Brotherhood in Death (In Death 42)

“It was twenty years ago, easy. I don’t even remember her name, but she came into the little storefront we had back then and cornered me. Said she wondered if I resembled my father in all ways. She grabbed my crotch—not something I wanted to tell my sister. Zoe saw it—my wife. Well, not my wife then, we weren’t even dating yet. She is—and was—a designer, interior. We were working with her on some projects. But she saw the whole thing, and while I was trying not to scream like a girl, she marched over, kicked the crotch-grabber out, and told her if she ever came back, she’d call the cops.”

“I love Zoe,” Gwen said, with feeling.

“Me, too. It took me over a month to get up the courage to ask her out after that. But it all worked out. Sorry, that doesn’t help you.”

“You’d be surprised. You’ve told me that for most of your life, your parents had this sort of arrangement, but each of you only clearly remembers one incident where the woman involved at the time made herself known. That tells me as a rule, they were discreet, and not looking for trouble when the liaison ended. So, to the best of your knowledge, none of the women he had affairs with caused trouble for him, threatened him?”

“He’d have crushed them. I don’t mean physically,” Ned said quickly. “But in every other way. If they’d even hinted at causing trouble, he’d have let them know how he could and would ruin them. Their lives, their business or career, their family. He was my father, and I want whoever killed him found and put away. But he was vindictive, and he was ruthless, and he never forgot anything he considered a betrayal.”

“Is that enough? Can that be enough for now? It feels awful to talk about him this way.” Tears swirled into Gwen’s eyes again. “We want to help, but can this be enough?”

“Sure. And you have helped.”

“Then I want to go home. I want my family.”

“I’ll take you home.” Ned got to his feet.

“You don’t need to.”

“How about if Zoe brings the kids, we just hold together at your house for a while?”

Gwen closed her eyes. “That would be great. That would feel right. My aunt—our mother’s sister,” Gwen told Eve, “came in. That’s who our mother really wants now. The rest of us will hold together.”

They’d do just that, Eve thought when they left. They’d hold together.

“It had to be rough, growing up that way. Being ordered to toe a line, never seeing real love and loyalty between your parents.”

“They got out of it,” Eve said. “They made their own.”

She’d done the same.

She went back to her office, added to her notes. Hesitated, then copied Mira. It might be hard to read what Ned and Gwen had said, but she imagined Mira already knew all of it.

She wanted home, too, she realized. She’d find her focus again working at home.

She gathered what she needed, grabbed her coat, then made the mistake of answering her ’link.

The media liaison informed her she needed to give a statement on the Mira case.

Resigned—she’d known it was coming—she went out to the bullpen and Peabody’s desk.

“I have to go do the media statement, and I’m taking this home from there. I want reports on the spouses, and the verified alibis. You can do the rest here or at home, as long as I have everything tonight.”

“I’ll stick with it here until McNab’s off.”

“Copy Mira, but not through official channels. Got that?”

“Got that.”

She might hate this part of the job, but she would get it done. And she was grateful the liaison set a strict time of ten minutes, for statement and questions.

The questions sent up an echoing bang in her head on the drive home.

Is it true Senator Mira was found naked?

Why was his abduction not reported?

Is Dr. Charlotte Mira attached to this investigation?