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“Sometimes cheating’s the hard way.”
She smiled. “Maybe so. Here’s the thing. He—Alex Ricker—he didn’t give it up for her. He expected her to look the other way, and she did, for close to two years. But it couldn’t hold. He didn’t or wouldn’t give it up because he didn’t want her more than anything. She was secondary to him, just as the job was secondary to her. Maybe they had the heat, and maybe they loved each other.”
“But it wasn’t enough.”
“I wondered if we were connected to her murder. I don’t know that yet, but we’re connected to her. We took Max Ricker down, and when we did, the dynamics shifted. The son climbs up a few rungs on the power chain, doesn’t he? Or is free to—”
“Shed the shady,” Roarke finished. “And he didn’t. He didn’t choose that.”
“She had to know, at that crossroads, he never would. She made her choice, because of that. Or it had to play out. The timing just fits too well for the other.”
“He didn’t choose her, she couldn’t choose him.”
“Yeah.” She thought of Coltraine sitting on the slab in the morgue—her badge in her hand, and tears in her eyes. “He didn’t kill her. If she was secondary, what’s the point? He made a choice, she made hers. If he was that miffed about it—because it couldn’t have been about pride and ego—you get crime of passion. Why wait a year, then fuss around with it?”
“Maybe he changed his mind.”
“Yeah, I think he might’ve. At least changed it enough to come here to see her, to gauge the ground. He’d’ve known she was in another relationship. Maybe pride again, with vanity tossed it. He’s got plenty of both. He sees she’s happy, that she’s moved on. That had to sting some, but enough to take her out?”
She shook her head again. It just didn’t play through for her. “He let her go in the first place. And under it, he still doesn’t want her more than he does the life he leads. He’s a businessman—a crooked businessman, but enough of one to know when a deal’s not on the table. There just isn’t enough love there for murder, not cold, premeditated murder.”
“Not for love, or for passion then.” Since she hadn’t gotten any for herself, Roarke offered her his coffee. “If she had something on him, was working for him? Or had been?”
“If she had anything, she kept it to herself during their breakup, after it, and for a year.”
“Why hit her now?” he said as she drank his coffee, passed him back the empty mug.
“I kept pushing there because I was thinking like me, I mean, seeing her as a cop. Not as a woman who’d been in love. If she’d wanted to punish him, she’d have gone after him when her info was hot, when she was hurt or pissed. She was never dirty. She gave back the jewelry.”
“So you said before, but you went back to that possibility.”
“Yeah, because I missed a step, and I guess that’s what nagged at me. It’s not just that she gave back the jewelry, but that she kept the badge. It was just a job, but it was her job. And she kept it. That’s what I missed.”
She pushed up now to think on her feet, to think on the move. “If she wasn’t dirty, wasn’t out for him—and goddamn it, her type would’ve had that documentation we can’t find—and he let her go, all we’ve got between the two of them is a couple of people who decided it didn’t work out, and cut their losses. Not everybody kills over a broken affair.”
She turned back. “The alibi’s too lame. I’ve been fighting that one. If he’d done it or had it done, he’d be covered. It’s not one of those psych things—the smug ‘if I’d known I’d need an alibi, don’t you think I’d have one.’ He’s too neat and tidy not to have one. I kept looking at him and looking at him because his name is Ricker. I’ve wasted time.”
“You haven’t, no. No more than you did last night at Morris’s. You’ve clarified. How could you not look at him, go through all the steps, pick at the pieces? He’s the most logical suspect.”
“Yeah, and that’s . . . Son of a bitch.”
“And just a half step behind you, I’ll ask who’d gain by putting Ricker in your sites as a murder suspect?”
“A competitor. Plenty of bad guys wouldn’t scratch their ass over killing a cop.”
“You’re such a comfort to me,” Roarke murmured.
“I’m smarter than the bad guys. Wasn’t I a half step ahead of you?”
“Only because I gave you the nudge. Still, it isn’t what I’d call an expert frame job.”
“Doesn’t have to be, obviously. I’ve had Ricker on the hot seat since. He had to break down his penthouse, relocate docs, equipment. Cost him time and trouble. You could probably find out if he’s got any hot deals cooking, something this inconvenience is going to tangle up.”
“I probably could.”
“And I’m right back to being focused on him.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “But he’s the only thing that makes sense—that connection is it. She didn’t have any cases with the kind of heat that turns to murder. Nobody in her building had anything going with her, anything against her we can find. And she was going out—that’s how it plays no matter how many times I run it through, turn it around. She was going out, armed. Whoever was on that stairwell was a bad guy or a cop. And a wrong cop’s worse than a bad guy.”
“Someone besides Alex with a cop in his pocket.”
