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“Not a tux.”
“Again good, because she’d probably dog him for that, too. You aren’t going to tell me,” she decided after a moment.
“If you don’t like what Leonardo designed for the occasion, you can choose something else. I hope you won’t.” He kissed her hand again. “I’ve seen the holographic image, and you’ll look amazing.”
“If I’m going to look so amazing after I put it on, why do I need an hour and a half with Trina slathering stuff all over me first?”
He gave her hand a squeeze, then a quick pat. “I stay out of such matters—for my own well-being.”
“I’m not going to think about it. That’s tomorrow, and this is now, and who knows anyway?”
“Succinctly put.”
“Shut up. Money for you, murder for me.” She rose, bent over, kissed him. “And, I guess, for us it doesn’t get much better.”
• • •
She sat at her desk, coffee at the ready, her board in full view. And went back to the beginning.
She brought the crime scene reconstruction on screen, studied the two figures, the angles, the arc of the first blow, the second.
To be thorough, she checked her notes, found Sima’s statement, rechecked Alla Coburn’s. The two women known to have had access to the bedroom both stated the vic’s latest trophy stood prominently on the bureau.
So the reconstruction held from her point of view. As did the probability—97.4 percent—the murder was the impulse and passion of the moment.
A man, approximately six feet in height—or a woman of that height or in heels that lifted her to it.
Unless Sima had been standing on a box, that left her out. And however Eve felt personally about Trina, she couldn’t see the hair-and-skin monster beating a guy’s head in because he’d dissed a friend.
Coburn. Possible if she’d worn five-inch heels, which strangely women did. But then why leave so much evidence tying her to the scene? Panic? Possible. But writing a note, getting a knife from the kitchen, jamming that knife into a dead body, didn’t speak of panic.
If a woman had the cold blood for that, she had enough control to grab her bra and her shoes.
Still . . . Eve played with her notes. Would that same woman be clever enough to leave incriminating evidence behind as a kind of cover? A stretch, Eve thought. Something to weigh in, but she just hadn’t gotten shrewd calculation from Alla Coburn.
Lill Byers, the vic’s supervisor. Absolutely no evidence she’d had anything but a professional relationship with the victim. Physically, she’d fit. Height, strength, and she’d have known the vic’s address. She’d known at least some of what he did on the side.
Possible kickback? Vic pays her a percentage of his side business in order to run it smoothly out of the facility. She wants more, they argue over it, she loses it.
Weak, Eve thought, just weak. And the computer agreed with her at a 53.6 probability.
David “Rock” Britton. About the right height, certainly strong enough. Motive and potential opportunity with the lack of an alibi.
The computer liked him, she noted, with a probability of nearly ninety percent. But the computer hadn’t looked in his eyes. If he’d gone after Ziegler, he’d have used his fists.
The fashion blogger. Tall enough, fit enough. And if her previous experience with date rape held true, more than enough motive. Somebody got away with it once, by Christ, this fucker wasn’t getting away with it.
So motive, no alibi, physically able.
Eve rose, walked around her board, rearranged some photos, some data.
She sat again, studied it again.
Of that group, the blogger went to the top. The flourish of the note, the knife? Yeah, she could see it. Insult to injury.
Martella Schubert. Delicate—but that was personality more than physicality. She seemed delicate, a little on the fragile side. Monied, pampered—and there was always power in money. Taken at face value, her statement indicated she hadn’t known she’d been dosed, felt guilty for betraying her marriage.
And, taken at face value, her statement could indicate she felt guilty enough to confront the vic, argue with him. He wants more money to keep their tryst a secret. She loses it.
