Chapter Twelve

The man had shoulders as wide as Park Avenue, and stood at about six-five, a tattooed cobra coiled, ready to strike, on his bare chest. Black sleep pants drooped at his hips.

The shoulders, bare chest, and all the rest were damn impressive.

He had brown hair falling in wild and disordered curls to those impressive shoulders. Big hands with a smear of bright yellow paint running down the side of his right index finger.

Hard, angry green eyes snarled out of a striking face that carried a couple days' worth of stubble.

He smelled like a man who needed a shower.

"I already talked to this one right here." He pointed the paint-smeared finger at Peabody. "I got dozens of people who'll tell you I wasn't anywhere near that damn sex club when somebody killed Erin."

"Then you shouldn't have any problem having a quick conversation. Want to have it out here?"

Carver gave a fulminating look at the door across the hall. "Biddy over there's probably got her eye to the Judas hole right now. That's right, you old bat!"

He stepped back, jerked a thumb. "Make it quick. I need my frigging beauty sleep."

He slammed the door behind them.

The apartment looked as though he'd had a weeklong party. Glasses, dishes, take-out bags, a pizza box, clothes all crowded tables, chairs, a lump of a sofa.

And art crowded the walls. Framed, unframed, some as big as the artist, others barely wider than his hand, hung everywhere in a riot of color and shape and texture.

Among them, Eve spotted one of Lopez. She sat on a backward chair wearing only a black top hat and sky-high red heels.

"You want to sit, find a spot on the floor. I'm not moving anything."

"Why don't you tell us the last time you saw or spoke with Erin Albright."

"Can't say. Don't pay attention."

"You helped her and Glenda Frost carry down some paintings."

"Yeah, yeah. Big sale for her. She goes all giddy. Decent work." He shrugged. "Pretty good work. She put in extra time on it, so we were in the studio some nights. She kept her mouth shut. I didn't have a problem with her."

"Did anyone come to see her—or you when you worked those nights?"

"Nobody came in. Nobody comes in when I'm working unless I ask them to."

"Did anyone contact her?"

"Can't say. Can't," he insisted. "When I'm working, I'm working. The rest of them, they'll stop, take tags, make them. I don't. And I don't pay attention unless they get loud with it. Then I tell them to knock it the hell off."

He shrugged. "Roy, he doesn't use the studio more than a few times a week, and he works days when he does. It's down to Donna and me now, so we'll need to get somebody else in there to make rent. Fucking landlord gouges you, but it's a good space."

"You don't seem very broken up about your colleague's murder."

" Colleague 's stretching it. We shared space. She was okay. I don't like people. They're not worth the time, the effort. But she was okay. Did decent work, kept to her area. Bubbled. I hate when people bubble, but she stayed in her space."

"She brought in a case."

"A case of what?"

"A black overnight case."

"What she kept in her area's no business of mine."

"I didn't say it was in her area."

He gave her an exasperated look. "If she brought something in, where else was she going to put it?"

"What did you talk about after you helped take the paintings down?"

He dug a hand through his mass of curls. "Jesus. I don't know. It was a major sale, okay? I said like congratulations or something. She came back up to clean her brushes, and she said thanks or whatever, and how she had big plans for the money."

"What plans?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask. Why would I care? Her money, her business."

"How often did ChiChi Lopez come in to see her?"

His gaze drifted to the painting. "Off and on, that I know of. Erin worked evenings mostly, until about a year ago. Worked the sidewalk most days. ChiChi came in now and then when I was in the studio. They had a thing going."

He slid his hands into the pockets of his sleep pants. "You don't have to like people to see what's going on with them. I don't do portraits often, because people, but an artist has to observe, has to see."

"You did ChiChi's portrait."

"Yeah. She's got a body on her, and a damn good face."

"You had a thing with her."

"Way short of a thing, and after she wasn't having one with Erin. You go bouncing on someone your studio mate's bouncing on, it's trouble. It's a bunch of talking and shit. Who needs that?"

"When did you do the portrait?"

"After I bounced on her a time or two."

"A time or two?"

"Three or four—who counts?"

"How did she feel about Erin and Shauna?"

"How the fuck would I—" He broke off, frowned. "Shauna's the redhead, right? The one Erin was going to make it legal with?"

"That's right."

"Great hair. Catches the eye."

"How did ChiChi feel about them, together, about to make it legal?"

"What do I care?"

"She never talked about it to you?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Shit."

He shoved at his hair again. "So she didn't like the redhead, figured she'd just screw with Erin, then dump her ass. Wanted to know how often the redhead came into the studio. I couldn't say, so I bounced on her to shut her up. Who needs the drama?"

Then he frowned. "You think ChiChi killed Erin?"

"Routine questions, Mr. Carver."

"She's got a mean streak in her. You can see it in her eyes, even the way she moves. Get her pissed enough, yeah, she could do it. But if she wanted the thing back with Erin, it makes more sense to do it to the redhead."

Then he shook his head. "Shit. Now I'm awake all the damn way. I might as well go to the studio. Nobody's going to be there. Is that it?"

"One more." Eve pulled out her 'link, brought up Greg Barney's photo. "Did he ever come to the studio?"

"I couldn't say. Not when I was working. Everybody's all-American. Good bone structure. Looks boring. Look, I'm sorry about Erin, right? She was okay. But none of this has anything to do with me."

"I guess it doesn't. Thanks for the time."

"Don't come looking for more of it." He opened the door. "But if you see the redhead, you can tell her I wouldn't mind painting her—from the back. The hair catches the eye."

"Right."

As they started down the steps, Peabody blew out a breath. " Challenging fits. He doesn't give a baby rat's ass about anybody."

"Run his alibi again. He's big, strong. Big and strong enough to have done it. I don't see him caring enough to kill anybody, but run it again."

"He liked her a little bit. As much as he seems capable."

"Yeah, a little bit. And he liked bouncing on Lopez. And Lopez bounced on him to try to get what she could out of him on Shauna. He's probably smart enough to know that, but liked the bounce. Was any of Erin's work on his walls, since you have a good eye?"

"My good eye says it was all his. But yeah, he'd know the business of art, he has access and could pick his way through the paintings she has in the studio. When he says her work's decent, that's high praise from him."

"Agreed. And if she told him she had plans for the money, maybe she—what he said—bubbled out the rest. Maybe she pissed him off about something. Maybe ChiChi talked him into helping her. It doesn't click nice and tight, but he's confirmed ChiChi didn't like the idea of Erin and Shauna together. She has a mean streak—I saw that myself. So we'll push some."

At the lot she got back in the car. "And if he never saw Barney in the studio, it doesn't mean Barney wasn't there. During the day, or when Carver wasn't there. Harder to believe he never went in at least once or twice in the last year."

She pulled out of the lot. "We'll head into Central. I want some thinking time."

"Before thinking time, I need two minutes on the Great House Project. I've held it in," Peabody continued before Eve could respond. "I've shown heroic restraint. Pin-a-medal-on-me restraint."

Since Eve had expected that restraint to break long before now, and had mentally prepared herself for five minutes of house blathering, she shrugged.

"Two minutes. Mark."

"Okay, all the bathrooms are done, and they're all absolutely ult. I'm going to live in a space with three-and-a-half bathrooms. I can't believe it. Most of the lighting's in and just so mag. There's still some painting, then touch-up, and the built-ins in the craft room, and punch-out work, but Roarke says next month. We can live there. In September we'll be in. Mavis and Leonardo's isn't quite as far along, because it's a bigger space. But Roarke still says September."

"Security-wise, it wouldn't hurt for you and McNab to move in first."

"We thought about that, but decided we want to move in all together. Because it's special, for all of us. We can start moving stuff in though. Like Mavis's studio is set, and it's wow, just wow. Same with Leonardo's workspace, Bella's playroom's done, and the nursery is really coming along.

"I packed up and took over all my winter clothes. I have a place to keep off-season clothes!"

Peabody indulged in a quick passenger seat dance.

"And we all have stuff, you know, decor and stuff, stored in the garage just waiting. Plus, a lot of my fabrics, yarn, anything I don't have a project going with."

Peabody sighed as Eve pulled into the garage at Central. "Thanks for the two minutes. I just have one more thing."

"Make it fast." Eve got out of the car.

"It already feels like home. We don't have furniture in or a lot of personal items and the pretty things, but it already feels like home. And still, whenever I walk in, I can't believe it's real. That it's really happening. It's going to be our place. We'll live there and work there and sleep there and fight there, have sex there."

"Pee in your three-and-a-half bathrooms."

"Yes!" Throwing back her head, Peabody laughed. "It's everything I could want, so it doesn't seem really real. I'm going to take such good care of it."

"From what I've seen, you already are."

As the elevator door opened, Peabody's eyes filled.

"Time's up!" Eve stepped in. "Any blubbering, you take the stairs."

"I won't blubber." With some visible effort, Peabody blinked the tears back. "But thanks for saying that."

"Fact's fact. And murder's not only murder, but what we're paid to investigate. Add the fact's a fact that your paycheck's why you have boxes of stuff you bought to put all around the house currently stored in the garage."

"That's fact. And it's all perfect! Opening the boxes is going to be like Christmas squared."

"If you want to keep drawing that paycheck, you're going to sit your ass in your desk chair and see if Carver's alibi is as solid as it looks."

The doors opened; cops piled in.

"Metaphorically, my ass is already there," Peabody said. "I really think the alibi's going to hold."

"Check anyway." As the elevator continued up, Eve rocked back on her heels. "He's the type who'd bash somebody's head in if they pissed him off. In the moment, passion of the moment. It's hard to see him planning out something that required all the time, thought, risk—cold-blooded. But check anyway."

The elevator stopped again, and more cops pushed on. Eve started to push out for the glides when Mira stepped in.

"Hey, Dr. Mira."

"Peabody, good morning. And Eve."

She looked morning fresh among the uniforms in her white sheath with a short, elbow-length grass-green jacket. The sky-high pumps matched the jacket.

"Do you have any time free for a quick consult?" Eve asked. Mira time, she decided, might add more benefit than thinking time.

Mira glanced at her wrist unit. "As a matter of fact, I have some right now. I'll ride up to your office with you. How's the house coming, Peabody?"

"Oh, I was just telling Dallas." And Peabody told Mira, in detail.

Since she'd asked Mira for the consult, Eve didn't feel she could escape to the glides. So suffered the elevator's stops and starts, Peabody's house bubbling, and Mira's enthusiasm for the bubbling until they reached her level.

"Push on the alibi," Eve ordered.

She winced at Jenkinson's tie with a big, bug-eyed mouse the color of a tropical sea nibbling on cheese the color of spring daffodils.

He called out, "Hey, Dr. Mira. Got a second, boss?"

She risked her retinas and stepped to his desk.

"We want to follow up on a lead, on the cold one. It's warming up, but we need to talk to a possible source living in Boston. It's delicate, since she was married to the vic, and later married and divorced his best friend. Since the best friend's our prime suspect, we want to do it in person."

Eve considered the time, the budget. "How warm?"

"Getting pretty warm. I talked to Feeney—not his case, but he was LT back in the day—and he thinks we're on track. Running it through? Guy gets his head bashed in with a fireplace poker. Staged like a break-in, but that was bogus, sloppy. Only other person in the house, the wife. And she claims she had a headache, took some meds and a sleeping pill like nine o'clock. Found him dead downstairs in the morning. Before that, they're out to dinner and have a fight, she tells him she could kill him for that, and sails out.

"We got her going into their place—nice place, Upper East—twenty-thirty. Then the security system goes off-line just after twenty-three hundred. Vic hadn't come home by that time. Left the restaurant about fifteen after she did, and we can't trace his whereabouts."

"Why isn't it the wife?"

"She never broke, LT. Stuck with the story. And the ME said how she'd've needed a stool to have bashed him from the angle he was bashed, and maybe some Zeus to bash with that amount of force. Last thing, the security system went down by remote, outside. And she was in."

"Then why are you going to Boston? And why the best friend?"

"Three years later, she ends up married to the first husband's best friend. No evidence they did the hanky previous to the murder. They divorced like nine years ago, and she moved to Boston—and he got a pretty sweet settlement."

"So you're thinking the vic goes bitching to his best friend after the fight, the best friend decides to kill his ass, jams the security?"

"The best friend installed the system, so he'd have a leg up there. Vic and best pal go to college together, roomies, he's best man at the vic's wedding when the vic marries money. And a looker with money. Vic was pretty liquored up at TOD, so say best pal's ‘Hey, I'll get you home,' does the deed, stages the break-in, then he's there to comfort the widow—who about a year after she got to be a widow, lent him money to start his own security business. He lived pretty high on her money. Still is."

Jenkinson lifted his hands. "Nothing to hang on him back when, Dallas, but you look at the pattern since, and it starts to smell. She was married to the guy for six years before she booted him. She may know something she doesn't know she knows. But it's delicate."

Since she trusted Jenkinson's instincts as much as her own, she gave the nod. "Go to Boston."

"Thanks."

Mira joined her in the walk to her office. "By my math, he's working a case that's eighteen years old."

"Guy got his head bashed in and nobody paid for it. That's first. Then? There's a different kind of satisfaction in taking someone down when they're sure they've gotten away with it."

"And you think they will, take the best friend down?"

"I think if Feeney says they're on the right track, he probably caught a whiff of what Jenkinson smells now when the case was fresh, but the investigator couldn't pin it. And what he just ran down for me? Yeah, it smells."

Mira looked toward the board when they stepped into Eve's office.

"Yours is fresh now."

"Yeah, and I can't pin it. Take the desk chair. I've got that tea stuff."

"I wouldn't mind some, along with your rundown."

"The victim, Erin Albright, garroted with piano wire at her pre-wedding girl party. Inside a privacy room, one she'd booked, at the Down and Dirty."

"At Crack's. That's difficult for him." Mira crossed her legs, watched Eve with her quiet blue eyes. "And you, as you were attacked there on the eve of your wedding."

"In the same privacy room. Adds to that." Eve offered the tea, took coffee for herself. "Her fiancée, another female, was also in attendance."

Eve gave the rundown.

"Someone she trusted, yes, almost certainly," Mira concluded. "She's young, in love, excited, and wants to give the woman she loves this gift in that time and place. In the company of friends who, she'd certainly believe, would share that joy in a dream fulfilled."

"Somebody didn't. Not a lot of time to plan if it came up when asked to deliver the case. I think wanting her dead preceded that."

"And the request opened the door," Mira finished. "There's no indication the victim felt threatened previously? Had a problematic relationship with anyone who had access?"

"ChiChi Lopez pops there." Eve tapped the photo on the board. "Sex, a few times, which by all appearances Lopez took more seriously than Albright, who cut off that aspect after she met Hunnicut. Lopez subsequently engaged in a sexual on-and-off relationship with Anton Carver, one of the victim's studio mates. This gives her easy access to the studio, and the case once it was there. She was at the party, could possibly have slipped away, murdered Albright, slipped back. Albright may have asked her to bring the case, which would give her access to the privacy room."

Eyes on the board, Eve drank some coffee. "She's got a mean streak in there, and doesn't much like Hunnicut."

"Personality or jealousy?"

"I'm going to say both. Plus, she got kicked out of bed, replaced. More, they're getting married, and she's supposed to act happy about that. The timing on it's tight but doable.

"Carver." Eve shook her head. "Access to the case, but he's so self-absorbed, why would he care? At the same time, he likes sex with Lopez, he strikes as almost permanently pissed off. His alibi seems solid, but Peabody's checking to make sure it holds. The vic had just sold three paintings—a what's it? Triptych. And another to Lopez—and though it's verified he seemed good with that, maybe he wasn't."

"So back to jealousy."

"Yeah. Jon Rierdon, one of Hunnicut's exes. She broke it off, before Albright, and he wasn't happy about it. No alibi, but no way he had access to the studio, or that she would have trusted him with the case and delivery. Physically strong enough to have done it, and mutual friends may have mentioned the party—time and place—to him. Motive—back to jealousy and rejection—but I don't see the opportunity."

Now she tapped Greg Barney's ID shot. "Another ex, Hunnicut's, but going back to high school. All indications are they mutually parted at college time. Reconnected later, back in New York, but as friends. And he's cohabbing with Hunnicut's best friend. Also attended the same high school."

"You see trust there."

"I do. Yeah, she'd have trusted him. So opportunity—as he doesn't have a solid alibi. Means, he's physically capable. Motive? Does he still have feelings there? Maybe using her best friend to keep the connection tight, keep his pride. Maybe he didn't realize he had those feelings until she's about to marry somebody else.

"He wanted to make her a sandwich."

"A sandwich?"

"Make her a sandwich, get her tea." After a shrug, Eve stuck her hands in her pockets.

"Taking care of her. But they all wanted to take care of her—of Hunnicut. It's a tight group—Peabody says like a tribe. Everybody loves everybody. That's where Lopez stands out for me, because she doesn't. But Barney was the only male there at the follow-up when they're all there to take care of her."

"You're looking at trust, misplaced in that tight group, and jealousy, a rejection of intimacy and sex."

"That's what I've got. And where these two stand out. Lopez and Barney. Neither fit nice and snug. She doesn't bother to hide the resentment and a kind of disdain for Hunnicut. Previously, Hunnicut only dated men, so what the hell is this? Where did she come from, how does she rate? I'm sexier, got a better body. And she dumps me for her, then asks me for favors? I'm going to fuck it all up."

Eve nodded. "She's got that in her. Screw with me, I screw back harder. That's in there."

"And Greg Barney?"

"We were important in high school. The big-deal couple. Shaunbar. Now I'm hooked up with her best friend. It's not the same, it's not important. So I'm not important. Wants to get that back, and all of a sudden, she's with another woman? What does that make me? The only way to get that back is to take out the obstacle."

Frowning, she thought of Jenkinson's cold case. "And be there to comfort the not-quite-a-widow."

"There would be another obstacle there, wouldn't there? The best friend he's with. A tribe has codes."

"Yeah, it would take some time, some maneuvering. But it's already taken time. Since high school."

Eve tapped both ID shots. "These two stand out, but do they stand out because I don't have anyone else, or because one of them did it?"

"Killing her at that place and time indicates a deep need to punish, ruin, a willingness to take the opportunity and risk in order to prevent the marriage. It may have been the gift—the trip, the dream, that pushed the killer to take that risk."

"That's not much time to plan, to work out the timing, make or access the weapon. But yeah, that fits. They would've looked in the case, and the contents? A serious pisser."

"Misplaced trust, I agree. Someone harboring a resentment kept under control, concealed. And the gift, so very symbolic, ignited that resentment. It's personal," Mira added. "A very personal killing. A marriage thwarted—they will never take vows, never become wives. A honeymoon thwarted—they will never have that dream, one that includes, as honeymoons do, an emphasis on sex and intimacy."

Mira set her mug aside. "Though planned, as you said, for the method, for the timing, it was a moment of passion. Cold and hot blood running at the same time. They're not entitled to this, this won't happen. I won't allow it."

"Because she rejected me? Or because she's in my way?"

Mira smiled, rose. "That, I'm afraid, is for you, but whoever did this is very good at wearing a mask, and perhaps believing they don't wear one at all. They did what needed doing, no more, no less. The wedding—that insult—will now be a memorial. Which they'll no doubt attend. They may even grieve a little, but with no guilt."

"Masks slip."

"They do," Mira agreed. "You'll watch for that, and I believe you'll recognize what you see beneath it when it does. I have to go."

"Thanks for the time."

"If you want to talk any more of it through, just let me know."

Trust and sex, Eve thought as Mira's heels clicked down the hall. She got more coffee, took her desk chair, and studied the board.

Hot and cold blood running together to do what needed doing.

That, she found, was an interesting thought.

She heard Peabody coming, didn't bother to look around. "His alibi held."

"Yeah, no way Carver could've done it."

"No." Not enough cold blood there. "He's not in it. Let's see if we can talk to the two best friends again—DiNuzio for Hunnicut, Decker for Albright. But separately. Let's see if we can get them to come in—separately."

"Divide and conquer?"

Eyes on the board, Eve nodded. "Something like that. Makes it easier to get them to dish some dirt. Give me twenty, then let me know. We'll go to them if necessary, but I'd rather pull them in."

"Lounge or box?"

"Box. Let's keep it official, maybe a little intimidating."

"Got it."

Eve rose to rearrange her board.

Everybody wore a mask sometime, she thought. Even if for politeness, to spare hurt feelings. But put them in the box, push the right buttons, and that mask usually slipped.

You never knew what you might see or hear when it did.

Sitting again, she studied the new configuration of her board, one that put Lopez and Barney at the top, the victim in the center, and Shauna Hunnicut beside her.

Both victims—one with her life taken, one who would live her life with that loss inside her.

From there, other friends radiated with their connections highlighted. A lot of crisscrosses, she noted. Yes, a lot of intersects.

But some of those intersects had only started a year and change before, and others went deeper, longer.

The deepest and longest to Hunnicut: Barney and DiNuzio—as were their links to each other. Add Stillwater, but he was out of it, as was Rierdon.

The deepest and longest to Albright: Frost, Fleschner, Decker, Lopez.

Sitting back, boots up, she closed her eyes and let her mind circle.

Take DiNuzio and Decker first and see what, if anything, came out of it.

Another hit at Stillwater. Longtime booty buddy, and people said things in bed after sex they might not say otherwise.

Then Fleschner—devoted friend, absolute trust, first pick for helping with the surprise. Painting together, sharing that bond. What else might Albright have shared with her, or tossed off as an aside, an observation?

A tight group, sure, but even tight groups had their issues.

Push the right buttons, she thought, and maybe some of those issues spilled out.

She heard Peabody coming back. She opened her eyes, but left her boots up.

"That's your twenty, and DiNuzio's out running errands. She can come by in about thirty. Decker said she can come in when Shauna leaves to go with Erin's parents to make some arrangements. They've decided to have the memorial right away, like tomorrow."

"Quick."

"Yeah, they don't want it any closer to the wedding date. Decker needs a few hours."

"That works." Eve lowered her boots, swiveled around. "Here's how to play it."