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“None taken.”
“We’ve got, as potentials, ambition, personal gain, money, sex, illegals, woman or women scorned, and all-around general dislike. He enjoyed preying on women, generally pushing members of both sexes around. He had a regular illegals habit. He was also an irritating son of a bitch, and had everyone who knew him wanting to string him up by his intestines. It doesn’t cut the list by much. But.”
She shifted in her chair. “I started running probabilities last night. Made some headway. My handy new XE-5000 will copy that data to you so you can continue to run scans. I have a consult with Mira shortly. That may help shave th
e working list down. Set up a conference with our pals in EDD for eleven.”
“And the interviews this afternoon?”
“Go as scheduled. I’ll be back in an hour, two at most.” She pushed away from her desk. “If I get held up, contact the lab and nag Dickhead into verifying the illegals I sent down this morning.”
“A pleasure. Bribe or threat?”
“How long have you worked with me now, Peabody?”
“Almost a year, sir.”
Eve nodded as she strode out. “Long enough. Use your own judgment.”
• • •
Mira’s area was more civilized—Eve imagined that was the word—compared with the warrens and hives of the majority of Cop Central. A bubble of calm, she supposed, especially if you didn’t know what went on behind the doors of Testing.
Eve knew, and she hoped eons passed before she was forced to step through them again.
But Mira’s individual space was a world away from the depersonalizing and demoralizing cage of Testing. She favored shades of blues in her cozy scoop chairs, in the soothing ocean waves she often set on her mood screen.
Today she was dressed in one of her soft and snazzy pastel suits. A hopeful green, the color of spring leaf buds. Her hair waved back from a face of composed beauty Eve constantly admired. There were teardrop pearls at her ears that matched the single dangle on a gold-linked chain at her throat.
She was, to Eve’s mind, the perfect example of gracious femininity.
“I appreciate you fitting me in this morning.”
“I feel a vested interest,” Mira began as she programmed her AutoChef for tea. “Being a witness. In all my years attached to the NYPSD, I’ve never witnessed a murder.” She turned with two cups of floral-scented tea in her hand and caught the dark flicker in Eve’s eyes. “Richard Draco was not a murder, Eve. It was an execution. An entirely different matter.”
She took her seat, handing Eve the tea they both knew she’d barely sip. “I study murder. Murderers. I listen to them, and I analyze them. I profile them. And as a doctor, I know, understand, and respect death. But, having a murder take place right in front of my eyes, not to know it was real. Well, it’s given me some bad moments. It’s difficult.”
“I was thinking ingenious.”
“Well.” A ghost of a smile curved Mira’s lips. “Your viewpoint and mine come from different angles, I suppose.”
“Yeah.” And Eve’s angle was often standing over the dead with blood on her boots. It occurred to her now she hadn’t taken Mira’s state of mind into consideration that night at the theater. She had simply drafted her onto the team and used her as it seemed most efficient.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think of it. I never gave you a choice.”
“You had no reason to think of it. And at the time, neither did I.” She shook it off, lifted her tea. “You were backstage and at work very quickly. How soon did you realize the knife was real?”
“Not soon enough to stop it. That’s what counts. I’ve started my interviews, concentrating on the actors first.”
“Yes, the crime’s steeped in theatrics. The method, the timing, the staging.” More comfortable with the analytical distance, Mira ran the scene in her mind. “An actor or someone who aspires or aspired to be one fits the profile. On the other hand, the murder was clean, well produced, carefully executed. Your killer is bold, Eve, but also cool-headed.”
“Would they have needed to see it happen?”
“Yes, I think so. To see it, under the lights, on the stage, with the audience gasping in shock. That, in my opinion, was as important to this individual as Draco’s death. The thrill of it and the ensuing act. Their own shock and horror, well rehearsed.”
She considered. “It was too well staged not to have been rehearsed. Draco was touted as one of the greatest actors of our time. Killing him was one step. Replacing him, even if only in the killer’s mind, was an essential second.”
“You’re saying it was professionally motivated.”
