Imitation in Death

“Bitch.” He covered his face with his hands. “Goddamn bitch.”

“I’ve got to have some sympathy for you, Tom. Here you are, doing it all. The house, the kid, the career. An important career, too. You’re somebody. But you go the professional father route, and that’s admirable. While she spends her day in a big office, having meetings about clothes, for Christ’s sake.”

Eve gave a hefty sigh, slowly shook her head. “About what people are going to wear. And that’s more important to her than her family. She ignores you and the kid. Your mother did the same. But Jule, she takes it another step. Lying, cheating, whoring herself with another woman instead of standing up and being a wife, being a mother.”

“Shut up. Can’t you just shut up?”

“You want to punish her for that, Tom, who could blame you? You want to get some of your own back, who the hell wouldn’t? It eats at you. Day after day, night after night. Makes you a little crazy. Women, they’re just no damn good, are they?”

She sat on the edge of the table, close, pushing into his space, knowing he could feel her pushing, even as she felt him vibrating.

“She looks me right in the eyes and lies. I love her. I hate her for that, hate her because I still love her. She doesn’t think about us. She puts that woman ahead of us, and I hate her for it.”

“You knew she wasn’t at a meeting. Did you stew about that while she was gone? And she came home, and went up to bed. Tired, too tired to be with you because she’d been with another woman. Did you wait until she was upstairs, settled in, before you left the house? Did you take your tools down to Chinatown, imagine yourself as Jack the Ripper? Powerful and terrifying and beyond the law? Did you see your wife’s face when you cut Jacie Wooton’s throat?”

“I didn’t leave the house.”

“She wouldn’t know if you went out. She doesn’t pay any attention to you. She doesn’t care enough.”

She saw him flinch when she said it, watched his shoulders hunch as if bracing for hammering blows. “How many times did you go down to Chinatown before you did Jacie in that alley, Tom? A guy like you does his research. How many trips did it take over there to scope out the whores and junkies?”

“I don’t go to Chinatown.”

“Never been to Chinatown? A native New Yorker?”

“I’ve been there. Of course, I’ve been there.” He was starting to sweat now, and the cockiness had been replaced by shaky nerves. “I mean I don’t go there for… I don’t use LCs.”

“Tom, Tom.” Eve clucked her tongue and sat across from him again. There was a pleasant smile on her face and a look of amused incredulity in her eyes. “A young, healthy man like you? You’re going to tell me you never paid for a quick blow job? Your wife hasn’t been inclined to give you much of a bounce for what, close to two years? And you haven’t made use of a perfectly legal service? If that’s true you must be pretty… wrought up. Or maybe you just can’t get it up anymore, and that’s why your wife checked out the competition.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.” His color came up again. “Jule’s just… I don’t know, she just has to get this out of her system. And, okay, so I’ve hired an LC a few times since things have gotten messed up at home. Jesus, I’m not a eunuch.”

“She’s making you one. She’s insulted, belittled, betrayed you. Maybe you were just going out to pick up some stranger. Guy’s entitled when his wife shuts him out. Maybe things got out of hand. All that anger and frustration just built up. Thinking about how she’d lied to you, how she was in your bed fresh from another woman. Lying, cheating, making you nothing.”

She let that single word vibrate in the room, let it slap at him. “You needed some attention, goddamn it. You’ve got a head full of men who knew how to get attention. Knew how to make a woman stand up and take notice. Had to feel good to rip into Jacie, into the symbol of her, to cut out what made her a woman. To make her pay, make them all pay for ignoring you.”

“No.” He wet his lips, and his breath shuddered through them. “No. You’ve got to be out of your mind. Out of your mind. I’m not talking to you anymore. I want a lawyer.”

“Are you going to let me beat you, too, Tom? You go

His breath hissed in and out, in and out in the silence that followed. And he turned his face from hers. “I don’t have anything else to say until I’ve consulted with my attorney.”

“Looks like it’s my point then. This interview is ended to allow the subject to arrange for legal representation at his request. Record off. Peabody, arrange for the standard psych exam for Mr. Breen, and escort him to holding where he can contact his legal rep.”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Breen?”

He got shakily to his feet. “You think you’ve humiliated me,” he said to Eve. “You think you’ve broken me down. But you’re too damn late. Julietta already took care of that.”

She waited until he’d gone out, then she walked over and stared at her own reflection in the mirror.

– -«»--«»--«»--

Exhausted, she went back to her office. For once she couldn’t face the buzz of coffee and opted for water. Standing by her stingy window, she drank like a camel, and watched the air and street traffic.

People came, people went, she observed. They didn’t know what the hell went on in here. Didn’t want to know. Just keep us safe-that was the bottom line when they gave the cops inside the building a passing thought. Just do your job and keep us safe. We don’t care how you do it, as long as it doesn’t spill over on us.

“Lieutenant?”

Eve continued to stare out the window. “You got him tucked?”

“Yes, sir. He’s contacted the lawyer, and he’s clammed. He requested a second transmission, re child-care. I, um, I authorized it, with supervision. He contacted the neighbor and asked if she could keep Jed for several more hours. Said he’d gotten tied up with something. He made no request to contact his wife.”

Eve simply nodded.

“You were pretty rough on him in there.”

“Is that an observation or a complaint?”

“An observation. I know you’re going to say I’m an investigative slut, but he’s starting to look good to me. The way you sprang knowledge of the wife’s affair on him, he never recovered from that.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“And pushing the LC angle. The way he fumbled it, denying any association, then breaking down and admitting it to prove to you he was still sexually capable.”

“Yeah, that was stupid of him.”

“You don’t sound too juiced about it.”

“I’m tired. I’m just tired.”

“Maybe you want to take a break before you wrap him up. The lawyer’s got to get here, do the consult. You’ve got an hour anyway if you want to grab a bunk.”

Eve started to speak, started to turn, and Trueheart stepped in. “Excuse me, Lieutenant, but Pepper Franklin is here, wants to see you. I didn’t know if you wanted me to pass her through.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Do you want me to sit in?” Peabody asked her when Trueheart left. “Or go baby-sit Breen?”

“Fortney was your pick before you decided to be fickle. Let’s both hear what she has to say.”

She walked to her desk, sat, and swiveled toward the door when Pepper entered. The actress was wearing enormous silver sunshades and bright red lip dye. Her glamorous hair was pulled straight back in a long, sleek tail. The su

“Get us some coffee, Peabody. Have a seat, Pepper. What can I do for you?”

“You can arrest that lying, cheating son of a bitch Leo, and drop him in the deepest, darkest hole you can find until the flesh rots off his fucking bones.”