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Roarke gestured them to sit. “Summerset made them up, thinking you might enjoy a bit of home.”
“Fuel up,” Eve advised. “After this, the party’s over.”
“Tattie scones,” McNab said again, and dived in.
Tattie scones weren’t half bad, Eve discovered. Nor was eating them the morning after a big party with Peabody and McNab. She let the postgame analysis—as she thought of it—run its course with discussion, comments, opinions on who wore what, who did what—and with whom—who said what.
It was an oddity, really, just how much gossip could be distilled over a full Irish.
“I’m still trying to process my reaction to seeing Dickhead doing the sexy dance,” Peabody commented.
“I never want to hear the words Dickhead and sexy dance in any sort of conjunction again. Seriously,” Eve added. “That’s an order. Moving forward.”
She gestured to the board. “Copley remains top of the list. He fits the profile, his financial records demonstrate greed and deception, and indicate potential payoffs. His initials are listed on the vic’s spreadsheet with amounts that correlate to said payoffs.”
“Giving him motive,” Peabody agreed. “But then since Ziegler was the man a whole lot of people loved to hate, a whole lot of people had motive.”
“Accurate. Now look at the method. Two hard, and we believe enraged, impulsive shots with a handy blunt instrument. That’s where I bump down several of the whole lot of people. Rock could have pummeled him into paste—and if the vic showed any injuries from a fight, a beating, we’d be looking hard at him. Lance Schubert doesn’t show up on the spreadsheet, but he might have learned about the vic having sex with his wife, confronted him. But my personal probability index says Schubert would’ve gotten in a punch or two, and straight off. Have it out straight off rather than heading back to the bedroom while the vic packed.”
She pushed away from the table before she ate more bacon just because it was there. “McNab, what did you do when you thought—mistakenly—Charles had bounced on Peabody.”
“I punched him.” McNab danced his fingers up Peabody’s arm. “That’s all five-by-five now.”
“Because he hadn’t bounced on her, and because Charles is a reasonable sort of guy. But my point is, your first impulse was fist in the face. Schubert strikes me as the same, and I don’t see him letting it rest with his wife, who just doesn’t have the guile to lie to me about him knowing. Still, he’s not off the hook.”
“Vic asks him to come by,” Peabody speculated. “Tells him to try to extort money for keeping it quiet.”
“Exactly. Instant rage. Grab the handy blunt object. And end it with the flourish. The flourish fits him, and it fits Copley. What Copley doesn’t have is Schubert’s sense of self-worth. Schubert doesn’t have Copley’s greed, or his pattern of going after wealthy women, cheating on them, cashing in on them.
“Copley’s reaction, to my mind, would run like: Jesus, he took Ziegler to his club, treated him to golf and drinks and all that. Even though Ziegler’s so obviously socially and financially inferior. He did him favors, and what does he get? Blackmailed. It’s gone on long enough, time to take charge, time to show this asshole who’s top dog. He loses his temper, which is also pattern, grabs the weapon, because he’s not the type who goes into a fight fair. Now look what Ziegler made him do. But it’s not enough. Ziegler humiliated him, so he’ll return the favor.”
“Smarter, wouldn’t it have been, to toss the place a bit?” Sitting back, Roarke lingered over coffee, as comfortable with cop and murder talk as he was with business and finance. “Take some of the valuables, make it appear to have been a burglary or a confrontation with someone who’d take some profit from it.”
“He’s not smart, that’s the thing. Cagey maybe, but that’s different. And he needed to get the knife in—literally, figuratively—to boost his own ego.”
She circled the board. “Then again . . . Charles mentioned something last night when I talked through this with him. Knife in the heart. Maybe it’s a stretch, but it could mean a romantic connection.”
“Back to the girlfriends?” McNab speculated.
“I don’t see it, just don’t, but I’d like you to look a little closer there if Feeney can spare you. Sima’s covered. She was with several people in a public place when Ziegler was killed, but you could pry the lid off Alla Coburn, and take a pass at some of the women who paid him for sex.”
“There’s always time to take a pass at women,” McNab said and got Peabody’s elbow in his side for his trouble.
“If it was sex—just sex—the symbolism would’ve been knife in the balls, so if we play that tune, it’s romance, emotion, not just sex. Peabody, you and I are going to play both angles today. Enraged husband and/or blackmail vic, infatuated married female. And the third angle of undermining the married females enough to spill on the enraged husband. If it applies.”
“Natasha Quigley, Martella Schubert.”
“Yeah, we’re going to split it, save time—and alter the approach. You take Schubert. She’s softer, more vulnerable, more naive. She’ll respond to your gentle, sympathetic approach. You tell her how you once had romantic feelings for an LC.”
“I didn’t! Not exactly. Just . . . I just . . .”
“Play it,” Eve insisted, “if playing it gets you in. You’re going to talk to her on your day off, just to get a clear picture because your partner’s pushing the angle her husband found out there’d been sex, and moved on Ziegler even before it came out the sex hadn’t been consensual due to drugging. If that’s not the approach, you’ll find another.”
“Maybe, if it seems playable, I can hint around that I think Copley’s more likely. The just-between-us bit, and it looks like Copley was paying Ziegler blackmail money. The sisters seemed pretty tight, so if she thinks her sister’s husband could be a killer, she might open up more, to protect the sister.”
“That’s not bad.” Eve paused, studied Martella Schubert’s face on her board. “That’s not bad. If she has any dirt on Copley she’s more likely to give it to you. Give it a try. Let’s see if we can bring this to a head.”
“And you’ll take Quigley.”
