Strangers In Death

“Do you know the names or the agencies of the professionals he used?”

“No. We’d agreed not to bring that up. It was outside. It wasn’t us. It was outside of us.”

“But your payments to Charles Monroe came out of your debit account where your husband could see them.”

She let out a half laugh. “Tommy never looked at my personal accounts.”

“Did you look at his?”

Color rose into her face again. “Yes, I did. I did when I suspected he was bringing women home. I couldn’t find anything there. I’m not sure what I’d have done if I had.”

“How did you select Charles Monroe?”

“My friend Sasha recommended him. She knows. Unlike Brigit, Sasha’s very open. Even a little wild, by some standards. She told me he was very smooth, very skilled, and very discreet. I was a nervous wreck the first time I went to him. He put me very much at ease.”

“Is he the only LC you’ve engaged?”

“Yes. I liked him, trusted him. I could think of our appointments as going to a therapist.”

“Are you willing to give consent for Mr. Monroe to speak to us about your relationship?”

“Oh God.” Ava pressed a hand to her face. “I suppose there’s no place for pride or privacy any longer. Yes, I’ll consent to that. In return, I need your word you’ll keep as much of this private business out of the media.”

“You can have my word on that.”

“I’ll have to tell Bridge,” Ava murmured. “I’m going to disappoint her.”

“Mrs. Plowder strikes me as a woman who sticks,” Peabody said, and Ava smiled a little.

“Yes, you’re right. She is. She does. Am I to blame for this? Am I responsible? If I’d been more open, more flexible about what he wanted, Tommy would still be alive, wouldn’t he? I keep asking myself that.”

“The killer’s responsible, Mrs. Anders. That’s your answer.” Eve rose. “Thank you for your time and cooperation.”

When they stood inside the hammered steel of the elevator, Peabody shook her head. “Tough spot for her, the guilt on top of the grief. She can’t help but ask herself is this because she has sexual hang-ups, or because he went over-the-top. Since he’s the one who’s dead, she’s probably going to settle on door number one.”

Eve only said, “Hmm.” When they hit the lobby, she dug out a card. “Thanks again, Detective.” She offered her hand, then the card to Frank. “You can reach me at any of those contacts, should something strike you.”

“Can do.” He tucked it into a pocket. “Luck, Lieutenant. Detective.”

“Yeah,” Eve muttered, striding to the car, “we’re going to need it.” She got behind the wheel. “Sounds like the vic took a hell of a turn after, what, more than a dozen years of marriage.”

“Happens, doesn’t it? Divorce litters the land, so does adultery. And LCs do good business for a reason.”

“All true.” Eve danced her fingers along the steering wheel. “Marriage is mostly a sucker bet.”

“Spoken by the woman with Dream Husband.”

“You just said Dream Husband might take a turn down the road and decide he wants to do threesomes or-”

“Me! Me!” Peabody shot up a hand. “Pick me!”

“Yeah, I’m dying to get you between the sheets, Peabody. Keeps me up at night. The point is, you’ve got a dozen years in, and one night the guy comes home and says: ‘Look, honey, I picked up this ball gag and anal probe on the way home. Let’s go try them out.’”

“That would be a shocker, but I bet it was more subtle than that. Maybe he tries out a few new moves, testing the waters, and she’s not receptive, and it goes from there. It’s like, okay, here’s a man who’s got it pretty damn good. He’s healthy, he doesn’t have a face that scares small children. He’s ru

“And she’s more in the habit of him putting his this there.” Eve nodded. “I get that. So she’s just, well, okay then, you put your what where into whoever, I’ll have somebody else put his this there, and we’re jake?”

“There’s a whole separate schism of the Free-Agers who believe in open relationships. Everybody puts their what and their this where and there. But looking at it from your POV-which I have to admit I am, too, as I’m of the opinion if he puts his what anywhere but here?” Peabody jerked a thumb at the car window. “There’s the door, asshole. It didn’t work for them, either. He went over the line. He couldn’t keep the deal they’d made when they got married, and he couldn’t keep this deal either.”

“That’s the pivot point,” Eve agreed. “Contact Charles. Tell him we’ve got client consent, and we’re on our way.”

Louise answered the door, and put a little hitch in Eve’s stride. Her blonde hair was tousled, her gray eyes sleepy. She wore winter white lounging pants with a long-sleeved tee.

“Come on in. Charles is putting some breakfast together. I slept in-long night.”

“How was it out there?” Eve asked her.

“Cold. Have a seat. I’ll see if I can hunt up the coffee.”

“It’s okay. We just had some.”

“Like that would stop you. Charles told me this is about the Anders murder.”

“That’s right.”

“And that Anders’s wife is one of Charles’s clients.”

“Yeah.”

“Which, of course, neither of you nor Charles can discuss with me.” Louise cocked up her eyebrows. “Why don’t I make myself scarce?”

“We can take this somewhere else.”

“That’s okay, no problem. I’ll have myself some breakfast in bed. That’s a treat.”

She walked off to the kitchen, and Peabody sent Eve a worried look. “Oh-oh.”

“Yeah, something’s off with them. I caught the buzz from Charles last night.”

Louise came back with a pretty place setting on a pretty silver tray. “Hi to Roarke and McNab,” she said, then disappeared into the bedroom.

Charles stepped out of the kitchen looking as tired and stressed as his lover. “Dallas. Peabody.” He crossed over to buss cheeks. “You got consent.”

“On record.” Eve took out her recorder, played back the statement.

“That’ll work. So.” He gestured to seats, took one of his own. “What do you want to know?”

“How did Ava Anders contact you?”

“By ’link. I have a business-only line.”

“How did she strike you?”

“Nervous, and trying hard not to show it. Which is how she struck me on our first appointment.”

“Where was the first appointment?”

“I looked that up after you left last night. The Blackmore Hotel, downtown. It’s a busy place, which is what she wanted. She checked in, contacted me to give me the room number. This way, I could go straight up, but no one would see us together.”

“Okay, this is weird, but what did she want?”

“Initially, to talk. She’d ordered lunch, and wine, which we had in the parlor of the suite. We talked-if I remember-about literature, plays, art. For some, this first interlude with a professional is very much like a first date, where you do the surface getting-to-know-you routine.”

He glanced toward the bedroom where Louise, presumably, ate her breakfast in bed. “As we got to know each other over the course of time, I understood that her husband wasn’t as interested in literature and so forth as he was in sports. So I could offer her that.”

“Did she talk about her husband?”

“Not a great deal. It…spoils the mood. She might mention, usually afterward, when we were talking over a drink or coffee, that they were going on a trip, or having a di