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“She did? She is? How do you know?”
“Plenty of tells. Look, if you don’t want to deal with her, you can leave with me and Peabody. We’ll get you home.”
“No, it’s chilly. A spread in Outre’s like my fantasy. And it’ll give a boost to my disc sales. Won’t hurt Leonardo’s biz either. It cooks for all of us. We did good, right?”
“We did good.”
“Night or day, day or night. Hey, what do you think about Vignette or Vidal?”
“What are they?”
“My baby. Vignette for a girl, Vidal for a boy. They’re French. We’re experimenting with French names, and I ditched Fifi. I mean, who names a kid Fifi?”
Eve didn’t know who might name a kid Vignette either, but made a noncommittal mouth noise.
“Somebody will call her Viggy,” Peabody said. “Which rhymes with piggy, so she’ll be Piggy Viggy in school.”
Mavis looked horrified. “You think? Deep-six Vignette.” She gave her belly a comforting rub. “Plenty of time to come up with something else. Catch you later.” She swung back into Julietta’s office.
“Impressions, Peabody?” Eve asked as they rode down.
“She looks great, and she’ll come up with something better than Vignette or Vidal.”
“About Julietta Gates, you moron.”
“I know, I just wanted to annoy you. Sir,” she added when Eve looked at her. “Used to running the show, and likes it. Dresses for power even more than style. Ambitious. She’d have to be to have gotten where she is at her age. Strikes me as a little cold-blooded. There’s no zing when she talks about her kid. That was a good catch with the extramarital. Blew right by me. Then when you said it, and I played it back, it was right there. The way her voice changed, the body language.”
“And from the way her face flushed up, I’d say the voice on the other end was letting her know a few games they’d be playing at their one o’clock today. I’m going to want to confirm the dish on the side, in case we need to push on her later.”
“We going to surveil?”
“No, don’t want to risk her spotting either one of us this close to our little interview. I’ll see if Baxter can handle it. How much does a kid like hers talk?”
“At that age, they rarely shut up. Hardly anybody but immediate family can understand them, but it doesn’t stop them from talking.”
“She met her side piece on Sunday, you can take that to the vault. And she had the kid with her. Wouldn’t he tattle to daddy?”
“She probably told him it was a secret.”
“Huh.” This was foreign territory, so she took Peabody at her word. “Kids keep secrets?”
“No, but she doesn’t strike me as the type who knows her own kid very well. And the boy seems pretty tight with his dad. My best guess is he kept the secret until she was out of hearing, then blabbed. Daddy, me and Mommy and Uncle Side Dish played on the swings, but it’s a secret.”
Eve let it play in her head, and nodded. “And I doubt it’s the first time. Daddy knows what’s going on, and wouldn’t that irritate him? Wouldn’t he be a bit put out? Here he is, staying at home watching the kid, taking care of the house, while she’s running around town—and Europe—with some other guy. Playing with some other guy with his son in tow. Yeah, that’s a real pisser.
“Mother and whore,” she said as they got back into the vehicle. “We keep coming back to that. No problem for him to get out of the house for either murder, and he might’ve picked up the writing paper—paying cash—on his spring trip to London. Hell, the paper could’ve been a gift from a fan for that matter. And he decided it fit the bill. He knows the prototype murders as well as the initial killers.”
“Means, motive, opportunity.”
“Yeah, Thomas A. just jumped to the top of our list.”
Chapter 15
Eve had barely disconnected with Baxter when her communicator signaled. Whitney’s face filled the screen.
“He’ll see you at ten forty-five. Make it good.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
