Calculated in Death (In Death 36)

“Judge Yung?”

“Criminal. One of the best I know.” She could let the pity come, just a little with him. “You couldn’t swim through the love and grief in that place. It just kept flooding the air.”

“It’s difficult being the one who has no choice but to open the gates to the flood.”

“It’s part of the job, but like Peabody said, sometimes it’s worse than others. This was worse. Yung’s going to make it as easy as possible for me, search warrants, full disclosure, full access.”

“And yet.”

“And yet the mother of two who helped build what looks like a really happy home is still dead. So, anyway. What do you know about Brewer, Kyle, and Martini?”

“Ah . . . Corporate accounting primarily, or serving those who have as much money as a corporation.”

“Not yours?”

“No, but I’d take a good look at them if I decided to make a change in that area. They have a steady, straightforward reputation. Victim or husband?”

“Victim. Husband’s a lawyer with Grimes, Dickenson, Harley, and Schmidt. He’s Dickenson. Estate law and financial junk’s his deal.”

“I don’t know them, but I can see what I can find out.”

“Shouldn’t be hard. Their offices are in your headquarters building.”

“That does make it simple.”

“If you have time. It never hurts to have somebody who knows that money crap on board. One more. The WIN Group—investments, money managers, like that.”

“Nothing rings, but again, it’s easy enough to get information. How do they play in?”

“Bradley Whitestone—the W—found the body outside his being-renovated apartment early this morning when he brought a woman by he obviously hoped to bang. We met her, she says, at some gala. Alva Moonie.”

“Of the New York Moonies—old money, old pedigree. Shipping, as in building ships and using them to transport cargo and people on cruises. I don’t know her personally, but can tell you she was known as a wild child who lived for parties, extensive travel, shopping, drink, drugs, sex until a few years ago.”

“She looked like money,” Eve recalled. “She didn’t look wild.”

“I believe she designs or helps design the decor on the cruise ships, and does some nonprofit work these days. Is she a suspect?”

“About as far down the list as you can get at this point, but you never know.”

“You do,” he corrected. “Or you find out. How did she die, your mother of two?”

“Somebody broke her neck. Unless Morris tells me different,” she added as she pulled up to the morgue. “I’m going to go talk to him. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Eat something,” he repeated.

“Yeah, yeah.” But she grinned at him before she broke transmission.

Sometimes you got lucky, she thought remembering Daniel Yung’s words. She’d hit the mega-jackpot with Roarke, a man who understood her and loved her anyway.

And som

etimes, she thought as she walked into the long white tunnel of the morgue, luck ran out as it had for Marta and Denzel Dickenson.

Too early for change-of-shift she decided as her footsteps echoed. People were either dealing with the death toll the city hauled in during the night, or doing paperwork in offices, or things she didn’t particularly want to think about with body parts in labs.

She paused at Vending, rejected even the idea of what passed for coffee at this particular establishment. She ordered a tube of Pepsi instead, and chugged some caffeine into her system as she headed for Morris’s area.

If he hadn’t been notified and come in, she’d contact him with Yung’s request.