Divided in Death

“But you don’t buy it.”

“Look at it this way. If she did it, it’s a dunk. The case fell whole into our laps. Nothing to do but file the reports and wait for it to come to trial. But if she’s telling the truth, we’ve got a real, live mystery on our hands. I just fucking love a mystery.”

She took all the discs into evidence for viewing at Central, added memo cubes, a PPC and what appeared to be a broken address book.

“Pick a dresser,” Eve invited.

They searched the bedroom, moving from the contents of the dressers to the contents of the closet. They turned up nothing of interest but for what Peabody referred to as monkey-sex underwear.

They split up on the home offices, with Eve taking Blair’s.

He had, she noted, the better end of the deal there. His was twice the size of hers, and with a view of the stone garden-the garden she assumed he’d wanted. There was also a long leather couch, the color of light coffee, with a mirrored wall behind it, and an entertainment center loaded with the latest toys.

It was, she thought, more a man-as-boy playroom than workspace. And when she called up his data unit, she found it wasn’t working at all.

She gave it a quick slap with the heel of her hand, which was her usual way of dealing with recalcitrant machines. “I said, ‘Computer, on,’” she repeated and once again read in her name, rank, and badge number for override of standard passcodes.

The screen stayed blank, the unit silent.

Interesting, she thought as she circled around it as she might a sleeping animal. What did he have in there he didn’t want his wife to see?

Still watching the unit, she pulled out her communicator and tagged Feeney at EDD.

His hound-dog face had been sun-kissed by his recent vacation in Bimini. He’d only been back a couple of days, and Eve was hoping it would fade soon. It was… disconcerting to see Feeney with a tan.

She wanted his hair to grow back, too. He’d shorn his wiry ginger-and-gray mop painfully short while he’d been gone. It looked like he was wearing a snug, fuzzy helmet.

When you added the post-holiday sparkle to his droopy brown eyes, it was a study in mixed signals, and made her head hurt.

“Hey, kid.”

“Hey. Did you get my request?”

“First thing. Already cleared the time and manpower for you.”

“I got more. Dead guy’s home unit. He must have it seriously pass-coded. I can’t get it on.”

“Dallas, there are times you can’t get your AutoChef on.”

“That’s a dirty lie.” She poked the data unit with a finger. “I need a pickup for this, and for a houseful of ‘links and data centers. A boatload of security discs I need studied and analyzed.”

“I’ll send out a team for pickup.”

She waited a beat. “Just like that? I don’t even get a token bitch?”

“I’m in too good a mood to bitch. The wife made me pancakes this morning. Can’t do enough for me. I’m a fricking hero with my whole family. You flipped me that Bimini deal, Dallas, and I figure I’m going to reap the rewards for the next six months. I owe you.”

“Feeney, you look sort of scary when you smile like that. So cut it out.”

His grin only widened. “Can’t help it. I’m a happy man.”

“I’ve got enough EDD work on this one to keep you and a full team buried for days.”

“Sounds good.” He almost sang it. “I’m ready for a real challenge. Guy gets soft sitting on the beach sucking coconut juice all day.”

This had to stop, was all she could think. And now. “Case is a slam,” she said and showed her teeth. “And I’ve already booked the suspect on two counts in the first. I’m using departmental time and money to pick the case apart from the inside out.”

“Sounds like fun,” he said with a lilt in his voice. “Glad you called me in.”

“I could learn to hate you like this, Feeney.” She rattled off the address, and cut transmission as he began to hum.

“Do a favor for a friend,” she muttered, “and it bites you on the ass. Peabody!” She shouted it. “Tag all electronics for EDD pickup. Arrange for two droids to guard the premises and seal it after EDD has come and gone. And move it. We need to go check Bissel’s gallery and studio.”

“If we’re partners now, how come I have to do all the tagging?” Peabody shouted back. “And are we ever going to eat? We’ve already been on the clock six hours, and my blood sugar’s dropping. I can feel it.”

“Just move your ass,” Eve shot back, but she smiled. At least she still worked with somebody who knew how to bitch.

Because she appreciated it, and she remembered she hadn’t eaten since the night before herself, she double-parked in front of a 24/7 and let Peabody make the dash in for some to-go food.

They were both going to need to go off the clock for a couple of hours, get some sleep. But she wanted to get a look at Blair’s workspace and get all the electronics and security discs in evidence first.

Because the only why she could think of equaled security. The only why made Reva the real target. The killings took her out, deliberately. Unless there was a personal reason to target her, and she’d explore that angle, it was professional.

Any professional motive against Reva brushed a little too close for comfort to Roarke. So she intended to move fast, and get as much locked into Central as she could before moving on to the next stage.

Peabody hurried out again, carrying an enormous take-out bag.

“Got hoagies.” With a grunt, she dropped back in the seat.

“What, for the whole squad?”

“And other provisions.”

“Because we’re going on safari?”

With some dignity, Peabody pulled out a tidily wrapped hoagie and passed it to Eve. “Drinks, and a bag of soy chips, and a bag of dried apricots-”

“Dried apricots, in case the rumor of the coming Armageddon is true.”

“And some damn cookies.” Peabody’s face closed in on a scowl that was edging toward pout. “I’m hungry, and when you’re on a roll like this I might not see food again until I’m a withered sack of bones. You don’t have to eat, you know.” She made a fuss out of unwrapping her own sandwich. “Nobody’s holding a blaster to your head.”

Eve peeked inside her sandwich and saw something that was pretending to have come from a pig. It was good enough. “In the event of Armageddon, I hope those cookies have some form of chocolate in them.”

“Maybe.” Slightly mollified when Eve drove one-handed and bit into her sandwich, Peabody opened a tube of Pepsi and stuck it in the drink slot.

By the time Eve got to the Flatiron Building, Peabody had mowed her way through the hoagie and a good portion of chips. As a result, both her mood and her energy were up again.

“This is my favorite New York building,” she said. “When I first moved here, I took a day and went around taking pictures of the places I used to read about. This was one of the top on my list. It’s so yesterday, you know. But here it is, still standing. The oldest remaining skyscraper in the city.”

Eve hadn’t known that. Then again she didn’t collect that sort of trivia. She supposed she’d admired its unique triangular style now and then, in an absent sort of way.

But for her, buildings simply were. People lived or worked in them, and they took up space, gave the city shape.

She decided against trying Broadway for parking, as this section always had a party going on. Instead she turned onto Twenty-third and crammed her unit into a loading zone.

The next drop-off or pickup was going to bitch, but she flipped up her ON DUTY sign, and climbed out.

“Bissel rented space on the top floor.”

“Jesus, that’s got to be prime.”

Eve nodded as they walked toward an entrance door. “I glanced through his financials, and he could afford it. Apparently that metal crap he built went for big bucks. And he had his own gallery, bought and sold art.”