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“Sure. Sawing them off right beside me, but in a delicate, ladylike manner.”
“You think you get points for witty remarks in here, Tom?”
“Can’t hurt.”
Saying nothing, Eve shifted her gaze to Peabody.
“Well, yeah,” Peabody responded. “If you piss her off, it can hurt. Trust me.”
“Are you going to do the good cop/bad cop gambit?” He rocked back in his chair, balancing it casually on its back legs. “I’ve studied all the basic interrogation techniques. I can never figure out why that one works. I mean, come on, it’s the oldest one in the books.”
“No, the oldest one in the books is where I take you into a private room and during our little chat you trip and somehow manage to break your face.”
He continued to rock while he studied Eve. “I don’t think so. You’ve got an attitude for sure, and some innate violent tendencies, but you don’t pound on suspects. Too much integrity. You’re a good cop.”
He spoke earnestly now, obviously high on his own intellect and intuition. “The kind that digs in and doesn’t let go because you believe. More than anything else you believe in the spirit of the law, maybe not the letter, but the spirit. Maybe you take shortcuts now and then, stuff that doesn’t find its way into your official reports, but you’re careful about the lines—the ones you cross, the ones you don’t. And beating confessions out of suspects isn’t one of your shortcuts.”
Now he looked at Peabody. “Nailed her, didn’t I?”
“Mr. Breen, you couldn’t nail the lieutenant if you made the attempt your life’s work. She’s beyond your scope.”
“Oh, come on.” He gave an irritated little twist of his lips. “You just don’t want to admit I’m as good at this sort of game as you are. Listen, when you study murder, you don’t just study murderers, you study cops.”
“And victims?” Eve put in.
“Sure, and victims.”
“All that studying, researching, analyzing, writing . . . that would hone your observational skills, wouldn’t it?”
“Writers are born observers. It’s what we do.”
“So when you’re writing about crime, you’re writing about who committed it, who it happened to, who investigated it, and so on. In essence, you’re writing about people. You know people.”
“That’s right.”
“An observant guy like you, you’d pick up on nuances, on habits, on what people think, how they behave, what they do.”
“Right again.”
“So, being so observant, so in tune with human nature and behavior, you wouldn’t have missed the fact that your wife’s out having chick sex while you’re at home playing horsey with your kid.”
That wiped the smug look off his face as if she’d hit a delete button. What replaced it was the shock that turned the skin shiny white before the heat of humiliation and rage bloomed.
“You’ve got no right to say something like that.”
“Come on, Tom, your amazing powers of observation haven’t failed you inside your own little castle where a man is king. You know what she’s been up to. Or maybe I should say down on.”
“Shut up.”
“It’s gotta be a pisser, doesn’t it?” Shaking her head, Eve rose, strolled around the table to lean over his shoulder, to speak directly in his ear. “She doesn’t even have the courtesy to fuck another guy while you’re home playing mommy. What does that say about you, Tom? The sex was so boring she decided to see what it was like in the other end of the pool? Doesn’t say much for your equipment, does it?”
“I said shut up! I don’t have to listen to this kind of crap.”
Fists balled, he pushed up from the chair. Eve shoved him down again. “Yeah, you do. Your wife wasn’t at a meeting the night Jacie Wooton was slaughtered. She was with her lover, her female lover. You know that, don’t you, Tom? You know she’s been sneaking off, cheating on you for nearly two years. How do you feel about that, Tom? How does it feel to know she wants another woman, loves another woman, gives herself to another woman while you’re raising the son you made together, keeping the house together, being more of a wife than she ever was?”
“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.”
