Obsession in Death (In Death 40)

“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.”

“And look how that worked out. Do you want to say there’s some surface similarity between you and her? I’ll agree. Strong-willed, successful women, on either side of a line of law, but both serving it in their way. Attractive, intelligent, ambitious women, solitary in their ways. Or you were, and would like to be more than you might find yourself these days.”

“I don’t think I could live without you anymore. That’s how that worked out for me. Maybe somebody wanted her.” She wound pasta again, ate without thinking. “And she didn’t want him, or her, back. But . . .” She shook her head, reached for her wine.

“No passion in the kill.”

“None. When you want someone, and they keep you shut out, there’s despair or anger or payback. I can’t make the motive about her. I can’t find the angle for that. All the angles say it’s about me. And I can’t figure it.”

“Another cop, one who admires you, and resents the defense attorney who works as diligently

to ensure the freedom of the criminals you take off the street.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the angles. It’s not one of mine, Roarke. It’s not one of my cops. I don’t just say that because they’re mine, but because I know them, inside and out.”

“I’m going to agree with you because I’ve come to know them as well. There’s no one in your division who’d take a life this way, or use you as an excuse to do so.”

“None of them are psychotic, and that’s how this feels.”

“But you don’t only work with your own. Uniforms who respond first to a scene, who help secure a scene or canvass. A cop from another division whose investigation crossed with yours. One who consulted you, or vice versa.”