"You ought to know. You spent over two thousand on the line. Cosmetics, Donnie Ray. Enhancements."
"Cosmetics." He shoved his hands through his hair until it stood up in buttery spikes. "Oh shit, yeah. The jazzy stuff. My mother's birthday. I bought her the works."
"You spent two large on your mother's birthday?" With doubt obvious in her eyes. Eve glanced around the cramped, messy room.
"My mother's the best. The old man ditched us when I was a kid. She worked like three dogs to keep a roof over my head, and to pay for music lessons." He nodded toward the sax. "I make good money blowing. Fucking good. Now I'm helping to pay for the roof over her head, in Connecticut. A decent house in a decent neighborhood. This ..." he gestured to encompass the room, "it don't matter a damn to me. I'm hardly here except to flake out."
"How about I call your mother, right now, and ask her what her boy Donnie Ray gave her for her last birthday?"
"Sure." Without hesitation he jerked a thumb toward the 'link on a table by the wall. "Her number's programmed. Just do me a favor, okay? Don't tell her you're a cop. She worries. Say you're doing a survey or something."
"Peabody, ditch the uniform jacket and call Donnie Ray's mom." Eve moved out of transmission range and sat on the arm of a chair. "Rudy at Personally Yours do your profile?"
"No, well, I talked to him first. I got the feeling everybody does. Like an audition. Then some joker did the consult. What do you like to do for entertainment, what do you dream about, what's your favorite color. You take a physical, too, to make sure you're clean."
"They didn't turn up traces of Zoner."
He had the grace to look abashed. "No. I was clean."
"I bet your mother would want you to stay that way."
"Ms. Michael received a complete line of Natural Perfection Cosmetics and Enhancers from her son on her birthday." Peabody shrugged back into her uniform jacket, then gave Donnie Ray a smile. "She was really happy with the gift."
"She's pretty, isn't she?"
"Yes, she is."
"She's the best."
"That's what she said about you," Peabody told him.
"I got her diamond earrings for Christmas. Well, they're really just chips, but she'd get a large charge." He was eyeing Peabody with interest now, having seen her without the stiff jacket. "You ever get down to the Empire?"
"Not yet."
"You ought to drop in. We really blow."
"Maybe I will." But she caught Eve's owlish look and cleared her throat. ' Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Michael."
"Do your mother a favor," Eve said as they headed for the door. "Shovel out this garbage heap and lay off the Zoner."
"Yeah, sure." And Donnie Ray gave Peabody a suggestive wink before he closed the door.
"It's unseemly to flirt with suspects, Officer Peabody."
"He's not really a suspect." Peabody glanced over her shoulder. "And he was really cute."
"He's a suspect until we confirm his alibi. And he's a pig."
"But a really cute pig. Sir."
"We've got two more interviews to conduct, Peabody. Try to control your hormones."
"I do, Dallas, I do." She sighed as she climbed back into the car. "But it's so nice when they control me."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Spending most of the day doing interviews without making a crack in a case didn't put Eve in the best of moods. Finding McNab packed and gone when she returned to her home office darkened her mood a bit more.