Chapter Seventeen

She let it roll and circle and backtrack as she drove downtown. It mattered, she thought. Not only because every detail mattered, but because—if she'd hit it right—it widened the motive.

Still a stupid murder, but not as stupid if it accomplished two for one.

Take a life, destroy a dream.

For Lopez, take the life of the one who rejected you and destroy the dream of the one she chose instead.

For Barney, take the life of the one who—even years later—replaced you, and destroy the dream of the one who moved on from you.

It felt stronger with Lopez, she decided—and it had been a downright mean murder: the time, the place.

But Barney had put something in that damn box. Nerves, a trace of guilt. She wasn't wrong there.

Erin could have given the swipe and the case to either of them.

The killer came in the back, almost certainly. Nothing to stop Lopez from sliding in back there, putting the case in the room, then joining the party. In fact, wouldn't that be exactly what Erin would've requested?

And nothing to stop Barney—except the risk of being seen—from using the swipe, going in, waiting.

She could see it both ways, and found that incredibly irritating.

When she pulled into Central, she considered tagging Mira. Not yet, she decided, no point yet. Speculation, and lots of it, but not yet.

She'd wait until she got a better feel at the memorial.

The elevator hadn't cleared the garage levels when the doors opened. Two uniforms who didn't look old enough for a legal drink walked an obviously jonesing junkie inside.

He had wild red hair, wilder blue eyes and smelled like a dumpster that hadn't been unloaded in a week, then had its contents pissed on by a group of drunks.

"Oh, come on, man" was all Eve could think of.

"Sorry, Lieutenant."

The wild blue eyes wheeled at Eve. "I'm the captain. I outrank you. I'm the captain. I just need a taste. Just gimme a taste!"

As he wailed it, the second cop sighed. "Just settle down, Jack. Stronger than he looks. He tried to throw some schmuck through the window of a twenty-four/seven."

When the door opened again, Eve started to step out—away from the smell. Jack the junkie wrenched away from the uniforms and launched himself at Eve like a cannonball.

"I'm the captain!" He screamed it as they both flew through the elevator doors.

Her hip struck the floor hard enough to sing, but she rolled clear. With his hands cuffed, Jack just slid, face and body. When he tried to scramble up, Eve simply stuck out a leg, tripped him, and sent him sliding again.

"Sorry! Sorry, Lieutenant!"

The uniforms grabbed him from both sides, hauled him up.

"Jesus Christ, Officers! Maintain control of your prisoner."

"He's slippery. I mean literally, sir. Greased-pig slippery. Do you need medical?"

"No, I don't need frigging medical. Maybe the fume tube, but not medical."

As Jack began to shake, sob, laugh, she decided a dressing-down, deserved, would only delay the process.

"He needs medical and the tank. Get medical to meet you at Processing, for God's sake. His system's wrecked, he needs Psych, and now his nose is bleeding. In your charge," she snapped, and made her way to the glides.

How the hell did two rookies get tossed out on the street together? she wondered. They damn sure needed a trainer.

She sniffed at her shirt, just in case that brief contact had contaminated her clothes.

Seemed clear enough.

By the time she made it to Homicide, she was more than ready for another damn coffee.

She walked in to see Jenkinson wearing the same mouse tie as the day before.

"What, you got two of them?"

"Huh? Hey, morning, boss. Reineke's hitting the break room for coffee. We got his ass. The best friend. Fucker killed his friend, for nothing."

The cold case, she remembered. The trip to Boston she'd authorized.

"Got him as in he's in a cage?"

"Oh yeah. Boston gave us the lever, Dallas. Once we got a face-to-face sit-down with the widow, she opened up about some of the inconsistences in the bastard's statements. How she didn't think of all that when it happened, but later."

Reineke came out of the break room with two mugs of cop coffee.

"But she didn't believe he'd do anything to hurt her husband, them being such good pals and all." Reineke picked up the report, handed Jenkinson a mug. "How broken up he'd been."

"How he'd been there for her," Jenkinson continued. "Helped her plan the memorial. How he'd come up with flowers to try to cheer her up."

"How they'd sit and talk for hours about the dead guy, and cry on each other's shoulder." Sipping coffee, Reineke sat on the corner of his partner's desk. "And he never made a move on her, just comforted, supported."

"Add she felt guilty because they'd had a fight," Eve assumed.

"Oh yeah. He'd say how the dead guy loved her, and knew she loved him. Married people have fights."

Jenkinson gestured with his mug. "Wove in there how he felt so sorry he'd let the dead guy walk home when he'd had so much to drink. How he'd live the rest of his life wishing he'd talked him into staying the night."

"Then she'd automatically tell him how it wasn't his fault."

Jenkinson nodded at Eve. "Got that in one. He gives it some time, then he takes her out—just friends. She's got the money, and the society rung, so it's fancy parties and the gala shit."

"And it's ‘Oh, you don't have to, no, you shouldn't,' when she insists on buying him a tux and shit like that." Reineke shook his head. "Playing the long game. Takes his time, rakes some fancy stuff in before he makes any move on her."

"She falls for it," Jenkinson said. "She's ripe for it, and he sweet-talks her, romances her, though she's paying the freight. Even after she marries him, everything stays nice and sweet awhile."

"Then he starts pushing for more," Reineke added. "More trips, a boat, buys himself big-dollar crap with her money, and gets pissy when she draws some lines."

"He starts making mistakes." Jenkinson looked at his partner. "They always do. Saying the wrong thing if they're arguing. Like how miserable she made the dead guy, how he wanted a divorce. And the kicker?"

"How the night it happened, dead guy wanted to stay with the best friend, but friend made him go home to his bitchy wife."

"Inconsistencies," Eve concluded.

"She starts thinking about that, and how the dead guy used to say best pal used to whine about money, how his good friend had more than he needed. How he'd made some loans the pal never paid back."

"‘You got that rich wife in your pocket.'" Reineke nodded. "She remembered her dead husband telling her the friend said shit like that. How he'd know how to live, and how to help out his pals if he had a rich wife."

"Bloom went off the rose." Jenkinson fluttered his mouse tie. "Took awhile, but that rose lost its bloom. Best pal, talking trash about the dead guy, drawing out money until she blocked him off her portfolio."

"She said he started to scare her, so she filed for divorce and, the house being hers, locked him out."

"He got back in," Jenkinson said. "Knew the security, how to get around it, since he'd installed. And that made her start thinking. Thinking hard enough she had the security switched out, closed up the house, and moved her ass to Boston. She's got people there."

"She didn't go to the cops with the inconsistencies, this feeling she had?"

"Nope, LT, she didn't." Jenkinson shrugged. "She told us she couldn't make herself really believe he'd do something like that. Accepted he'd married her for her money, but couldn't swallow he'd kill, not all-the-way-down swallow."

"After we had a talk with her, we had a talk with him, let him know we'd reopened the investigation, and were doing interviews again."

"That fucker's face." With a broad smile, Jenkinson shook his head. "It was all right there on his face. He'd gotten away with it. He'd gotten what he wanted and never paid nothing. But now here we come sniffing."

"And he started sweating. Got his story mixed up—claimed, hell, who could remember. But he kept tripping up. So we brought him down here. Formal interview. Took us awhile."

"Took us awhile, but we got him. Guilt was eating at him some maybe or we stirred it up enough to make him break."

"Or we're just damn good at what we do."

Reineke grinned, slapped high fives. "We are that. We got him, eighteen years later, but we got him."

"Good work. Have you notified the widow?"

"Going to wait until like after nine. Like civilized," Jenkinson said. "I think she knows. Damn clear she divorced him because she worried or wondered. Then when we showed up at the door, she knew."

"Close it off. Good work," she repeated, then turned to her office as Peabody came in, pink boots clomping.

She had her hair in a high-flippy tail. Eve decided it could be worse. Those streaks in it could be pink instead of red. Obviously, she'd considered the memorial, and had gone with black pants and jacket even if the shirt was a pale blue.

"Morning, all."

"My office," Eve said, and headed for it.

"Sure. Let me just stow my stuff." After Peabody pushed her bag into a desk drawer, she trotted after Eve. "Did something break?"

"No, no break." Eve programmed two coffees—one black, one regular—as she studied the board once more. "Just a shift in motive, maybe. One that clicks for me."

Over coffee, she laid it out for Peabody.

"I can see it. Easier to fix Lopez in that box than Barney. She'd have no trouble destroying Shauna's dream trip, her wedding, or anything else. Harder for me to see Barney. Long friendship, partnered up with her best friend."

"Jenkinson and Reineke just closed a cold case. Murder by best friend. He wanted a shot at the wife, and eventually got it. Couldn't keep her though. Guy bashed his friend's head in hoping he could hook up with the guy's wife—and her money. Maybe Barney wants to hook up with Shauna again."

Peabody frowned. "Maybe he's even—carefully—suggested it, or made a little move."

"Now you're following. Tested the waters, perhaps. That's a hard no, and you have the rejection angle right there again."

"Okay, with that, I can see either one of them. Which one? You usually know, or at least have a strong sense once we get to this point."

"If I bet on the job?" Eve tapped an ID shot.

"Really? Damn it, I was betting on Lopez."

"Also a viable bet."

"Then why Barney over her?"

"You didn't see his face," Eve murmured. "You didn't see his face when he came out of the apartment carrying that box. I'd probably go with Lopez if I hadn't seen his face."

Eve moved to her skinny window, stared outside. "She says she doesn't want to go back there, and if he takes her at her word, maybe he takes something he wants."

"If it was valuable—"

"No, nothing of value. Sentiment, more likely. Something Shauna won't think about asking for. Or if she does, they can't find it. Just a little something. Because she's his. His ex-girlfriend, his friend, his to hover over, to walk home from work. His."

"Okay. You're convincing me."

Eve shook her head. "I could make pretty much the same case with Lopez. We're going to get Shauna's permission to go through the apartment again this morning before we go to the memorial. Maybe we'll see—or not see—what he took out in that box."

"Anything I can dig into until?"

"Just take another pass through both of their data. I'm going to do the same. A first kill," Eve muttered. "It looks and feels like a first kill. And it looks and feels to me like the wedding—only days away—was the real trigger, with the honeymoon deal cementing time and place, and the willingness to risk exposure."

She paused by the board again. "We need to have another conversation with Becca. Just like with the cold case Jenkinson and Reineke just closed, she might have seen, heard, sensed something, but dismissed it. She wouldn't believe the guy she's in love with could or would kill."

"And for what?" Peabody added.

"We'll get the what once we get the who."

Eve sat back at her desk to pore through what she'd already pored through multiple times. But she couldn't shake the feeling, or maybe just the hope, that something in that background data would bring a spark.

Lopez, a woman born in privilege thanks to the hard work and enterprise of those who'd come before her. Still, her work ethic stayed strong. Her choice of career put her, and her body, in the spotlight.

She didn't strip for the money, to pay the bills, to put food on the table. She stripped for style, for the attention, and because she was good at it.

But the money wasn't nothing.

A relatively diverse family, though the majority married within their culture of origin. Those who hadn't appeared to enjoy the same tight family and financial ties. A sprinkle of same-sex marriages over the decades, also by all indications accepted.

A very large family, so it didn't surprise her to see a handful of criminal bumps, a few relations who'd done some time—either in prison or in rehab.

Nothing that stuck out to her, let her see some pattern.

A well-off woman closing in on thirty who'd had no legal cohabs, no marriages, no offspring. One who worked diligently at her chosen profession. And had a mean streak.

"Leave out the well-off and that could describe me a few years ago."

She sat back, added a big, tight, supportive family as another difference.

A planner, Eve thought. She'd have to be to select costumes, work out choreography, handle her part of the real estate arm. Passionate—a temper, the mean streak, the use of sex as either revenge or solace.

Add the ego, the bitchiness.

"You fit, Lopez. You slide in smooth enough."

She toggled over to Barney, and thought the same thing as she reexamined his background.

Not as privileged financially, not as big a family, but a good-looking white male, just shy of thirty. That brought a built-in sense of privilege.

A better-than-average student, part-time work during the school summers and breaks. Responsible. Football quarterback, team captain, lettered in high school there. And of course, stood as the male half of Shaunbar.

Two sisters, younger, parents that had each been married once, and stayed married for thirty-one years and counting. Two uncles on the paternal side, one aunt on the maternal, and a total of six cousins.

No, not as tight, Eve thought, as the family had scattered in the last couple of generations.

One same-sex marriage and one divorce, one charge of simple assault among the cousins. None currently lived in New York.

Since he'd majored in business management, had taken leadership courses, she assumed he'd reached his career goal.

No marriages, the single—and current—cohab, no offspring.

Another planner—couldn't manage and lead successfully otherwise. Passionate enough to make captain of the team, pursue a singular career goal and achieve it.

Ego, yeah. Mean streak? None that showed.

She glanced at the board, at his good-looking, all-American face.

"I'm betting you just hide it better than Lopez. She doesn't give a shit who sees hers. You would."

Enough, she thought, and closed the files, enough circling.

She contacted Shauna.

"Lieutenant, did you find them?"

"I don't have any information for you at this time. I'm sorry." When Eve looked at her, she saw what she often thought of as survivor's exhaustion.

"I keep hoping…"

"We're actively investigating, I promise you. I know this is a hard day, and I'm sorry to intrude on it. Detective Peabody and I would like your permission to go through your apartment again."

"The apartment?" With dull blue eyes, Shauna just stared. "I don't understand."

"We'd like to take one more look, to be absolutely thorough."

"I haven't been back. I'm not going to, but Becca brought some of my things. Clothes and things. Um, Greg cleared out the food we had so it wouldn't spoil. Erin's family… they're going to get her things after today. After the memorial. Angie and Donna are going to help them."

She passed a hand over her face. "I don't know what I'd have done without them the last few days. Or Becca, Greg, Marcus. I don't know what I'd do."

She closed her eyes. "I don't know what I will do."

"I hope you'll arrange for the grief counseling."

"I need to get through today. You can go in the apartment. I don't care about the apartment."

"All right, we'll go through this morning before the memorial. We'd like to come to pay our respects."

"That's kind of you. Greg says I should take a soother before, but I'm not going to. I'm saying I did so he stops worrying, but I won't. I need to feel it, all of it."

You will, Eve thought after she clicked off. You'll feel it all.

To take just another minute, she got coffee, stood at her window. It wouldn't help Shauna, not today, to know how many other people out there felt that exhaustion, felt that grief, felt it all.

Taking a soother (hovering?) wasn't bad advice, but she understood the need to feel it all. She felt it now, let herself feel it, because it helped push her to do the job she'd sworn to do.

She couldn't protect Erin Albright—it was too late for that. But she could and would serve her.

She walked out into the bullpen, saw all her detectives at their desks, all doing the work. Eventually they'd be called out into the field, to another scene, another body.

And they'd serve the dead, as always.

"Peabody, with me."

"Shauna's first?" Peabody asked when she caught up.

"Yeah. She knew Barney cleaned out the food, so that wasn't on the sly. Erin's family is getting her things out after the memorial. Angie and Donna are helping them. Barney's pushing Shauna to take a soother before the memorial. She's going to tell him she did so he lays off."

"You're leaning toward him again, and damn it, I'm nearly all in on Lopez."

"You first."

"Okay. Some of it's personality. She's got a hard edge to her, and she gets what she wants. She works for it, but she gets it. She's used to getting it, and being the one who says yes or no. Erin said no to her. And if she has—or had—real feelings for Erin, say more than just sex, but feelings, how would she handle that?"

"All right, decent question, decent point."

"When it's just sex, it's easier to move on, right?"

"How good is the sex?" one of the cops who'd shuffled on wanted to know.

"Also a decent question, decent point. I'm going to surmise, pretty damn good."

"Not a snap to move on from pretty damn good sex. And you start thinking it was better than maybe it was anyway. Ask me about my ex-wife."

"That's okay," Eve told him. "You can keep that one to yourself."

"I still say it's easier to move on from just sex than sex with an emotional element mixed in," Peabody insisted. "Especially if you don't usually feel, maybe never feel, that emotional element."

"I had that element." The cop, a grizzled detective with tired eyes, shook his head. "Started out one way, then hit the other end of that scale at the end. You get pushed to move on, it pisses you off."

"That." Peabody pointed at him. "That's what I'm saying. Erin forced Lopez to move on, and those feelings took that dive. So she killed her, and set it up to screw over Shauna's big dream."

"A reasonable scenario," Eve agreed, and when the doors opened to let their elevator companion off, she asked, "You didn't kill your ex-wife, did you?"

"Nah. Had a kid who'd've been pretty pissed off at me if I had. Me, I just imagine her miserable, and that keeps a spring in my step."

"Just because he didn't," Peabody began, and Eve waved her off.

"I get it, Peabody, and it's a solid rundown. I think you're right about the feelings. Genuine or not, who knows, but definitely feelings there."

"But you still lean toward Barney?"

Eve stepped out into the garage.

"He's one of the Mr. All-Americans. Straight, white, male. Closing in on thirty, good-looking, solid job, sharp dresser. He's also pretty much gotten what he wants. The popular boy in high school and part of the shining couple. Quarterback—calls the plays. Team captain, and all that. Two siblings, younger sisters. So he's—potentially—the prince growing up."

She got in the car. "Like Lopez, he works, and like Lopez, works at a career of his choosing. His parents remain married to each other, live in a house in the burbs—the same house where he grew up. The same district where he, Shauna, Becca—and his younger siblings—all went to school."

"I don't understand how that applies."

"First, he's a big brother. Maybe he takes that role too seriously. Second, he's a big brother in what reads like a very traditional family. He had—they call it a career, right?—an upscale sort of high school career. He was a kind of star—Becca said royalty. She said Shauna—and think Shaunbar—was high school royalty.

"And he did just fine in college—not royalty, but he did fine."

As she drove, she visualized it.

"Moves back—home first—works at a men's shop in a local, upscale again, shopping area. Then he moved into the city. But when I took a look at both, guess who moved to the city first?"

"Oh." Peabody pursed her lips. "Shauna?"

"Yeah, like about three months before him. And he not only moves to the city, gets a job in the men's shop where he manages now, but moves into the same building as Shauna."

"The same building?"

"At that time, yeah."

"I missed that. It's a pisser to have missed that."

"I don't know if either of us missed it before, or just didn't look at that timing. Becca was already in the city—zipped straight into her job after college. She was around the corner at the time, and she and Shauna reconnected. Then the three of them reconnected. Shauna's dating someone else—and Barney hooks up with Becca."

"But you think he moved to the city, and where in the city, because of Shauna."

"I think it's possible. And now, what? She's dating another woman? She's engaged? She's getting freaking married?"

"An ego thing? Like what's wrong with my penis?"

"It's a solid point. That wasn't a damn pun."

"It would be a good one."

Eve pulled into the now familiar loading zone, flipped on her On Duty light.

"So his ego, led by his penis, decides Erin has to go," Eve continued. "Or his big brother deal demands he has to go to save Shauna from making a mistake. A combination of both would work."

She considered as they hiked to the apartment building. "It's something to bounce off Mira. Both yours, and mine."

"But you think it's him."

"At this point, Peabody, it's a gut thing. It's the deli meat—‘Let me make you a sandwich,' and Becca's casual ‘Stop hovering.' Like he tends to do that. It's the walking home with her from work, and it's the timing when he moved here and where he moved."

At the building, she took out her master.

"And topping all of that? His face when he saw me in the hall. The way he shifted the box, the way he tried to pump me for info and kept tossing out the lowlife theory.

"And I didn't like the way he talked about Crack's place. Personal maybe, but I didn't like that, or how it slid just over the edge of victim shaming."

Inside, they hiked up the stairs.

"No proof," she added. "Nothing to hang that on but my gut. Nothing to hang it on Lopez but logic. We need enough to get one or both of them in the box. Just enough for that. It's a first kill, and if a kill can be planned and impulsive at once, this one was.

"We'd break him—or her. Killing's not who they are. Controlling is."

"Yeah, controlling," Peabody agreed. "Both of them. You're right on that. Maybe benign in Barney's case, but it's still a controlling nature."

"They shouldn't have left the case," Eve said as they came out on the fourth floor. "Whichever of them did it, they shouldn't have left the case, should've resisted the need to add pain onto pain for Shauna. We'd have almost nothing without that."

"I wish we had more than we do."

"Hope can suck you dry. Work instead. We won't be able to tell what Barney took—but we'll go through and see if anything strikes."

She mastered in.

After a quick scan of the living area, she gestured left, then to the side. "Photos gone, there and there. Of the two of them."

"She might've wanted those. I'd want those."

"Yeah, we'll see if we can find out. Art's still up."

She walked into the kitchen, checked the friggie. Not only empty, but spotless. Not a single spill in sight.

"AC's empty, too," Peabody said after a check.

They walked out. Peabody took the bedroom, Eve the office/studio.

"The wedding dresses—they're gone."

"Yeah, some of Shauna's shoes from in there."

"Same with the dresser, Dallas. Some of Shauna's stuff. It's the size, the style makes it easy to see what's hers, what was Erin's."

Eve moved in to the bedroom.

"There was another photo on the dresser—one of those e-frames that holds a bunch of photos and scrolls them when you want."

"Some of the jewelry's gone," Peabody told her. "I'm going to say Shauna's again—it's the style. Erin's stuff is more—I guess bold. Artistic."

Peabody moved into the bathroom. "Basic supplies missing. Hair, skin stuff, some makeup, OTC meds, like that."

"Okay. Okay. We've seen what we can see. I want to go by the gallery, speak to Frost, then we'll go to the memorial."

"Frost?"

"She'll know what's happening with the art. Let's find out."