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“Was it a planned evening?”
“The dinner was; the rest evolved. Like I said, Jack’s social. I’d figured dinner, then home in my pj’s. Marriage is work,” she repeated with a shaky smile. “I guess everyone says this, but I didn’t kill him. Why would I? He was a mistake, but it was my mistake.”
Peabody noted down names and contacts to verify the alibis. They left Asha sitting in her visitor’s chair.
“My impression is she alibied herself and her husband,” Peabody said before Eve could ask.
“Yeah, she did. We’re going to verify, and we’re going to check out the husband, but everything she said rang the truth bell for me. Unless we feel differently after looking at the husband, my sense is if he wanted payback, he’d have killed or attempted to kill the senator way before this.”
They got back in the car. “We’ll take the next.”
“Lauren Canford.”
“Her. Run the husband on the way.”
While Eve bitched about parking in the madness of downtown, and finally resigned herself to the kick-your-ass price of a slot in an underground lot, Peabody reported.
“Family law attorney, does the pro bono thing every Friday in a legal aid clinic. First marriage for him, and no criminal.”
“I’m keeping them on the list.” Eve hiked to the grimy elevator. “But they currently hold last place. What floor is Canford on?”
“Eighteen.”
Eve debated, very briefly, then used her master to bypass the lobby.
“Woo!”
“Tired of dicking around.”
They got off on eighteen to much shinier, and worked their way down to Lauren Canford’s offices.
No casual dress here, Eve noted, and no cheerful noise in the small, glossy outer office.
Eve stepped up to reception and the man in his twenties with a bold blue tie precisely knotted at the base of his really long neck.
“Lauren Canford.”
He didn’t bother to glance up, but continued to work on his screen. “Your name?”
Eve put her badge on the counter. He glanced at it, briefly.
“I’ll also need your name.”
“It’s on the badge, right there with NYPSD. My partner and I need to speak with Lauren Canford.”
“Mrs. Canford’s in meetings all day.”
“Kid?”
He did look up at her now, all bored resentment. “One of those meetings is going to be with me, unless you want to be the one to inform Mrs. Canford that we’ll have that meeting at Central at the end of her workday. I can arrange to have it in one of our Interview rooms.”
“I don’t believe you have the authority to—”
“Law school, right? You want to test my authority, Junior?” She leaned in close. “Try it.”
Resentment went to sulk as he tapped his earpiece, swiveled around to give her his back. He muttered, but she caught police, threatened, bitch.
She found those three words very satisfying.
