Chapter 3

A reverent hush lay over the law offices. Eve supposed when one of the partners had been murdered by someone she might have represented—had he chosen another victim?—a hush of some sort was warranted.

She barely had to show her badge before a woman in a smoke-gray pin-striped suit and sharp red heels glided through double glass doors.

"Lieutenant, Detective, I'm Carolina Dowd, Mr. Stern's administrative assistant. I'll escort you to his office."

"Quiet around here," Eve commented as they left the plush maroon-and-gray reception lobby for dignified corridors.

"We're all considerably subdued, as you can imagine. Ms. Bastwick's death is a shock to all of us, and an enormous loss."

"Have you worked here long?"

"Fifteen years."

"You know all the players."

Dowd spared her a glance as they passed offices, doors all discreetly closed. "It's a large firm, but yes, you could say I know everyone."

"Anyone spring to mind who wanted Bastwick dead?"

"Absolutely not. Ms. Bastwick was respected and valued here."

She turned—opposite direction from Bastwick's office, as Eve remembered from her prior visit.

"You knew Fitzhugh."

"Yes. Yes, I did, and I'm aware you're to be credited for finding the person responsible for his death. I hope you'll do the same for Ms. Bastwick."

Dowd nodded to two people—one male, one female—who got busy fast at their desks in a swanky outer office. Then she knocked briskly on another set of double doors—these solid wood.

"Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody, Mr. Stern," she said when she pushed both doors open.

Stern, who'd been standing, hands clasped behind his back, contemplating the bold and steely view of New York out a wall of windows, turned.

"Please, come in." He crossed a thick Persian carpet spread over glossy wood floors, hand extended. "Aaron Stern. Terrible day. Terrible. Can we get you something? Tea? Coffee?"

"We're good."

"Please, sit down." He gestured to a sitting area that reminded Eve of an English parlor with its curvy chairs, delicate coffee table, and fringed settee.

She recalled Bastwick's office—all sleek, polished, and glass.

"Thank you, Carolina." He sat, folded his hands on his knees as his admin silently backed out and closed the doors.

"We're sorry for your loss, Mr. Stern," Peabody began.

"Of course. It's a great one. Leanore was not only a partner, but a personal friend."

He had a golden look about him, Eve thought, the rich man's winter tan, the burnished hair, thickly curled, the tawny eyes. The boldly patterned red tie struck against the charcoal suit to give him an air of vibrancy.

She figured it played well in court.

"When did you last see or speak with her?" Eve asked.

"Yesterday, on a 'link conference. We take light hours this week so everyone can enjoy the holidays, but Leanore and I consulted on some ongoing cases. Carolina sat in, as did Leanore's paralegal. This would have been ten yesterday morning. We worked for about an hour, and were to convene in person this afternoon."

"Any trouble with anyone here at the offices?"

"No."

"Clients?"

"Leanore served her clients well, and was always frank and realistic with them. She was fierce, as you know yourself, Lieutenant, in defending her clients."

"Fierceness makes enemies. So does making a play for somebody else's spouse. How's Arthur Foxx these days?"

She knew—she'd checked—that Fitzhugh's spouse, a man who'd hated Bastwick, had moved to Maui over a year before.

But she wanted Stern's reaction.

"I believe Arthur relocated—Hawaii. We're not in touch." He drew a breath through his nose. "You don't think Arthur killed Leanore. No, no." A firm shake of the head. "I know he disliked Leanore, but I can't see him coming back to New York, doing this."

"People do all sorts of strange." Though she agreed, not Foxx, she pushed a little. "Did he ever threaten Bastwick?"

"He was overwrought at the time of Fitz's death. We all were, but Arthur was devoted, and took it very hard. You're aware of this, of course, as I'm aware of your conversations with Leanore during that period. She told me." Stern spread his hands. "As far as I know, Arthur moved away, moved on, started a new chapter in his life."

"Did she make a play for anybody else's spouse, since Fitzhugh?"

Stern's jaw tightened. "I'm aware of nothing along those lines."

"How about you?"

"My relationship with Leanore was professional. Friendly, of course, but we have never been involved in a romantic or sexual way."

"Other threats? Directed at Bastwick?"

"Of course, it's the nature of the business. Cecil has the copies for you of the files we kept on any threats or what we'd term ‘disturbing correspondence.' I've spoken with him in depth, and I'm aware of the message written at the crime scene. It would appear, Lieutenant, this threat came from someone you know."

"Potentially someone who knows me or of me," Eve countered. "Equally possible from someone who used that message to re-angle the investigation away from a more personal motive. You said you were personal friends, so you'd be knowledgeable about her personal life. Social, sexual."

"Leanore was an interesting, attractive woman. While she enjoyed the company of men, there was no one serious or exclusive. I've given Cecil permission to give you the names of her most usual escorts, her friends. Believe me, if I had any reason to believe any one of those escorts and friends could have done this, I would tell you."

"You've lost two partners in the last couple years, Mr. Stern."

His eyes went hard on hers. "Partners, colleagues, friends. Before you ask, she left her estate to her mother and her sister, and her interest in the firm to me."

"That's a good chunk—the firm."

"Leanore is a great loss, personally and professionally. We may, and likely will, lose some clients. There will be upheaval and considerable, difficult publicity. We were discussing taking on a third partner, and had just recently narrowed in on one of our own, perhaps two. Cecil will also have their names, though there's no motive in either."

"Can you give us your whereabouts yesterday, between four and eight?"

"I was in Park City, Utah, yesterday—which is why we did the 'link conference. My fiancée and I spent Christmas there. We're both avid skiers. We returned last night, got into New York about nine. Carolina will give you the name of our hotel, and the names of the crew on the shuttle—we took our corporate shuttle."

"Okay. We appreciate the time."

"Carolina will take you to Cecil." Stern rose. "I want to say... She didn't like you. Leanore made adversaries out of the opposing side. It was part of that fierceness. So, she didn't like you, Lieutenant, but she did respect your capabilities. Whoever killed her was wrong. Just wrong. If that matters."

"What matters is finding who did this to her, and bringing him or her to justice. If you want that justice, you should hope whoever killed her doesn't engage someone like her as counsel."

He smiled a little. "She'd defend her own killer, if she could. It's how she was made. I'll show you out."

···

I think Stern was telling it straight," Peabody said when they left the building. "Or mostly. I don't think he liked her, personally, as much as he acted. More admired her professionally and was, like, cordial on the personal level."

"Peabody, my pride swells."

"Yeah?" Grinning, Peabody wiggled her shoulders inside her pink coat.

"She wasn't his type, not just romantically. She'd have moved in on him there, like she tried with Fitzhugh, if she saw some gain in it. Not personal for her, not with Fitzhugh either. Just what could she get out of it. She was cold and a little hard, plenty hard," Eve corrected. "Stern's more refined, we'll say, and not needy in the ego as Fitzhugh was."

"Foxx hasn't left Maui in six months, according to all the data. I wouldn't have thought of Arthur Foxx on this if you hadn't told me to do a run on him."

"That's why I'm LT and you're lowly detective."

"Frosty detective who rocks a magic pink leather coat." Adoring it, more than a little, Peabody stroked her own sleeve.

"Don't make love to the damn coat. Foxx was just somebody we had to check out, cross off. He's not a lunatic, and whoever did this leans loony. Plus, he'd have hurt her, made her suffer some. He'd have messed up her face. And he'd have done it two years ago if he'd really meant to kill her."

Checking Foxx? Just routine, Eve thought.

"I wanted to see if Stern knew how Bastwick played his other partner. He knew, he didn't care. And yeah, didn't much like her. But admire professionally works. She was splashier, in court, in the media. And he benefited from that. He's going to rake in her share of the firm, and that's considerable, but now he doesn't have that frontispiece, and he wants one.

"Check his alibi," Eve added as they climbed into the car. "It's going to hold, but we'll want to check it off the list. We'll talk to her escorts after we go by the morgue."

"Escorts. I guess that's a refined way of saying her sex partners."

"Some of them, sure. Some of them are going to be gay. That's safe. A great-looking gay guy is the professional woman's best friend, right?"

"I don't have a bestie gay guy," Peabody said wistfully. "I need to get one."

"None of her ‘escorts' would be—besties?" she said with a pitying look at Peabody. "Seriously?"

"It's a word."

"It's a stupid word. None of them will be genuine friends."

YOUR TRUE AND LOYAL FRIEND.

"Think of her apartment," Eve went on, shoving the thought aside. "All hers. Her office, all hers. She wasn't into sharing. Nothing in her place that said she was having an affair, working on having one. I'm betting she mostly used pros. She gets exactly what she wants with an LC—no more, no less."

"And isn't obliged to make breakfast in the morning. Yeah, that's how she reads. It's kind of sad."

"It's not sad to get what you want."

"It's sad not to want more than paid-for sex and a styling apartment, and have your assistant be the one who looks like he mourns you the most. I checked her travel. She didn't even go see her mom or her sister for Christmas. Never left the city. And the next day, she's back at work, then she's dead. It's sad."

"She lived the way she wanted to."

"I'll do better work, I think, if I feel a little sorry for her."

"She lived the way she wanted to," Eve repeated. "But she didn't die the way anyone wants to. That's sad enough."

"Now that you mention it."

···

Eve strode down the white tunnel of the morgue with Peabody. No skeleton staff here—ha—as the holidays always brought a banquet of murder, accidental death, and self-terminations.

She made her way to Morris's domain, caught a glimpse of him through the porthole windows of his doors, pushed them open.

Leanore Bastwick might have died alone, but here she had company. Morris leaned over a body—male, Eve judged mid-twenties.

"Double duty?" Eve asked, and Morris straightened, scalpel in hand.

"I've finished yours. This one's more recent. He sent his ex-girlfriend a vid, which she claims she didn't see until this morning, possible, as according to the report she became engaged to his former best friend on Christmas Day. Our unfortunate young man spent most of his time since drowning his sorrows with a combination of illegals and cheap tequila, then, at ten last night, tied a noose out of bedsheets and sent the newly engaged lady a vid of himself weeping and threatening to hang himself."

"Boy, that'll teach her."

"I'm sure he thought just that. It's not entirely clear, as yet, if he meant to kick the chair out from under himself or if he was terminally clumsy. Either way, here he is."

Morris smiled, set down the scalpel. He wore midnight-blue pants with a silver shirt, a precisely knotted blue-and-silver tie under his protective cape. His dark hair fell in a single thick braid down his back.

"And how was your Christmas?"

"Good. Caught the bad guy, opened presents, drank fancy champagne. You?"

"I visited my parents Christmas Eve, stayed for the morning, and had dinner with Garnet DeWinter and her very charming daughter. A child adds sparkle, like champagne, to Christmas. How is your family, Peabody? You went home, I'm told."

"Great. It was totally mag to see everybody, and just dive into the chaos for a few hours."

"I know just what you mean. And let me say, that's a very frosty coat."

"I know." Despite Eve's warning, Peabody stroked the sleeve again. "My amazing partner and her hunka-husband gave it to me for Christmas."

"Don't make me regret it, Peabody."

"Best Christmas ever."

"And now we're back," Eve said, before they spent half a day talking plum pudding or whatever. "What can you tell me?" she asked, lifting her chin toward Leanore Bastwick.

"A very healthy woman up until her death." Morris moved over to the slab. "Some expert face and body work. Nothing extreme, what you might call tune-ups. Her last meal, consumed about four hours before her death, was Greek yogurt and granola."

"Now that's sad," Eve said to Peabody.

"She'd had about a half a glass of wine within thirty minutes of death, so that's a bit happier. No illegals in her system, and no sign she used them," Morris added. "No defensive wounds, no signs of restraint or physical struggle."

He handed Eve microgoggles.

"Stun marks, which would account for the lack of defensive wounds. Mid-body."

"Yeah, I see. Killer pulls the stunner out of the right coat pocket, moves into the apartment. She's moving backward and to the side to let him in. Very close range, high power. So it left clear marks on her skin."

"A very slight contusion on the back of her head. She fell backward, banged it, but not violently. As with most on a stun, she probably more crumpled than fell after convulsing."

"What did she weigh?"

Since it was Eve, Morris automatically converted from metric. "One-eighteen."

"Not heavy. She was wearing slipper-type things. Pull-on, elastic deals. I didn't see any scuffing on the heels. Probably carried her into the bedroom. She's stunned, out, limp. Haul her up, or toss her over the shoulder. Lay her out. The bed was tidy, so were her clothes."

"No sexual assault. No recent sexual activity."

"More sad," Peabody murmured.

"Lowers the odds on a boyfriend type, an ex, a wannabe lover," Eve considered. "You'd expect some sexual assault there, or more personal signs in the kill."

"She'd opted for sterilization," Morris commented. "Or I assume it was her option. Good, clean work. There's no indication she'd ever borne a child. She tended to her body," he continued. "The tune-ups, and her muscle tone speaks of regular exercise. As I said, no sign she abused illegals, or alcohol."

"That's how she lived. How did she die?"

"I concur with your on-scene. Strangulation. Thin, strong wire, piano wire would be my conclusion. A garrote. From behind."

Eve narrowed her eyes. "Not face-to-face."

"No. More leverage from behind, and the angle of the wound verifies. The killer got behind her, propped her up, nearly a sitting position, wrapped the wire around her neck, twisted, pulled. With some force, as it severed her larynx."

"Okay." She didn't doubt Morris, so now circled the body, pulled the scene into her head. "Dumps her on the bed. You've already taken off the coat—don't want blood on the coat because you've got to wear it out again. And it's bulky. You need some freedom of movement. Leave on the gloves or, no, take out others. Thin gloves now, or sealant. Maybe you've got a protective cape and gloves, a can of sealant in the box. Open the box, get out the cape, the gloves, put them on, get out the garrote."

"A protective cape, sealant, or gloves would cut down on any chance of fibers on the bed or body," Peabody put in.

"Yeah, it would. And you've planned this out, taken some time to work out the details. Now it comes to that moment. Get on the bed, push her up so you can get behind her."

Eve walked around the body, stood at the head.

"The wire's thin and sharp. Being smart, you've probably rigged handles on the ends, so you can get a good, clean grip. You're not looking to cause her pain, you don't need to see her die—that toggles down the personal. No need to see her face when you do it, makes her a thing, not a person. Just feel the wire bite in. It's not about sex, not about pleasure—not then—it's about justice. So it's quick and done.

"Don't leave the wire—don't leave anything. The wire goes back in the box, maybe in a plastic bag first, but back in the box. You lay her back down, smooth the bed where it got mussed. Neat and tidy. Do you look at her?"

Eve stopped, stared down at Bastwick's face. "Maybe not, maybe not yet. Still controlled, hands steady. It's not finished until you leave your message. It's really all about the message."

Put that front and center, Eve told herself. Time to put that on top because Bastwick hadn't been a person to the killer, but a thing. A thing to be presented.

"You've got the marker in the box, too. Organized. You know just what you want to say. You've practiced, you've refined. Clean block printing, no style, nothing that would come back on you. You've thought of everything.

"Gloves and cape into another bag, into the box. You'll have to get rid of them. You already know how and where. Now, now you step back, now you look. Now you feel it. You did that. You did it just the way you imagined, the way you practiced. Now you shake a little, but that's the pleasure. Job well done, and who knew it would feel so damn good?

"Can't stay, can't linger. Don't spoil it. Coat, gloves, scarf, hat, box. Go as you came, remember the cameras. Part of you wants to dance, part of you wants to whistle a tune. You're smiling, I bet you've got a mile-wide grin behind the box as you walk to the elevator, shift it all, get in, go down. Down, out, and gone. Twenty-seven minutes, start to finish."

Eve nodded, slid her hands into her pockets as she looked over at Morris. "That play for you?"

"Like a Stradivarius. A violin," he qualified. "The neck wound is almost surgically clean. No hesitation marks. The blood pattern shows the initial, vertical flow, then the horizontal. Vic was up, then down. Her clothes are at the lab, but our check revealed no fibers, no hair, other than her own."

"It's almost professional—clean, quick, impersonal. If it wasn't for the message, the little swing in the step when the killer left, I might consider pro. Somebody studied up."

"Could be a cop." Peabody winced. "Man, I hate saying that, but it could be. You're a respected cop, and cops don't have a lot of love for defense lawyers anyway. And this one was high-profile and snarky about it. A cop could get in and out of the building without anybody paying attention, case it. Or just order up the schematics.

"And you already thought of that," Peabody finished.

"Yeah, it's run through my mind. Easier if you have a police-issue stunner to just put it on full, hold it to her throat, and kill her that way. But... that kind of murder says cop first, so the garrote could be window dressing."

"Crazy cop if a cop," Peabody added. "Because the message says crazy."

"No argument there. Thanks, Morris."

"Dallas. Have an extra care—as a favor to me. Crazy," he said, lifting his hands, "is crazy."

"Yeah, it is. But while it's not pink—thank you, Jesus—I have a magic coat," Eve said, making him smile again before she walked out.

···

I could see it, the way you said." Peabody hunched her shoulders as they moved from the tunnel to the slap of late December, pulled her cap on over hair she wore in a dark, bouncy flip. "I had most of it, I think, but I could see the details when you walked through it. I hadn't thought about the coat, the gloves."

"Somebody that careful isn't going to want the vic's blood on the coat—you took your own off before you examined the body. He isn't going to want it on the gloves, or anywhere on his clothes, for that matter. The box is handy. Blocks the cameras, holds whatever's needed—coming and going. From behind lowers the probability she knew the killer. This was a task. No, more like a mission. Stunning her covers two areas, too. Takes her out, no struggle, no chance of a mistake, and it keeps her from feeling it. Even the message covers more than one base. It lets me know somebody's looking out for me—in the crazy world—and it's a way of bragging. It's all really efficient.

"Let's go talk to people who did know her. Maybe something will pop."

But after six interviews, nothing did.

"We'll check out the travel on the other five on the list." Eve wound her way through traffic, aiming for the lab. "Confirm they're out of town, do the interviews via 'link if necessary."

"I'll take that." Peabody studied her own notes. "I'm guessing we're not going to get much of anything new. She didn't really have friends. Not real friends. Everybody's sorry and shocked, but Dallas, nobody knew her well enough to feel much else. It's almost like we talked to them about somebody they met casually at some party, or had a few surface conversations with."

"Her choice. It strikes her work was her life, and the rest just there."

It troubled her because she knew what that was like, that choice, that life. She knew exactly what it was like.

"Efficient. That's what you called her murder. Clean and efficient, no passion to it. It's like she wasn't really important, but you..."

"I'm what's important. You can say it, Peabody. I get it." Eve didn't snap, but it was close. "We're still going to cover all the angles. Stern rakes in her share of the firm, so we look at him, his financials, his personal relationship with the victim. Maybe one of her fuck buddies wanted more, and got pissed off, and just made sure to keep the kill clean. Maybe a client she'd repped got out of prison and went for some payback. Mira needs to analyze the threat file."

"Absolutely."

"And we start looking at who might want to give me a dead lawyer as a fucking holiday gift."

She let that hang a moment as she waited at a light. The latest ad blimp, she noted, had switched from post-Christmas sale to a RING OUT THE OLD, RAKE IN THE SAVINGS end-of-the-year theme.

The glide-cart operator on the far corner raked in his own, smearing bright yellow mustard on hot pretzels for some sort of tour group. All of them wore bright blue parkas and white caps.

The light changed, she drove on. Moved on in her head.

"The correspondence, my own case files. We go through it all." She let out a breath. "Cops. Cops who might feel they owe me something and hate lawyers."

"I gotta say that's going to be a lot of cops. But it's not just owing you something, Dallas. It's admiration."

Now she really wanted to snap, reined it in. Because Peabody wasn't wrong. "Why Bastwick and why now? Those are other questions. A holiday gift might not be wrong. But this was planned well in advance, so what flipped the switch?"

"Could be the Icove thing, the exposure. For some people, the book, the vid, it romanticizes you, and the job."

"Yeah," Eve muttered as she found herself blocked in behind a farting maxibus. "This is romance."

Eve went straight to chief lab tech Dick Berenski. He'd earned the name Dickhead, many times over, but that didn't mean he didn't excel at what he did.

"I need everything you've got."

He held up one of his long, skinny fingers, kept his egg-shaped head with its slick, shiny skin of black hair bent over a scope another moment.

"What I got is nada. Hold it." He pointed that finger at her before she could snarl. "Nada should tell you something. No fibers, no prints, no DNA, not a fricking hair in the place didn't belong to the vic. Tells me she didn't have a lot of company, or made everybody who came in seal up head to foot. Sure as hell tells me the killer did."

He angled around, craned his neck. The goatee he'd recently started sporting didn't look any more flattering to Eve than it had the week before.

"What?" Eve demanded.

"Thought maybe you brought me a little Happy New Year gift, is all."

"Don't push me, Dickie."

"Chill it. We flagged this, top priority, and this time of year we're swimming in work. Harvo went over to the scene herself 'cause she got it in her head maybe the sweepers missed a hair, a fiber. I've been working on the murder weapon. I'm giving it high probability for a 0.020-inch spring steel. Piano wire, that's tempered high-carbon steel. That's your most likely. But unless you pick up a guy with a piano wire garrote in his pocket, it ain't much help. You can get the wire all over hell and back."

He swiveled down his counter on his stool. "We can give you the make, model, and fricking dye lot of the marker used to write the love note to you."

He tapped his screen as Peabody hissed, as Eve fisted her hands in her pockets.

"Common Sanford fine-point permanent marker. Your everyday Sharpie. Standard black." He pulled one out of the drawer of his counter. "Like this one. Like you'd find in a million drawers and retail outlets, all over hell and back like the wire. I can tell you our blood guys go with Morris on how it went down. Vic's sitting up, garroted from behind, laid down. That's it, Dallas. You want more from us, give us more."

"Okay." Eve ordered herself to relax her hands. "All right."

"Knew the vic," Berenski said casually.

"What?"

"From court. We're always testifying around here. Liked how she looked—who wouldn't?—but you ask me, she was a stone bitch. Went up against her plenty, and my work held. My work holds," he said, a little fiercely. "We do our jobs here, just like you. You won't find any fans of the vic around here."

Eve glanced around. Lots of counters, cubes, glass walls. Lots of people, most in white coats over street clothes, doing things she could never quite comprehend with tools and machines and computers.

"She screw anybody here?"

"I don't ask my people who they sleep with. Mostly."

"Not that way. In court. Did she fuck anybody up on the stand, get their work tossed?"

"Maybe fucked up some, she was good, and good at head games, and twisting things up. You know it."

Yeah, Eve thought, she knew it. "Anyone get reprimanded, fired, suspended, lose it on the stand? Do you know anyone who threatened her, or took it personally?"

He showed his teeth under the excuse for a mustache. "You're not looking at my people for this."

"I'm looking at everybody for this. You're in charge here, I want you to go over your records, to think back, and I want a list of anybody who had any sort of a run-in with her.

"The kill was clean, Dickie." He was a pain in the ass at the best of times, but she understood standing up for your people. "Who'd know better how to keep a scene pristine but people who work evidence?"

"Fuck that."

"I don't like it any more than you do, but get it done."

She walked away before he could argue, let his curses roll off her back. But took her time. She knew a handful of the lab techs and field techs by name, another handful by face. But mostly they were lab geeks to her.

But maybe one of them thought there was more to the relationship than cop and geek.