Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

One of the two elevators let out a pair of women speaking rapid Spanish, both carting handbags the size of baby elephants. The younger pushed a thumb-sucking baby in a stroller with little animals dangling—including a baby elephant. The kid’s eyes looked glassy with pleasure as it snacked on its own thumb.

“What do they get out of that?” Eve wondered as they stepped into the vacated elevator. “How good could your own thumb taste?”

“It’s not the taste, it’s the sucking action. Oral satisfaction and comfort.”

“So, basically, they’re giving themselves a blow job?”

For a couple of seconds, Peabody’s mouth worked silently. “I . . . I can’t possibly answer that without feeling really dirty and weirded.”

With a shrug, Eve rode up to the fourth floor. Decent building, Eve thought, decent security. Solid working class with residents who took enough pride of place not to litter up the lobby, elevators, hallways.

She pressed the buzzer on Kelly’s door, waited.

The intercom hummed as it engaged. “Yes?”

“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody.” Eve held up her badge. “NYPSD. We’d like to speak to you, ma’am.”

Locks clicked, the door opened, and Eve saw Iris had already gotten the news. Sky-blue eyes, swollen and red-rimmed, dominated a face the color of Irish cream. Sunshine hair was sleeked back in a long tail. She wore straight-legged black pants, a shirt shades quieter than her eyes and a simple black cardigan.

“On the screen. I heard the report on the screen. Paul . . . I can’t reach Cecily. I can’t reach her. Please.”

“Can we come in, Ms. Kelly?” Eve asked.

“I’m sorry. Yes. I slept late,” she continued as she stepped back. “It’s a day off. I slept late. I turned the screen on for company while I did some chores before I went out to run errands. I can’t reach Cecily. Melly. Oh God, please.”

“Ms. Greenspan and Melody are on their way to Ms. Greenspan’s mother in New Rochelle.”

“Oh. Oh.” Iris sank into a chair in the living area, covered her face, burst into tears. “Thank God. I thought . . . I was afraid . . . It’s all craziness. They’re saying Paul killed himself and all those other people at his office. He never would, never, but they keep saying it and saying it. And I couldn’t reach Cecily.”

“Why don’t I get you some water?” Peabody suggested.

“Thank you. Thank you. I don’t understand why they’re saying Paul did something like this. He’d never hurt anyone. Please, he’s a good man.”

“We believe Mr. Rogan was coerced.”

“‘Coerced,’” Iris repeated slowly.

“Ms. Kelly, has anyone approached you, asking questions about the family, their home, Mr. Rogan’s work?”

“No. No. I mean to say, I talk about the family the way you do, with my husband or friends, my own family. Except they’re family, too. They made me family.”

As she swiped at tears, she rocked herself for comfort. “I was there when they brought Melly home for the first time, just a little pink bundle. I’ll share things, like how well Melly’s doing in school or her dance recital, or something funny Paul said—he likes to joke—or something Cecily and I did. Just casual talk.”

“Someone outside your friends and family,” Eve pushed as Peabody brought Iris a glass of water. “Someone making a delivery to the house when Melody was in school and her parents were at work. Or a repairman. Anyone.”

“No, I promise you. I might talk to the people who run the market when I do the marketing. They might ask how I am doing, and how the family is doing. I might brag about Melly now and then. She’s next to my own. I might say how well she did in school—she, she wants to be an astronomer. I might speak to one of the mothers or nannies if I went to the school to get her. Sometimes Cecily had to stay for meetings, and I pick Melly up and take her home.”

“Did anyone make you uncomfortable? Anyone you spoke to, anyone you saw around the neighborhood?”

“I can’t think of anyone. I know some of the neighbors, and the people who work for them. You chat sometimes. I met my Johnny when he was working on the house next door. He redid the kitchen for the Spacers, and we chatted.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Nearly four years.”

“You have the security code to the residence.”

“Yes.” Her streaming eyes went wild. “Yes, I—”