Brotherhood in Death (In Death 42)

“I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll have an early dinner, and you’ll tell me. Then we’ll work on it. Dennis matters to me as well, very much matters.”

“I know he does. I don’t know if I can eat.”

“That means it has to be pizza, and I’ll make that deal with you if there’s a side salad involved.”

“Okay. Let’s give it a shot.”

She paid a little more attention to the setup while they ate: the replica of her old table where she’d sat for a meal—occasionally. More often she’d eaten, when she’d eaten, at her desk.

It probably wouldn’t kill her to consider a better table, she thought as she poked at the salad. But—

“Tell me,” Roarke said.

So she did, from the early meeting at the Mira Institute to the break for Trueheart’s ceremony, finding the body, notifying next of kin, and on to the Mira home. Then the interviews and her impressions of the women who’d had affairs with the senator.

“You pushed a lot into one day.”

“It didn’t end there. And there’ll be more women, that’s a given. Bagging women was like his fricking hobby. And with them? Guilt or defiance, cold calculation, self-preservation. They all had reasons for cheating, and I don’t buy any of them.”

“You think they’re lying?”

“No—or not exactly. The two I have at the top there?” She gestured toward the board. “Something more, something a little off. But I mean I don’t buy the concept. You stick or you don’t—and you don’t roll around with a married guy because he sticks or he doesn’t.”

“You see it in black-and-white.”

“Damn straight.”

“Fortunately for my skin, I agree with you. But there are many who see the concept as a more gray area, depending on the circumstance.”

“Then why do the marriage thing? Stick or don’t,” she said again. “MacKensie? Needs a harder look. She comes across as the type who stays home, observes rather than participates. And is a—what is it—Plain Joan?”

“That’s Jane.”

“Yeah, right, because it rhymes. I’m not going to say the vic had a specific type, but every other one of the list is a looker, and comes off confident. Is she the exception, or is she putting on a show? Harder look. Same with Downing. Not the Jane bit, but something that felt off. Letting some rich, influential old guy do her for profit and advancement, okay. But there was a lie in there. MacKensie played it too Jane, and too jittery, and Downing? Way too prepared.”

“More prepared than the one with the lawyer already on tap?”

“Yeah, the one with the lawyer was just a stone bitch. Downing? She’s got sly in her eyes. That rhymes, too. Plain Jane and Sly Eye.”

She picked up a slice. It was rare for pizza not to appeal, but she only ate it to avoid the inevitable nudge from Roarke.

“The one you dislike most is the one you suspect least.”

“Right now. But here’s what I started wondering. What if sleeping with the vic isn’t the only connection here? All of them knew him for a dog, banged him anyway. What if they knew each other? Not just knew there were others, but more specifically.”

“An I Slept with Senator Mira Club?”

“I think when you cheat with many, the odds of paths crossing go up. I’m wondering whose paths might have crossed, and what happened then.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t have much time to play the angle before the vic’s son and daughter showed up. And that was the second hardest part of the pissy day.”

She’d eaten a baby bunny’s portion of her salad, Roarke noted, and barely touched the pizza, which usually did the trick.

So whatever the second hardest part had been was still with her.

“Why is that?”

“They’re tight. He’s got Mr. Mira’s eyes. That’s irrelevant,” she said.