Brotherhood in Death (In Death #42)(31)

“You’re leaving?” Eve asked Hank as he came out with them, shut the doors.

“I’ll stick for now, in case. I don’t know what to say. Can I contact her son, her daughter?”

“Go ahead. Make sure you give them my name.” She stepped back on the elevator with Peabody. “Good luck, Hank.”

“She’s scary.” Despite eyes and ears, Peabody blurted it out. “I know people react in all kinds of ways to death notifications, but she’s scary.”

“She is what she is, and we did what we came to do.”

Eve’s head throbbed, a dull but steady beat as she drove toward the Miras’ home. Again, she’d do what she had to do—and didn’t expect anyone to call her a liar or throw a glass. Maybe that’s what made this one harder.

She found street parking just over a block from the pretty townhome. When they got out, started to walk, she stuck her hands in her pockets and found the gloves she’d forgotten about.

At least she hadn’t lost them yet.

“Give Nadine the green.” Rolling her shoulders, she started up the short steps to the front door.

She rang the bell, focused on her approach, the basic procedure. The woman who opened it had Mira’s coloring, Mr. Mira’s lankier build. Gillian, Eve remembered, the Wiccan daughter who lived in . . . yeah, New Orleans.

“Dallas. Hi, Peabody.”

“Hey, Gillian. I didn’t know you were in town.”

“I came in last night. I had a feeling, something off, and contacted my mother. So here I am.”

“It’s nice to see you, even given.”

Gillian smiled at Peabody, stepped back. “The same for you. Mom and Dad are in the living room. This is hard on him, so don’t you be.”

“We were figuring on hauling him down to Central in restraints where we keep the saps and rubber hoses.”

Gillian just gave Eve a cool stare with her mother’s eyes. “Let me take your coats.”

She did her hostess duty, then led them in.

They’d lit a fire, and the Miras sat together on the sofa in the pretty room much as they had at the crime scene. He looked tired, Eve thought, and felt a pang of guilt knowing she would add to the strain.

“Cops in the house,” Gillian said, but lightly, before she walked over to sit on the arm of the sofa by her father.

United front.

“We’re sorry, Mr. Mira,” Eve began, “for your loss.”

“Thank you. Edward and I . . . our relationship wasn’t what it had been, but I remember the boy he was. The boys we were together. It was a hard death?”

He looked at her with those kind green eyes. She wanted to lie to him, give him that much. But she couldn’t spare him. “Yes, it was.”

“It’s odd, even with Charlotte’s work, and knowing what people can and will do to people, you never expect it to happen to one of your own. Despite our differences, Edward was my family. You’ve spoken to Mandy?”

“We were just there.”

“She won’t answer her ’link,” Mira explained. “Dennis is concerned about her.”

“She . . .” How to put it? Eve wondered.

“Her personal security was contacting her children,” Peabody put in.

“That’s good.” He patted Gillian’s knee. “They’re a comfort. I know she’s a difficult woman. You’re too polite to say.”

“I’m not all that polite,” Eve said, making him laugh, just a little.

“I’ll bet you haven’t had lunch.”

The segue threw Eve off balance. “We aren’t really—”

“You have to eat. I’m going to make sandwiches.”

“Mr. Mira, I’m sorry, but we need to ask you some questions. I need to interview you, on the record. I need to read you your rights.”

“You’re not treating him like a suspect.” Gillian shoved off the arm of the sofa, an arrow yanked from the quiver.

“Gillian, I explained this to you.” Mira rubbed Dennis’s thigh, rose. “It’s procedure, and has to be done.”

“I don’t care about procedure.”

“I have to,” Eve said, then looked at Dennis. “I’m sorry. I have to.”

“Of course you do. But you also need to eat. We can do this in the kitchen while I make sandwiches.”

“Dad, I made soup, remember?”

“That’s right, of course, that’s right.” He got to his feet in his baggy green cardigan and tousled hair. “Gilly makes wonderful soup. It’s potato leek, isn’t it?”

“Chicken and rice.”

“That’s right. Potato leek was last time. Soup’s a comfort,” he said to Eve. “We could all use it.”

Eve couldn’t say no, just couldn’t make herself draw the hard line with him. So she ended up in the big kitchen with the comfort of soup scenting the air, sitting across from him in the breakfast nook with the winter sun eking pale through the windows.

“You eat a bit first, both of you,” he said when Gillian set bowls in front of them. “Charlie tells me that nice young policeman was promoted today.”

“Trueheart. He got his detective’s shield.”