Brotherhood in Death

8

Eve found Homicide full of cops and noise, and the lingering scent of someone’s veggie hash—extra onions. Reineke and Jenkinson huddled together at Jenkinson’s desk, Carmichael worked her ’link, Santiago scowled at his comp screen while Baxter strolled out from the break room with a jumbo mug of coffee.

Trueheart—she’d have to get used to seeing him out of uniform—earnestly worked his comp.

“Is there no crime on the streets?” she wondered.

“Hey, LT.” Reineke angled toward her. “We got one in Interview A. Letting him stew awhile. Asshole cut up his boss on the loading dock. Told the arresting officer the guy fell on his knife. Three times.”

“That’s a relief. I was worried we’d all be looking for new jobs. Peabody, run the hateful bitch’s husband, verify alibis.”

Santiago answered his desk ’link, held up a finger. “Yeah, yeah. Got it. On the way. We caught one,” he called to Carmichael. “Guy took flight out a window on the fourteenth floor on Sixth, went splat on a parked mini. And we remain gainfully employed.”

“Earn your pay,” Eve said, and started for her office. Baxter caught up with her just outside her door.

“We don’t have anything hot,” he began, “so I pulled a cold case, gave Trueheart the lead.”

Since she’d done the same with Peabody when her partner’s badge was new and sparkly, Eve nodded. “Good way to give him more experience, and maybe close a case.”

“He’s working it hard. Now I’ve got to school him in detective wardrobe.”

Eve looked over at Trueheart in his dark gray jacket, quiet blue tie. “He looks okay.”

Sort of clean and earnest, she thought. Like he was on his way to church.

Hmmm.

Baxter only shook his head. “I’ll work on it. We get anywhere on the cold one, I’ll let you know.”

Eve went in, hit the coffee, then updated her board and book, wrote up her notes. She copied Mira, unofficially.

After entering the data, she ran probabilities on each woman she’d questioned. As she suspected, the computer liked the ones without alibis.

“That’s the easy way,” she muttered and, with another cup of coffee, put her boots on her desk, sat, and studied.

Allyson Byson—off in the tropics. Potentially could have hired someone to take care of Edward Mira, but it just didn’t ring true. The kill was vicious and personal.

She made an additional note to verify Byson’s travel, any possible circling back to do the murder.

But there, she and the computer agreed. Dead low probability.

Carlee MacKensie. Jittery, came off pliable, harmless, on the weak side. No alibi, so the comp liked her. And here, Eve didn’t altogether disagree.

“Something a little off there, Carlee. Something not quite right. Too wide-eyed. I don’t think we got the full story from you. I don’t think you rang that truth bell.”

On to Lauren Canford. Total bitch, no two ways about that one. And Eve could see the woman in a violent outburst. She could see her planning a murder with care and cunning.

But . . . Eve didn’t sense passion. She didn’t sense the sort of attachment to or anger with the victim it took to torture and kill.

More the type to backbite—there was an expression that made sense. The type to go behind an enemy’s back and smear reps, plant gossip seeds.

Asha Coppola. Came off honest—if you overlooked the adultery. But largely honest. Screwed up, owned it, working to fix it. It played all the way through for Eve.

Then Charity Downing. Something there, Eve thought again. Something not quite what it seems. Something . . .

“Cagey,” Eve said out loud, studying the face on her board over the rim of her mug. “That’s what I got from you, Charity. You’re cagey. Your alibi’s going to hold up, too, and when it does, I’m inclined to take a look at your day-off pal.

“Lydia Su. Friends lie for friends. We’ll take a look because there was a lie in there somewhere. Some truth, but a lie buried in it.”

She set her mug aside, rearranged the board in her preference.

Charity Downing

Carlee MacKensie

Asha Coppola (maybe her husband wasn’t working on forgiving)

Lauren Canford

She’d have a ’link interview with Allyson Byson, but suspected that name would replace Canford’s at the bottom of her list.

Artist, freelance writer, nonprofit marketing manager, lobbyist, society type.

“Didn’t have a type, did you, Edward? It was more looks and availability. And age. Average age of this group is—shit, math. I don’t know . . . early thirties. And that’s just this group. Bound to be more. What if—”

“Sorry, Dallas.” Peabody rapped knuckles on the doorjamb. “Edward Mira—that’s junior—and Gwendolyn Mira Sykes are here. They want to talk to you—us.”

“Saves us the trip. Set them up in an Interview room. We’ll keep it strictly official.”

“I think B’s open. I’ll take them down.”

Eve nodded, looked back at her board. But her focus had shifted, so she pushed up from her desk. She’d see what the vic’s children, and likely top beneficiaries, had to say.

She walked out, saw Baxter had pulled his chair over to Trueheart’s desk. She didn’t know if they were discussing new angles on the cold case or the cut of a suit, the weight of fabric.

Didn’t, at that point, want to know.

She headed toward the Interview area, saw Peabody coming out of B.

“I’m getting her a sparkling water, him a Coke.”

Eve dug in her pockets for enough to cover it. “Get me a tube of Pepsi, and whatever you want. Official, but pleasant.”

“They’re a little bit wrecked, Dallas. Pushing through it, but you can see it. And they’re a solid unit—really tight.”

“Okay.”

She stepped in, and though she’d already viewed their ID shots, it still struck her that Edward Junior had Dennis Mira’s dreamy green eyes.

He wore his dark hair long enough to pull back in a stub of a tail—as Roarke habitually did when in serious work mode. He had a strong, handsome face—she could see the resemblance to his father—and wore scarred work boots, jeans, and a red-and-black plaid shirt.

His sister had taken her looks from the mother—statuesque and striking despite the reddened eyes. She wore a dark suit, dark tights, and flashy red ankle boots with skyscraper heels.

They sat at the battered Interview table holding hands.

The brother gave the sister’s hand a squeeze, and stood as Eve closed the door.

“Mr. Mira, Mrs. Sykes, I’m Lieutenant Dallas. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It’s Ned. Ned and Gwen.” His voice was rough and strained. “Thanks for talking to us, for making the time so quickly. Dennis told us you were working hard to find—to find our father’s killer. We don’t want to get in the way.”

“You’re not in the way. I intended to come to you before the end of the day.”

“We’ve been with our mother.” Gwen cleared her throat. “Their security guard contacted Ned, and he came to get me. We want to apologize first for the way she spoke to you.”

“It’s not on you, and it’s nothing.”

“It’s something,” Ned corrected with a grim smile. “We’ve been on the receiving end. But despite how she behaved, she’s shattered. We know your reputation, Lieutenant, and your work with Charlotte. So.”

He rubbed a hand on his sister’s arm. “You know by now that our parents didn’t have what most think of as a traditional marriage.”

“What did they have?”

Before the question could be answered, Peabody came in with the drinks. “Hope tubes are okay.”

“That’s fine, thanks.” Ned looked back at Eve. “They cared for each other, but the marriage was more a partnership. Political, social.”

“You don’t have to be delicate, Ned. They both had relationships outside the marriage,” Gwen continued. “They produced us—two offspring, male, female—then they were free to pursue other interests. We knew it, growing up, knew it wasn’t to be discussed. As long as we presented the accepted image, everything stayed balanced.”

“You screwed that up,” Ned said, making her laugh a little.

“You screwed up first.” Then her eyes filled. “Oh God, Ned.”

“It’s okay. It’s all right.” He scooted his chair closer to hers, put his arm around her. “I did screw it up first. I didn’t want to go to Yale. I didn’t want to study law, go into politics. So I made sure it couldn’t happen. Tanked my grades, ditched school when I could get away with it. I’d have taken off the minute I hit eighteen, but—”

“He wouldn’t leave me. I’m two years younger, so he toughed it out. I didn’t go to Yale, but took Harvard instead. I did study law. I wanted to. But I used my degree to become a children’s rights attorney.”

“We were disappointments,” Ned finished. “We were constantly at odds with our father, particularly. I partnered up with two friends—who weren’t on the approved list—and we started our own business. We build, repair, recycle, reimagine furniture. I work with my hands, and he never forgave me. Twenty-two years we’ve been in business, but he still called it my rebellion.”

“You’re not— Are you Three Guys Furniture?”

He grinned at Peabody. “Yeah, that’s us.”

“I love your stuff. My father builds furniture, and my brother, so I know quality. I love your work. Sorry,” she said to Dallas, “but you should know his business has a really exceptional rep.”

“I appreciate that. Gwen’s got her own solid rep in her field, but . . .”

“We didn’t follow the plan,” Gwen said. “We didn’t maintain the assigned image. We didn’t marry the sort of people they would have chosen. It didn’t matter that we are both happy, that we married wonderful people we love, both have terrific kids. It wasn’t the plan.”

“My parents would never say we’re estranged,” Ned said, “because that wouldn’t fit, either. But we barely speak, only see each other on holidays when we have to.”

“And when you did see each other or speak?” Eve asked.

“Nine out of ten, it ended in an argument. Charlie said to be brutally honest with you about it, so here we are. Brutal. I didn’t like my father.”

“Oh, Ned.”

“What’s the point, Gwen? I didn’t like or respect him. But he was my father. My mother’s a pain in the ass.”

“God, she is.” Gwen sighed, let her head tip to her brother’s shoulder. “But she’s our mother, and she’s grieving. Our father’s been murdered, and however strained our relationship, he didn’t deserve to be killed, to be hurt the way he was hurt. We’ll tell you anything you need to know, answer any questions you have to help you find who did it.”

“And we’ll release a statement to the media that reflects family unity. We’ll maintain the image for him, and for our mother.”

“Let’s get this out of the way,” Eve began. “Where were you yesterday, four to six, then midnight to four.”

“Four to six, in the shop, working. Well, until about five-thirty,” Ned corrected. “Then Grant—one of my partners—and I hung out, talking shop for a while while we closed up. I was probably home by six or a little after. We had dinner around seven. My wife, the kids, and I. By midnight? I was out for the count.”

“In court until nearly five,” Gwen said. “Custody case, nasty. Trewald v. Fester, Judge Harris presiding. I had to check in at the office, but I was home by six. Chaos ensued. I have a thirteen-year-old girl in the crazed clutches of puberty who was going into the tenth round with her eleven-year-old brother, whose job it is to irritate her. About midnight my husband and I were having a second glass of wine, in bed, and trembling like earthquake survivors—and wondering where our sweet, loving, happy little girl had gone.”

“You’ll get through it,” her brother told her.

“As long as there’s wine at midnight.”

“Mr. Mira—Dennis Mira—indicated the two of you will inherit your father’s interest in the Spring Street property. My information is it’s worth eight figures.”

“Sure it is.” Ned nodded. “If it’s coming to us, that simplifies something at least. It stays in the family. We don’t need the money, Lieutenant. Both Gwen and I are solid there, and that place means a lot to Dennis.”

“Let’s set that aside. Do you know any of the women your father was involved with?”

“We made it a point not to,” Gwen began. “A few years ago I was facing off against Leanore Bastwick in court, and during a recess she made it a point to follow me into the ladies’ room and tell me she was sleeping with my father. She did it to throw me off my game.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“When I heard about what happened to her a few weeks ago, I was shocked. But—brutal honesty—I didn’t lose any sleep over it.”

“Down, girl.” Ned squeezed her hand. “One of them came on to me.”

“What!” Gwen goggled at him. “You never told me!”

“It was twenty years ago, easy. I don’t even remember her name, but she came into the little storefront we had back then and cornered me. Said she wondered if I resembled my father in all ways. She grabbed my crotch—not something I wanted to tell my sister. Zoe saw it—my wife. Well, not my wife then, we weren’t even dating yet. She is—and was—a designer, interior. We were working with her on some projects. But she saw the whole thing, and while I was trying not to scream like a girl, she marched over, kicked the crotch-grabber out, and told her if she ever came back, she’d call the cops.”

“I love Zoe,” Gwen said, with feeling.

“Me, too. It took me over a month to get up the courage to ask her out after that. But it all worked out. Sorry, that doesn’t help you.”

“You’d be surprised. You’ve told me that for most of your life, your parents had this sort of arrangement, but each of you only clearly remembers one incident where the woman involved at the time made herself known. That tells me as a rule, they were discreet, and not looking for trouble when the liaison ended. So, to the best of your knowledge, none of the women he had affairs with caused trouble for him, threatened him?”

“He’d have crushed them. I don’t mean physically,” Ned said quickly. “But in every other way. If they’d even hinted at causing trouble, he’d have let them know how he could and would ruin them. Their lives, their business or career, their family. He was my father, and I want whoever killed him found and put away. But he was vindictive, and he was ruthless, and he never forgot anything he considered a betrayal.”

“Is that enough? Can that be enough for now? It feels awful to talk about him this way.” Tears swirled into Gwen’s eyes again. “We want to help, but can this be enough?”

“Sure. And you have helped.”

“Then I want to go home. I want my family.”

“I’ll take you home.” Ned got to his feet.

“You don’t need to.”

“How about if Zoe brings the kids, we just hold together at your house for a while?”

Gwen closed her eyes. “That would be great. That would feel right. My aunt—our mother’s sister,” Gwen told Eve, “came in. That’s who our mother really wants now. The rest of us will hold together.”

They’d do just that, Eve thought when they left. They’d hold together.

“It had to be rough, growing up that way. Being ordered to toe a line, never seeing real love and loyalty between your parents.”

“They got out of it,” Eve said. “They made their own.”

She’d done the same.

She went back to her office, added to her notes. Hesitated, then copied Mira. It might be hard to read what Ned and Gwen had said, but she imagined Mira already knew all of it.

She wanted home, too, she realized. She’d find her focus again working at home.

She gathered what she needed, grabbed her coat, then made the mistake of answering her ’link.

The media liaison informed her she needed to give a statement on the Mira case.

Resigned—she’d known it was coming—she went out to the bullpen and Peabody’s desk.

“I have to go do the media statement, and I’m taking this home from there. I want reports on the spouses, and the verified alibis. You can do the rest here or at home, as long as I have everything tonight.”

“I’ll stick with it here until McNab’s off.”

“Copy Mira, but not through official channels. Got that?”

“Got that.”

She might hate this part of the job, but she would get it done. And she was grateful the liaison set a strict time of ten minutes, for statement and questions.

The questions sent up an echoing bang in her head on the drive home.

Is it true Senator Mira was found naked?

Why was his abduction not reported?

Is Dr. Charlotte Mira attached to this investigation?

Is Professor Dennis Mira a suspect?

How long was Senator Mira tortured before his death?

Christ, she thought, Christ, what public had the right to know that? Which was exactly how she’d answered the question before she’d walked away.

Home, she told herself. Maybe a workout or a swim before she dug back into it. Just something to take the edge off the ugliness of the day.

A workout and a swim, she decided as she drove through the gates. Thirty minutes each. She could take an hour, then start back fresh.

Just seeing the house made her feel more centered. She didn’t know why the conversation with Gwen and Ned had left her so unsettled.

They hadn’t been beaten or brutalized. They’d grown up privileged. Nothing like her own experience. But she’d felt her own old dread rising up as she’d listened to them, greasy memories of fear, of helplessness.

She needed it gone.

She prepped herself as she parked. She could start getting it gone by exchanging swipes with Summerset. That should shove back the echoes.

But Summerset wasn’t in the foyer, and that threw her balance off even more. He was supposed to be there, lurking, sneering, making some lame-ass comment.

“Early,” she grumbled to herself as she went up the stairs. “Damn right I’m home early. I made a point of it so I could catch you crawling out of your coffin. That would’ve been a pretty good one. Now it’s wasted.”

She started to head for the bedroom, changed her mind, aimed for her office. She’d dump everything there, take the time to update her board. Then she could let things simmer in the back of her brain while she pounded out a few miles, swam a few laps.

She was still steps away from her office when she heard the humming. Female humming.

What the hell? One of the house droids she rarely, if ever, saw? Did they hum happy tunes?

She stepped into the doorway.

Not a droid, but a glam-type redhead with a tablet, prowling around her personal space humming that fucking happy tune.

And where was her board?

Who the hell was the woman in crotch-high stiletto boots walking around . . . and sitting her skinny ass on HER desk.

Eve flipped back her coat, laid her hand on the butt of her weapon.

“Who the hell are you?”

The redhead let out a quick squeal, bounced her skinny ass off the corner of the desk. She slapped a hand between her perky breasts and goggled at Eve.

“Oh God! You scared me.”

“Yeah?” Hand on her weapon, Eve stepped into the room. “Want to get really scared? You will be if I don’t have your name and how you got in here in ten seconds.”

“I’m Charmaine. You must be Lieutenant Dallas. It’s just lovely to meet you. I was just finishing up the measurements.”

“What measurements?”

“For the . . . I’m so flustered. You really did give me a scare. I’m not really supposed to say. Roarke’s just—”

And he walked in from his office. “Sorry about the interruption. If you’d . . . Eve.”

He noted her stance, the position of her hand, the look in her eye. And sighed. “You’re home early.”

“Yeah, how about that? Who’s this, what’s she doing in my office?”

“Charmaine Delacroix, Lieutenant Dallas. Charmaine’s an interior designer I’ve worked with on a number of projects. Including the dojo.”

“Wonderfully minimalistic,” Charmaine said, “yet far from rigid or Spartan.”

Roarke subtly angled himself between her and Eve. “Do you have everything you need?”

“Absolutely. I can’t wait to get started. I’ll have some options for you by next week. Wonderful to meet you,” she said to Eve. “I know the way out.”

Eve gave her five seconds to beat feet, then rounded on Roarke. “You let somebody prowl around my office.”

“I had a designer come in, get a feel for it, measure, and would have been in here with her the entire time—though she’s perfectly trustworthy—but there was a call I had to take.”

“Why does some designer have to get a feel for my office? It’s my office, isn’t it? And where’s my goddamn murder board?”

“I put it away, as you wouldn’t want anyone not involved to see it. And if you hadn’t come home unexpectedly, it would’ve been back in place.”

Outrage wanted to blow the top of her skull through the ceiling. “So it’s okay if I don’t know the difference? It’s okay if I go into your office, take things and put them somewhere else, tell somebody to come right on in, as long as you don’t know about it?”

“If you had a reason to, as I did.”

“What possible reason did you have for moving my murder board, for letting some humming woman into my space?”

“‘Humming’?”

“She was humming. For Christ’s sake.”

“I suppose she has a cheerful disposition. The reason was to surprise you with some ideas for redoing your space.”

Another round of outrage wanted to blow flames out of her ears.

“Why do I need ideas for redoing it? It’s fine. It was just fine for you, too, when you put it together so I’d move in here. What, now it’s not good enough? Not fancy enough?”

His eyes chilled to blue ice. “If you’re going to deliberately be an ass, if you insist on raving over something this simple, we can talk about it when you’re not.”

“I’m an ass? You start messing with my space, and I’m an ass?”

“People change, Eve. They change their minds, their attitudes, their look, and often the look of their spaces. I thought, after this amount of time, you might be ready for a change here, in this space, to have it reflect what’s now rather than the past. Obviously, you’re not. But that’s not why you’re an ass. You’re an ass for being so pathetically insecure you’d react as if you’d walked in on the two of us naked and banging each other on your precious desk.

“I still have work.”

She set her teeth as he walked back toward his office. “If I’d walked in on that, you better believe I’d have used my weapon. On both of you.”

“That’s something, I suppose,” he said, and shut his office door.