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t. Not all of it. You’ve had plenty of experience, and it’s debatable who seduced whom from where I’m sitting.”
Eve pushed off the table. “She meant nothing to you, nobody does. At least not nearly what you mean to yourself. The door of her apartment wasn’t unsecured, you weren’t in shock. You calculated every step of this.
“Now you’re under arrest, for leaving a crime scene, lying to the police, destroying evidence. We’ll hold the murder charge for the moment, but, believe me, we’re working on it.”
“You can’t do this!”
“Done.”
“I want my lawyer.”
“You’re free to use your spanking-new ’link to contact him once you’re booked. Peabody, would you take Ms. Huffman where she very much needs to go?”
“Happy to.”
“I won’t go with you!”
“Easy to add resisting to the mix,” Eve said. “In fact, it would be some nice icing.”
She cried now, and there was nothing pretty about it. And kept crying as Peabody led her out.
“Interview end.”
Eve gathered her files. She stepped out to wait for Shelby.
She watched Carmichael give Shelby a squeeze on the shoulder, then peel off toward the bullpen.
“My office,” Eve said.
“I’m not worried about anybody hearing about this, sir.”
“My office is better.”
But this time when they went in, Eve didn’t close the door.
“Thoughts, Shelby?”
“First thought is it’s an education to watch you and Peabody work in the box, so I appreciate the opportunity.”
“Is that sucking up?”
“It’s pure truth. You didn’t need me in Observation to separate her lies from the truth when she tried to fold them together to her benefit. You nailed her there. I want to say, from my own experience, she’s sexually aggressive. She likes to be in charge, so it’s unlikely the victim seduced her. She was making a lot of that up on the fly, and when she does that—or did back in the day—she tends to talk faster, tap her foot. She was doing that.
“But I think she was telling the truth about her father.”
“Why?”
“If there’s anyone she’s afraid of, it’s her father. He controls everything. I know she gets money from a trust because she told me that summer she only had a couple more years before she started getting some of her own money. Money at eighteen, as long as she went to college for at least a year. An increase at twenty-one, and, if I remember right, another at twenty-five, another at thirty, or when she marries. If she gets married and has a child, the trust hits the top of the income stream.”
“That sounds … bat-shit,” Eve decided.
“It’s how Natural Order works. Women are meant to have children—within wedlock. Once she does that, it’s hers, free and clear. At least that’s what she said back then, or thought back then. Until she hits thirty-five, it might’ve been, or marries and has a kid, h
er father controls the amount she receives annually from the trust. And as he heads it, he can cut it off, like he did with her brother.”
“So if her father found out …”
“Premarital sex, with another woman? If he didn’t cut her off completely, he’d sure as hell turn down the stream. I don’t know the fiancé, but most people don’t like being lied to and cheated on, so she has to calculate the odds he’d ditch her. She thinks he will, that came off as true to me.”
“Yeah, me, too. We’ll see if she’s right, because he’s sure as hell going to find out. Meanwhile, because I had plenty of probable cause before the interview, Baxter and Trueheart are searching her apartment with a duly executed warrant.”
“She won’t like that.”
“No, she won’t. That gives me a little spark of joy. She’s a lousy human being, Shelby.”
“She’s a lousy human being, Lieutenant. My taste has improved considerably since that summer. She may try to contact me, knowing I’m a cop, knowing I was attached back then. She’d want an ally, someone who’d give her inside information.
“She’d have picked the wrong cop for that.”
“Yes, sir, Lieutenant. If she makes that attempt, should I notify you even if you’re off shift?”
“Bet your ass. And by my clock, you’re off shift now. Go have a drink with a pal.”
“Actually, the woman I’m seeing’s busy tonight. I think I’ll go talk to my brother. He may have some information he hasn’t shared with me. He would if I asked him to.”
“Fine. You handled yourself well today, Shelby.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant.”
Off shift or not, Eve sat to write it up. She expected Gwen would make bail within two, maybe three hours.
But they’d be very unpleasant hours.
6
Once she’d finished, Eve put together what she’d need to work at home. She considered her commander might want an oral report the next day, and she might want to consult Mira.
She walked out into the bullpen and saw McNab sitting on the corner of Peabody’s desk. Whatever he said made her partner laugh.
Eve was surprised he didn’t send the general population into hysterics with his fashion choices.
Today’s included tangerine baggies, a T-shirt she assumed depicted the results of a supernova with its explosion of reds, golds, and oranges. His airboots and the jacket he’d tossed over the back of Peabody’s chair went for lime green.
She couldn’t say why.
He’d tied his blond hair in a long tail with an orange cord. All those colors and more he’d represented in the hoops that circled his entire earlobe.
She started to speak, to tell them both to wrap it up and go home. And Roarke walked in.
More than a contrast to McNab’s skinny frame inside a circus rainbow, Roarke’s leanly muscled build inside the smoke-gray suit radiated power.
Then you got to the face, framed by that mane of black silk hair, and no heart could be blamed for skipping a few beats.
That face, carved by some genius god on a particularly artistic day. Those eyes, so wildly blue they caught the breath. That mouth, so perfectly, romantically sculpted, curved now, for her.
Maybe, just maybe, with another handful of years of marriage, seeing him unexpectedly wouldn’t simply dazzle her.
“Lieutenant, my luck’s in.”
And there was Ireland, with all its magic and poetry, whispering in his voice.
“That makes two of us.”
“I had a meeting, and took a chance you’d still be about.”
“Just heading out.”
“Yay!” Peabody said and sprang up from her desk. “We can meet up with Mavis and Leonardo.”
“That’s the plan,” Roarke agreed.
“What plan?” Eve’s head swiveled from Roarke to Peabody and back again. “I don’t have that plan. I don’t have time to have drinks or dinner or whatever.”
“It’s not that, I don’t think. She has some surprise she wants to spring.” Peabody snagged her coat. “I was going to tag her, tell her we probably couldn’t make it, but we can. She wants us to meet up, just a few blocks from here.”
“Why?” Eve demanded, and Roarke shrugged.
“She wouldn’t say,” McNab said. “She just went …” He wiggled his hands in the air. “All will be revealed.”
“Fine. Fine.” It was Mavis, after all. “But I have to make it quick. I’m working one,” she told Roarke.
“Yes, I know.”
“How do you know?”
“I spoke with Jack about it briefly.”
She stopped dead on her way out. “You spoke to Commander Whitney about my case?”
“Briefly. He mentioned you were interviewing Gwendolyn Huffman, and I found that interesting.”
“You know her?”
“I don’t, no.” He steered Eve to the elevator. “I do know her fiancé a little, and his family. They’re lovely people.”
“Maybe.”
“Well now, you’ll tell me all about it later. I’ve sent my car along, so I’ll ride with you. We all will,” he said as the four of them squeezed on the elevator.
“I don’t even know where the hell we’re going.”
“I’ve the address,” Roarke assured her.
“So you drive.” And even if it was only a few blocks, she could start a good run on Gwen’s parents. Especially the father.
And dig into Natural Order.
When they got home, she’d ask Roarke to dig into the Huffman finances—and Gwen’s trust. It would help to know just how much was at stake for her.
By the time she got home—with this surprise detour—Baxter and Trueheart should have completed the search and have a report.
Gwen wasn’t an idiot, but she hadn’t expected a search. She may have left something in her apartment that added to the mix.
“McNab, did you finish with my electronics?”
“Oh yeah. Nothing hinky on the vic’s e’s, Dallas. Texts on her phone and a few tags. A lot of texts from your suspect, going back to last fall. A lot of the lot of are sexy texts if you read between the lines.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, like, wait until you see what I bought. I’ll model it for you, so you can tell me if it suits. Or, candlelight and wine? Lots of stuff like that, mostly from the suspect’s ’link to the vic’s. The vic had texts from her mother, her brother, her sister-in-law, and e-mails from same. Otherwise it was mostly business stuff, art stuff.”
Eve breathed clear again when they made it to the garage level.
“She’d shoot photos of her work to the Village Scene, and they’d tell her what to bring in, when. That’s a gallery-type place that sells arts and crafts made by people who live or work in the Village. And she had the same deal going with Poets and Painters—where she also worked a couple days a week.”
“Okay.”
They piled into Eve’s ride, Roarke at the wheel.
“You get a sense of somebody when you read their communication, go through the pictures on their comp or ’link, go over their search history and all. She seemed like a nice person, you know? Tight with her family and all.”
Eve pulled out her PPC and began to gather data on Dr. Oliver Huffman.
She’d barely gotten past the basics when Roarke drove through an open gate. A single gate, she noted, wide enough for a good-size truck, with a short drive leading to a big white brick house with a long, wide front porch.
Mavis stood on the porch. Her hair, cotton candy pink, fountained out of a topknot. She wore over-the-knee clear boots.
What, Eve wondered, was the point in see-through boots?
She paired them with a fluttery dress covered with some sort of pink posies.
When she bounced, clapped her hands, Leonardo—towering, copper skin, copper hair in long dreads—came out the black front door with Bella on his hip.
The kid squealed, then threw back her head so her blond ringlets danced,
and laughed like a lunatic.
When Mavis bounded down the trio of steps, Eve noticed the boots had heels that looked as if someone had glued a clump of colorful marbles together.
“You made it! Peabody texted maybe not, then McNab texted maybe so. And you made it.”
She yanked open Eve’s door before Eve could do it herself, and tugged Eve’s hand. “Come see, come see before I bust!”
“See what?”
“The house.”
“I see the house. What is the house?”
“Ours!” Arms outstretched, Mavis spun in circles. “It’s all so mag. It’s all so whoa! We bought a house.”
“You bought a house.” A really big white brick house, with a porch, and what looked like an overgrown yard. Since it all struck as dramatically un-Mavis, Eve searched for something to say.
She tried, “Wow.”
“It’s wow to the ult! I know it needs work and love, and holy sh—shoes,” she corrected. “Some freaking color and style. But it’s just what we wanted, right, moonpie?”
Leonardo beamed at her, at the house, at the overgrown yard. “It really is.”
Since Bella all but launched herself out of her father’s arms, Eve had no choice but to catch her.
“Das! Das!” She gripped Eve’s chin with one hand, pointed at the house with the other. “Mine!”
“Yeah, so I hear. I didn’t know you were looking for a house.”
“We’ve been talking about it since …” Mavis patted her belly. “Knocked up, the return. We wanted something with some yard, and big enough to grow. And something we could make ours. It’s like a blank slate, and we can draw whatever we want on it. Roarke found it for us.”
“Oh, really?” Eve turned toward him.
“Don’t be mad. I made him swear not to tell.” Mavis slid an arm around Roarke’s waist. “I really wanted you to see whatever we picked once we’d picked.”
“It could be a really great yard,” Peabody said.
“I’m counting on you to help make that happen. Flowers, Peabody, and trees and bushes and room for kids to run. Oh, oh, there it goes.”