“Of course.” Settling a bit, Mira crossed her legs. “We were all young, newly married couples, so we did socialize here and there. Vanessa and I also shared an intense dislike for Mandy. But I can’t think of the last time she or Edward came up in any of our conversations. They haven’t been part of her circle, not in more than twenty years.”
/> “What do you know about the second wife?”
“Not a great deal. She was considerably younger, and the grapevine reported she’d been one of his flings. Unlike Vanessa, she didn’t go quietly, and the word was he had to buy her off to get her out. I don’t know where she is or if she remarried, but I could easily find out.”
“So can I. Don’t worry about it. Would you say he and the senator shared a predilection for casual sex, for affairs, and for using younger women?”
“Absolutely.”
Eve stepped onto boggy ground. “Senator Mira has a daughter.”
“Gwen, yes. She—” Understanding struck, a quick shock that made her jolt. “Oh, no. I can tell you on both personal and professional levels, no. Edward would never have touched Gwen, and wouldn’t have allowed Jonas to, if he’d been inclined. I would have known, Eve. Gwen would have come to me if I’d missed the signs.”
“What about going younger. Kids?”
“Again, no. Both these men wanted conquests—proof of their own virility. Children don’t provide that. They sought out young, attractive women. I understand why you’d ask given the violence of the murders, but this isn’t about children.”
“Okay. I needed to cross it off.”
“It can’t be a coincidence they both regularly sought out those conquests, and were killed in the same manner. Was there a message?”
“Same one.”
Mira sipped her coffee, gathered her thoughts. “So while the killers may perceive this as justice, it’s retribution, and the method indicates sexual retribution. A partnership forged for that purpose, carried out swiftly and brutally. The killers are goal-oriented, and bound to each other by this mutual purpose. It’s possible they’re lovers, but while the killers are violent and brutal, they’re also complex and calculated. This isn’t piquerism, and I don’t believe we’re looking for sexual sadists.”
“No, they’re making a point, not getting off. They’re focused. The second murder is almost a mirror image of the first.”
“Organized, intelligent. Patient. It took time to set this up. And controlled,” Mira added. “They took Dennis out of the equation, but didn’t kill him. He isn’t a target, and it isn’t justice to kill a man who isn’t involved. What’s this about a tattoo?”
“Both men had a Celtic symbol inked on their groin. Pretty obvious symbolism there. It stands for brotherhood.”
“‘Brotherhood,’” Mira murmured. “Sexual. Virility. A symbol of their bond, and their . . . predilection.”
“Somewhere along the way, they crossed a line. From seduction or mutual gratification to rape.”
“You make that leap due to the nature of the torture.”
“The nature of the torture screams: You did it to me, I do it to you. Maybe they did it together, maybe they had a fricking contest,” Eve continued before Mira could speak, “but they crossed that line. Put aside your personal feelings on both victims. Tell me, from what you know of them, what you can profile, were they capable of not only raping women, but also forming their own sort of partnership from doing the act?”
Mira sat back, rubbed her fingers at her temple. “It isn’t easy to set aside personal feelings for a professional opinion when there’s such a long history.”
“If you can’t—”
“Not easy,” Mira interrupted. “But.” She drew a breath, met Eve’s eyes directly. “I believe Edward was a sociopath. A highly functional, highly intelligent, and highly successful sociopath. He believed himself above the rules when it came to . . . everything. And certainly when it came to relationships. So he married a woman who wouldn’t hold him to those rules. He—What’s the most dignified term?—propositioned me once.”
“What? You didn’t mention that before.”
“It was decades ago, shortly after Dennis and I were engaged. I never told Dennis because it would have hurt him, and to what purpose? And I knew, even then, Edward only did so because I belonged to Dennis.”
Mira studied her coffee, drank some, sighed.
“Dennis’s memories of Edward are colored by childhood, but he’ll tell a story about them as boys, and it’s obvious the man was a bully even then.”
“Proposition is sort of dignified. Was it?”
“We were at his grandparents’ house—I’d nearly forgotten. I’d used the powder room, and as I came out, Edward was there. He backed me into the powder room, suggesting we should get to know each other better. He trapped me against the wall, and as he moved in, I put my knee on his groin. I told him if he ever put his hands on me again I’d break them both off at the wrist.”
She set the coffee cup aside, folded her hands together. “It frightened me—you understand.”