Brotherhood in Death (In Death 42)

He looked back in the box at the keys. Studied them with his basset-hound eyes, rubbed his chin. “Those? That’s a whole different kettle. Lab might be able to tell you what kind of lock, give you the age. But location’s on you.”

“Yeah. I’ve got some ideas on that.”

She pulled Baxter and Trueheart in, continued to search the house while she waited for them. But her gut told her they’d already hit the mother lode.

She let them in herself. “Give me what you’ve got.”

“It’s not much. Lots of shock, and a few tears at Wymann’s offices. We got the warrant and Callendar and another e-geek came in to take the electronics. The admin says she thinks the biographer approached Wymann, maybe at a party. He made the follow-up appointment himself, had the admin put it in his schedule. She herself never saw the woman or spoke with her. It seems spur-of-the-moment.”

“Any sense he was dipping in the office pool?”

“Nope. But Trueheart turned his earnest young detective’s face on the admin and eased a couple names out of her. No cross with your first vic’s ladies. We talked to both of them, and the alibis look solid.”

He looked around. “Is that a koi pond? Who has a koi pond twelve steps inside their front door? Then again, who has a fat baby orgy on their front door?”

“You haven’t seen half of it. Here’s where we stand.”

She gave him the progress.

“I’ve got to see this bathroom.”

“You’ll have time. The two of you need to sit on the house in case the killers decide to bring him back and hang him over the koi pond. I need to get back in the field, check out a couple leads. Most likely is they bring him back in after dark, but you sit on it, and I’m getting backup on the off chance they come before I can get back.”

She held up a finger when her ’link sounded. “Dallas,” she began, pacing away.

When she paced back, she shouted, “Peabody!”

“I don’t get having fish in the house.” Baxter stood looking down at koi. “It’s unnatural.”

“I used to win a goldfish every summer at the county fair. Ringtoss,” Trueheart said. “It never made it through the fall.”

“See, unnatural.”

“You want unnatural? There’s a room full of dolls on the second floor.”

“Well, don’t they have a little girl?” Trueheart began.

“If a kid walked in that room, her screams would be heard from here to Queens, and she’d be traumatized for life. I’m saying hundreds of dolls. Staring dolls. Staring-at-the-door dolls. Waiting dolls.”

“Jesus, Dallas.” Muttering it, Baxter shuddered.

“They’re up there. We’re heading out,” she said as Peabody came down the stairs. “Detective Bennet cleared the path to the social worker.”

“Mike Bennet? Nice guy,” Baxter said.

“Sit on the house. Maybe feed those fish something. Nobody’s been here since yesterday. Maybe they’ll start eating each other.”

“Staring dolls, cannibal fish. What the hell kind of place is this?”

“Sit tight. Stay alert. We don’t want to add dead guy swinging over the cannibal fish.”

“Did she give Mike any names?” Peabody asked, winding her long, long scarf as they started to the car.

“No, and he doesn’t think she will. But she might give us a yes or no when we show her photos.”

“That’s a fine line.”

“What I get is she likes him—that nice-guy vibe. And she really respects his future mothers-in-law. We push on how these people used Anson to kill Wymann, and if we don’t stop them, will kill Betz, we’ve got a decent shot at getting a nod if we show her the right face.”