Innocent In Death

She told him about the search at the Straffos’ penthouse. This was what she wanted from him now, impressions, comments, insights. Telling him what she knew, what she’d seen, heard, observed. And for now, leaving out the seed of certainty planted dead center of her gut.

“Sad,” he said.

“What is?”

“Who. Straffo’s wife. That’s how she strikes me. Keeping everyone’s records and schedules with her own-needs to know, doesn’t she, where everyone is, what they’re doing. Wouldn’t want to have her own schedule, interests, impulses conflict with theirs. Then there’s her memorial box.”

“Memorial. I thought memory.”

“It’s both, isn’t it? To keep his memory fresh for her, and to memorialize him. For herself. Just for her. That’s sad. It must be a terrible thing for a mother. Then you said she hid some of her meds. Doesn’t want her husband to know she’s taking them. Doesn’t want to-what, upset, disappoint, worry him? So she keeps her little secrets.”

“Yeah, she does,” Eve agreed. “She’s got secrets.”

“And you think they apply to these murders? How?”

“Keeping the status quo is vital to her.” Because visuals helped, Eve brought Allika’s photo ID onto the wall screen. “She broke it off with Williams. Betrayed her husband, sure.” Split-screened Allika’s image with Oliver Straffo’s. “But in addition she rocked her own boat. That spooked her. She needs those waters calm again. Still, I don’t think they ever are. Not inside her anyway. It’s pretense. So she needs her chemical boosts.”

“I don’t see how that co

“Everything co

“He’s charming, isn’t he?” Roarke commented.

“Yeah. He’s got a look. So does Allika. Hers is like before and after, and that’s how it strikes me in that house. You can see it in the pictures. In their eyes. They’re wounded, walking wounded, but they get through it. His way, her way. Now she stumbles, has this affair. He knows it, or close enough. I think he knew she ended it, and he doesn’t confront her. Keep up the pretense, the status quo. Already lost a kid, can’t put themselves or their surviving child through a divorce.”

She added Rayleen’s photo so the screen held four images. “Now there are two murders, slapped back to back and right in their faces. She’s shaking and scared. He’s closed up and angry.”

“And the girl?”

Eve looked at the screen. “She’s fascinated.”

“Ah. Children can be cold-blooded. Death’s other for them. They’re so far from it. I

“Is it i

“It’s childhood, I suppose.” He topped off her wine, then his own. “So very different from yours or mine.”

“Yeah. Different by a long shot. Roarke?”

“Hmm.”

She started to speak, then changed her mind. “I wonder if either of us can really be objective about a family unit like that.” She gestured toward the screen. “But I know there are answers in that house. I’m going to find them. Each one of them, each segment of that square that became a triangle. Mother, father, daughter.” She drew a triangle in the air. “Each knows something. Something that co

18

AFTER DINNER, EVE BEGAN TO SEARCH AND CROSSREFERENCE every name in the address books she’d taken during the search of the Straffo penthouse. While it ran, she started a chart of schedules.

Intersections, she thought again. Parallel lines. But a triangle here, not a circle.

Idly, she doodled a triangle on a pad, drew a horizontal line through its center. “What would you call this?”

Roarke glanced over her shoulder. “What you have there is a midpoint proportionality, a segment whose endpoints are the midpoints of two sides of a triangle. A segment that is parallel to the third side-its length half the length of that third side.”

“Jeez, über-geek. I see a kind of box inside a triangle. A co

“That as well.”

“Huh.” While he wandered off to the kitchen, she rose and updated her murder board. Her computer signaled the assigned task was completed before she was finished.

“Display results.” She started to turn just as Roarke came out of the kitchen with a tray. “We already ate.”

“We did indeed.” He crossed, set the tray on the table, then took off a small plate. And turning, offered it. “And this is a homemade fudge brownie.”

Her heart, she was embarrassed to realize, just melted. “Man, you never miss a trick.”

“You can thank Summerset later.”

“Uh-uh.”

“I asked if he’d bake a batch. So you can thank me as well.” Roarke held the plate just out of reach, tapped his lips with the index finger of his free hand.

She rolled her eyes, but it was only for form. Then leaned in, pecked a kiss on his lips, and snatched the brownie. “Damn me if I’m kissing those bird lips of Summerset.” She bit in, then just groaned. “Oh, God, this is really…Are there more?”

“Maybe.”

“I’d better space it out. I think this is the chocolate equivalent of Zeus.” On another bite she turned to read the data. “Son of a bitch! I fucking knew I was right.”

“About…” He sca

“What kind of artist?”

Cocking his head, he continued to read the data. “Specializes in fashion and jewelry, stone and leatherwork. Leatherwork. Ah.”

“Ah, my ass. Bull’s-fucking-eye. If that’s not the ricin source, Iwill kiss the hideous lips of Summerset. The castor beans, they still grow wild in arid areas. I bet New Mexico has some arid areas. And I bet a leather artist living out there uses the oil in leather preparation.”

“Certainly that may be, and how does Quella Harmon co

“By being the maternal aunt of Allika Straffo. Means,” Eve stated. “Closing right in on means. Computer, search date books on each Straffo individual in evidence for any travel to New Mexico over the past six months. No, amend. A full year. And/or any mention during that time period in same of Harmon, Quella, to New York.”

Acknowledged. Working…

“You think Straffo took a sample of ricin from this woman, with or without her knowledge, carried it back to New York, then used it to poison Foster.”

“I damn well do.”

“All right, means I’ll give you, Eve, but you’ve lost motive again, haven’t you? Unless the computer reports that there was contact with this Harmon in the last couple of months, it would have been prior to Allika’s affair with Williams, prior to Foster having knowledge of it.”

“Uh-huh. Parallel lines.”

Task complete. Straffo, Oliver, Allika, and Rayleen traveled by commercial shuttle from New York to Taos, New Mexico, on November twenty-six. Returned to New York by commercial shuttle on November thirty…

“That’s before Allika took up with Williams, according to their statements. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” But Eve was smiling grimly.

“Then unless Straffo is a sensitive with psychic tendencies, why would he transport a poisonous substance on a commercial carrierbefore his wife strayed?”

“Maybe it wasn’t a poisonous substance at that time, maybe it was just a bag of beans. But it’s all about pla

As she spoke, she walked back, circling the board again. Then she continued to pin photos, lists, notes, data. “Computer, print out displayed data. Hard copy.”

Acknowledged…

And now Roarke circled, studied, sca

He could see she was building something. It was the way she’d arranged the pieces on the board, how she continued to arrange them. Into some sort of pattern she, obviously, saw in her head. Or felt in her gut.