Chapter Eight

When she got back to Homicide, Santiago and Carmichael sat at their desks. Jenkinson, his tie, and Reineke didn't sit at theirs.

"They're following a lead on the cold one," Baxter told her.

"Good enough. Peabody, give the vic's two former flitters another push. If we can't get them in here, we'll go to them."

She went to her office, hit the AC for coffee. After taking her desk and writing up the interviews, she updated her board.

She stood studying it, then turned when Peabody came to her door.

"Rogan can be here in about thirty. I left another v-mail for Lopez."

"Let's take her in the lounge. We'll keep it friendly, sympathetic, so you take the lead. You interviewed her last night, so she's already got that connection."

"Check." Peabody glanced at the board. "A lot of overlap. Everyone on there's connected to either Albright or Hunnicut, or both. And a lot of them are linked to each other."

"Friendships can be incestuous."

"I guess you could think about it that way."

"Especially when you add the sexual component. The flitting, the banging, the one-offs. Before Albright, all of Hunnicut's flitting and banging partners were male. As far as we know, all of Albright's were female."

"I get that, but does it apply?"

"Everything applies at this stage, Peabody. The killer could be male, female, gay, straight, bi. But this was personal. The method, cruel and cowardly, but the location, the timing—even counting for opportunity knocking—it's deeply personal. Someone she knew and trusted, under a week before the wedding, when she's surrounded by friends, when she's planning to surprise the woman she loves by fulfilling a dream.

"It was fucking personal."

"A friend, a former lover. Someone on the board."

"Someone on the board," Eve agreed. "Or someone nobody's thought to mention yet. And I don't give that much weight. Dive into Rierdon. I'll take Barney."

"On it. I'll let you know when Rogan gets here."

Eve sat, started that dive.

Gregory Barney, age twenty-seven, New York native, New York resident. Parents: Cynthia and Walter Barney, married twenty-nine years—thirty in another month. He had two sibs, both female, both younger at twenty-five and twenty-three.

From what she read, he'd had a solid if average middle-class upbringing. No particular religious affiliations, no criminal but a standard arrest and release at a college protest when he'd been nineteen.

He'd played football in middle school, then in high school, but hadn't taken that with him to college. Solid grades but for some problems in advanced math classes.

She could relate.

He'd done four years at the University of Florida, switching his major after one semester from sociology to business management. He'd moved back to New York after graduation, lived with his parents for a few months while working in retail. Moved into Manhattan from Brooklyn. Got his own place, with a male roommate until he worked his way up to assistant manager, then took an apartment on his own.

He'd stuck, she noted, with On Trend, and that had worked out for him, as he'd gotten regular promotions and raises. For the past three years, he'd lived in his current apartment, and for some months over two, cohabbing with Becca DiNuzio.

No sign of gambling or wild purchases in his financials that she could see. He lived within his means—on the edge from time to time, but never over it.

He didn't own a vehicle or any real property, traveled once or twice a year—beaches and resorts.

Eve sat back. Average, she thought. Ordinary. Not that the average and ordinary type didn't kill. But trying to tie a murder to the average and ordinary over a high school romance just didn't play out.

Until she added the new and trusted factors. Which, she admitted, applied to nearly everyone currently on her board.

Peabody came back. "Wanda Rogan's here. I'll take her down to the lounge. I'll send you what I have on Jon Rierdon, but it's not much of anything."

"Yeah, I got the same on Barney." She pushed away from her desk. "We'll take her down, see if we get more than not much."

When Wanda rose from the waiting bench outside the bullpen, Eve judged her at about the same height as Erin. More muscular with a gym-fit body in wide-legged white pants, a crisp red shirt.

She had chocolate-brown hair liberally streaked with blond worn in a long fall of waves around a heart-shaped face dominated by large brown eyes. Under them spread the shadows of a hard night.

"Ms. Rogan, thank you for coming in. I'm Lieutenant Dallas."

"Yes, I know." Her voice brought on images of smoky rooms and sax ophones. "I saw you last night. I don't know what I can do to help, but I want to help. I loved Erin, and over the last year, I grew to like Shauna so much."

"Understood. Why don't we talk in our lounge?" Eve gestured, led the way.

"I haven't contacted Shauna today. Didn't know if I should. I know she went with Angie, and I assume Becca's with her. I—I know Erin's family, but didn't want to intrude. I just don't know the right thing to do."

"I think offering comfort and support is always the right thing," Peabody told her. "That's what I felt from you and the others last night. An openness to offer comfort and support."

"We all know Erin and Shauna, and each other. Some better than others, but we all have that link. I still can't believe this happened, is happening."

"Why don't we have a seat?" Peabody chose a table. "Can we get you something to drink?"

"Don't risk the coffee," Eve told her. "You want something that comes in a tube."

"Is there iced tea?"

"Iced tea. Detective?"

"Water, thanks."

Since she wanted Peabody in the lead, Eve crossed over to Vending. And now had to face the damn machine.

"Don't fuck with me today," she muttered, and punched in her code.

"Welcome, Baxter, Detective David. Your code is verified and you are free to make your selections."

"Fine, whatever." She programmed for the iced tea, the water, and went for a Pepsi.

"Please be advised, your selections of Summer Time Iced Tea and Pepsi both contain artificial flavorings and chemical additives."

"Oh, bite me," Eve muttered as the machine listed them.

"Enjoy your selections, Baxter, Detective David. Your account has been charged."

"Great."

She walked back to the table where Peabody softballed the interview.

"So you and Erin met shortly after you moved to New York."

"That's right. I was just twenty. I came into a small inheritance—my great-grandfather—and dropped out of college, moved here. I was going to make my mark, and make it in New York. I rented a dump of a furnished apartment so small I had to crawl over the Murphy bed if I had it down to get to the bathroom. That didn't have a sink. The only sink was in the corner of the living room that claimed to be a kitchen. I loved it."

"You moved from Kansas."

"That's right, a little dot on the map in very rural Kansas. Not much opportunity to make my mark as a singer—the superstar I imagined. Add gay in a loving but very traditional family. I wanted bright lights, I wanted New York."

"Yeah, me, too. Free-Ager family."

"Really?"

"They're great, but I wanted New York, and they got behind me on it. How did you meet Erin?"

"About a year later—I was waitressing, going to auditions, discouraged. But I got a gig at a café in SoHo, and she was there. She bought me a drink after. She was a struggling artist, I was a struggling performer. Friendship came first."

Wanda cracked the tube, but didn't drink.

"I loved her art—I couldn't afford it, but I loved it. She did a painting of me onstage in this red dress I'd bought at a secondhand shop, and gave it to me for Christmas that year. I met Donna and Angie and Margo. It was so good to have a group, you know?"

"A tribe."

Lifting her hands, Wanda folded them together, gesturing with them toward Peabody as she smiled.

"Yes, exactly that. I hated waiting tables, but the gigs wouldn't pay the bills. Angie suggested I try selling real estate. So I took an online course, got my license. Now that pays the bills, and gives me enough flexibility to take more gigs."

She looked at Eve. "I know your husband—not personally, just know. I haven't sold him anything—I'm small-time. But anyone in my business knows Roarke. So I feel I know you, both of you, the same way. That's why as horrible as this is, I feel Erin's in good hands."

The big brown eyes went teary as she sipped her iced tea. "I need to believe that. I don't think I could get through this if I didn't."

"Losing a friend is crushing," Peabody said. "Were you and Erin ever more than that? Did you have a romantic relationship?"

"Oh, briefly, but I wouldn't say romantic. It was more, we're both at loose ends, we like each other, we're healthy young lesbians, so why not? And it was nice, but… I guess I brought some of my traditional background with me. We didn't really click that way. Sexually, sure, but the friendship meant more, on both sides. And I wanted—still want—what she had with Shauna. I want that real bond, that real love, that promise of forever. That wasn't Erin for me, or me for Erin. So friends it was."

"Did she trust you?" Eve asked.

"Yes." A slight frown crossed Wanda's face. "I mean, I hope so. I think she did. I certainly trusted her."

"With secrets?"

"If I had one, I'd trust her to keep it. If she had any and shared with me, I wouldn't tell you unless I thought it would help find who killed her. No, I'll tell you this one," Wanda corrected. "It can't hurt. They weren't going to have a band or a professional DJ at the wedding—they were saving for a big honeymoon down the road. Their parents would have kicked in, but they're not rolling in it, either, and had already contributed. Erin asked me if I'd sing, maybe talk some of the musicians I knew into coming—for the free food and drink. Just do one set maybe. Especially the first dance—they'd planned a recording for that. She was going to surprise Shauna."

Wanda dashed a tear away. "Then Shauna came to me with an almost identical request. Could I sing them down the aisle, maybe do the first dance. She didn't want me to work the whole wedding and reception, but wanted to surprise Erin."

She dug out a tissue. "God. I didn't tell either one of them about the other, and like I said, I know Erin's family. I know Shauna's now a little. I told them, so we put it together behind the scenes, you know?"

"That was a beautiful thing to do, each of them, the families, you." Reaching over, Peabody laid a hand on Wanda's.

"Did she tell you about the surprise for Erin she planned for last night?"

Drying her eyes, Wanda shook her head. "No. What surprise?"

"Did you know she'd sold some paintings recently? Studio work, not street."

"I don't think so. I mean not in the last few weeks. I've been slammed. Lucky enough to get some good evening and night gigs, showings and meetings at my day job. And we've been squeezing in rehearsals for the wedding. I haven't talked to Erin much in the last two or three weeks."

Now she blinked tears away, shoved back her hair. "And she and Shauna were busy with the wedding plans, plans for last night. What surprise?" she asked again.

"She took the money from the sale of the paintings, got a little boost from her moonlighting jobs. She bought tickets to Maui, booked a hotel."

Wanda stared at Eve before the tears rolled. "Oh, oh, that's so Erin. That's just so Erin."

"She had someone bring in her weekend case," Peabody continued. "She had a costume—grass skirt, coconut bra, leis."

Wanda pressed both hands to her mouth. "Even more like Erin. That's just what she'd do, just what she'd do. Big surprise, big fun, big splash. Giving Shauna something she'd only dreamed of, and share it with all of us. That's who she was. That's Erin."

"Who would she have trusted to keep the secret, to bring in that case?"

"I—any of us, I think. Angie, Donna, me, a dozen others. Erin was so open. She trusted and loved her friends. Her tribe," she said to Peabody.

"But she didn't ask you."

"No. I would've done it. I would've been happy to. But, I guess, she'd already asked me for something, and… spread it out. I didn't think this could get harder, but now it is."

Struggling for composure, she turned to Eve. "Did you ask Angie? Angie's so efficient, she could've asked her. Except—"

"Except."

"Becca and Angie did the shower, and I know they helped at least some with the party last night. Spread it out," she repeated. "Donna—wait, Donna had to go to Baltimore. Her sister went into labor. Donna didn't make the party."

"Who else comes to mind?" Eve pressed.

"Honestly, they're first, or me, then it could be anyone. Well, I'd eliminate a couple who have a hard time not either blurting out a secret or who can't help but act like they have one. Why, is it important?"

"Everything's important," Eve told her.

They spent a little more time, pushing for details, for answers and memories, but couldn't pull out more.

When Peabody walked Wanda out, Eve sat another moment.

Not only did Wanda's statements ring true, she simply didn't ring.

Probably strong enough, Eve considered as she started back. Maybe tall enough in heels. But the rest? It didn't play through.

She met Peabody outside the bullpen.

"I bought it," Peabody said. "All of it."

"I'm not going to pay for it, but no, she just doesn't fit. She knew the victim for what, six, seven years. Tried on the sex, didn't click, stayed friends. Let's check out the sing-at-the-wedding deal, but that plays, and it weighs on the no side of things.

"Maybe she could've snuck the case in, maybe she's strong enough. The height's off, but heels would compensate. She'd still have to get back in the room, wait or follow the target in—and the crime scene reads already inside to me. Then do the kill, take the 'link, the jewelry, stow that where nobody notices."

"You're more looking at the exes, at least the ones we have."

"I'm more looking at somebody who came from outside. I want to go over McNab's interviews with the people there who weren't with the group. Whoever did this likely walked out that back door, but maybe someone left a table, didn't come back."

"I can go over that with him. Listen, Dallas, we're eliminating suspects from the group that was there. That's going to narrow it down. Unless it was some conspiracy and two or three of them planned this out together."

"No, two people can rarely keep a secret. Three? Forget it. And add murder? Not this one. Solo kill, solo planner, most probable. Known and trusted, and those are key factors. I'm going to write this up. You work with McNab, or if he's busy, take his interviews and do 'link follow-ups. Just take another pass."

She saw Jenkinson back at his desk, and the way he scowled at his desk screen concluded the lead hadn't panned out.

"You can clock out after you're done, Peabody. I'm going to head back to the D&D, talk to Crack, since he's too stubborn to hire a crime scene crew. His place, he deals with it. Then I'll track down ChiChi Lopez."

"Go now. I'll write it up. I had the lead," Peabody reminded her.

"Right, you did." She stuck a hand in her pocket. "Where'd I put the damn sunshades?"

"They're in your car."

"They're in the car. I want to take the gallery owner tomorrow morning. Glenda Frost. She's not a suspect, but she may know something."

"I can set that up."

"Do that, let me know. I'm in the field."

Since the elevator that opened as she passed disgorged cops, then stood empty, she chanced it and nipped inside.

She had a few floors of thinking time where she decided, on the Eve Dallas probability scale, it hit ninety-eight percent the killer brought the case in the back door and straight into the privacy room.

She'd go with a solid seventy-six the killer came from outside the group until she added the trust factor. There'd been a couple dozen people, give or take, the victim would've trusted in that group.

So lower that to sixty-five.

When the elevator began to stop and fill, stop and go, she pushed off for the glides and took her calculations with her.

She went back to ninety-eight percent the killer was already in the room when Erin Albright came in.

Back turned, head bashed against the door.

But that didn't change the in-or-out-of-the-group calculation.

The timing worked for Greg Barney—as did the lack of solid alibi.

Same with Jon Rierdon.

And they might find more.

Rierdon fell out with the trust factor. Why would Erin trust him? Unknown factor, but her gut took him well down on her list.

As for Barney? Why bring him into it when you had that group, that tribe?

Not bumping him down yet, she thought as she reached the garage level.

He and Becca, planning it together? Some resentments simmering all the way back to high school?

It happened, she decided, and drove out of the garage into traffic.

The wheeze and the rejected boyfriend. It could play. More logical to target Shauna herself, but… more painful to kill someone she loved, and leave her grieving.

She played with that angle, picked it apart, put it back together as she drove to the Down and Dirty.

A very doable walk, she thought again as she hunted up parking, from so many of the apartments, workplaces, hangouts of this intersecting group of friends.

Not surprising. Geography counted.

It counted again when she had to walk two and a half blocks from parking to the club.

The vibe started to change as it crept closer to the end of the workday, or passed that mark for some.

Not as many tourists on the street now, or at least not here where the sex clubs, the bars, the piercing and tat parlors ruled. She watched two women come out of one of those parlors. One had skin still pink under a vine of weird flowers now twining up her arm.

And her face as pale as chalk.

A trio of guys in work boots and sweaty shirts trooped into a bar. End-of-construction-day brews.

She spotted a junkie across the street, jittery as he hunted up an early score. And ignored him.

The neon on the D&D stayed dark and the front windows shaded.

She mastered in.

Rochelle Pickering, tall and built in worn jeans and a faded T-shirt, stood scrubbing at the bar. She'd bundled her black corkscrew hair under a floral do-rag.

She jolted when Eve stepped in, then blew out a breath.

"You startled me. I didn't expect anyone to come in."

"I didn't expect to find you cleaning the bar."

"Wilson won't let me near the room where it happened, so I'm helping this way. Nobody got to clean the place afterward last night. It's terrible, what happened. He's just sick about it."

She went back to scrubbing, putting some elbow grease into it as she spoke.

"He told me he knew her, that she came in off and on, and for a long time. And how they were having their bachelorette party here, she and her fiancée getting married in a few days. He's just heartsick, and won't have anyone deal with that room but himself."

"Sometimes it helps, to do it yourself."

"I know, and I'm hoping it does."

She put down the rag a moment, turned to Eve. "I was hoping to talk to you sometime—I wish it wasn't after this. But I wanted you to know how well Dorian's doing at An Didean. The counseling's helped her deal with everything that happened to her, back to her mother's emotional and physical abuse, through the nightmare of what was done to her at that vicious so-called Academy."

"Good."

"It's more than good, Dallas. She's got a lot more counseling in her future, but she's actually blossoming. She's so much smarter than her grades at her school before she ran away indicate. Her mother simply didn't allow her to blossom, and now she is. She's making friends—carefully, but making them. And the boy, Mouser—Tom? He's just a wonder. So damn entertaining, and not just smart, Dallas. Scary smart. He just latches on.

"You helped give them this chance, and I wanted you to know what it means."

"I'm glad to hear it. They both got knocked around more than any kid should. Roarke put you in charge of the school because he knew you'd find ways to not only give them a chance but convince them to take it.

"Seen much of Sebastian?"

Rochelle smiled. "I understand your issues with him, and why you have them. I don't disagree. He does check in with them from time to time, and I promise you, they need that connection. He helped them—in his way, but he helped them."

"His way is… questionable."

"Agreed, but right now, with these two children, I'm seeing that blossoming. Without him, without you, without the school, I doubt they'd have survived long, much less bloomed."

Hard to argue, Eve thought, especially since she'd been through her own nightmare of a childhood, and had had no one but herself.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it. I'll check on Crack."

She went back, found him on his hands and knees, a bucket by his side, a scrub brush in his big hands.

Sweatpants, a ragged tee, and another do-rag—not floral, but ink black.

He glanced up at Eve.

"That dust shit you cops use is bad enough, but the blood's worse. Been at this damn near an hour."

"Looks like you got it to me."

"Yeah, maybe." Still, he scrubbed a little more before he tossed the brush in the bucket. "I can still see her though. It'll take more than some scrubbing to wipe that away."

He rose, and she stepped aside to let him out, then followed him down to the men's john.

When he dumped the bucket in the sink, the water came out nearly clear. She imagined he'd dumped countless others running from red to pink.

"Maybe give it one more pass."

"Crack, let it be. You've done what had to be done. I'm betting that floor's cleaner now than it's been in years."

He smiled a little. "It's called the Down and Dirty. But I keep the floors clean enough. You got shit to tell me, skinny white girl?"

"I can tell you some shit, big, buff Black man. Buy me a Pepsi."

"I can do that."

He carted the bucket with him into the club area, then stopped and shook his head.

"Ro, you keep cleaning, none of my customers are gonna recognize the place, and walk right out again."

He crossed over, took the bucket and rag from her. "Sit on down here with Dallas. We've got us a private party."

But Rochelle shot him a worried look as he went in the back.

"He'll be fine," Eve told her. "He can open again tomorrow, and that'll help him get it back."

"I know you're right."

She took a stool when he came back.

"I'm having a drink," he said, and pointed at Rochelle. "You're having a drink. You still on duty?"

"I am."

"Girl." Shaking his head, he poured her a Pepsi on ice in a sparkling clean glass. Then pulled a bottle of wine from under the bar, poured a glass for Rochelle, tapped a beer for himself.

"Here's to fucking justice. You get it for her, Dallas. You get that fucking justice for Erin."

"Working on it."

"That's good enough for me. What do you know?"

"I know the person who was supposed to bring the case for her had to go to Baltimore. Her sister went into labor. It checks out. So Erin had to use a backup. I don't know who yet."

She ran through what she had, at least what she had that she felt she could share with him.

"That's more than I expected, less than I wished for. I wished you'd gotten the bastard, but I expected it would take you time. I expected not to know too much today."

"Do you really think one of her friends killed her?"

"Yeah." Eve nodded at Rochelle. "I do."

"Then that's what happened." Rochelle gave Eve a decisive nod. "When they killed my brother, you knew right away he hadn't overdosed, hadn't lied to me about being clean. And you found out who did that to him, and why."

She looked at Crack, laid a hand on his. "She'll do just that here, Wilson."

"I believe it. You held me like I was a baby when I cried over my sister. My baby girl's body. I've got every reason in the world to trust you with this. Erin died in my place, while I was right here where I am now. And that's hard for me to take. You're going to see who did it pays. I believe it."

"Anything that comes to mind. Anything you thought of, remembered, since last night? Dynamics," Eve added. "A look that didn't strike quite right. Someone slipping in and out. Anything."

He downed some beer. "I haven't thought about much else since, and I got nothing. Just nothing. Pisses me off I got nothing but a bunch of women blowing off steam, having a hell of a good time, cutting it loose. I thought about how Erin came in early for the swipe. She didn't tell me why, just she had something planned for Shauna, and could she have it now."

He shrugged. "I figured sure, why not?"

"Mondays are slow."

"Damn slow, and since she'd already booked it, I was going to keep it closed for her anyway. Tell you one thing." He pointed a finger at her. "Soon as Roarke gets me the plan for cameras and such, they're going in. Ain't letting this happen again. No use me asking you to give me five minutes with who did this before you lock them up, especially in front of my lady, who wouldn't like it. But I wish for that, too."

"A cracked head or punch in the face heals," Eve told him. "Life in a cage goes on and on." She pushed off her stool. "I've got somebody else to track down and talk to. Like I told you, you're cleared to open tomorrow."

"And we will."

"Good luck, Dallas," Rochelle called out.

"I'll take it," Eve said, and left.