Brotherhood in Death (In Death #42)(51)

“All right then. Let me take the senator’s children. Your instinct says they’re not a part of this, so you won’t waste time looking into them.”

“Or relating.”

“Or that.”

“Okay, then I can start at the top of my list.”

She looked back at the board, and Carlee MacKensie.





10


At her desk, she brought up her incomings, found Peabody’s verification of all alibis, right down the line. Considering, she decided rather than starting with MacKensie, she’d do a run on Downing’s alibi.

Lydia Su.

Make that Dr. Lydia Su, Eve discovered. Biophysicist, on staff at Lotem Institute of Science and Technology, New York. Age thirty-three, single. Asian—Korean and Chinese. One sib, a sister, four years younger—a linguist, Eve noted, living in London. Parents married thirty-five years—a nice run, in Eve’s opinion. Father a neurosurgeon, mother also a scientist. Nanotech.

So, Eve thought, highly motivated, highly intelligent, highly educated family.

Well-educated in Lydia Su’s case, Eve read, at Yale.

“Interesting. Isn’t that interesting?”

But then a lot of really smart people, rich people, motivated people went to Yale.

Still . . .

Following the line, she toggled back to check where Charity Downing had studied art. NYU, she noted, not Yale.

It nagged at her enough to have her checking the education data on every name on the list.

No other Yale connection.

Until she scraped off a few more layers.

Coincidence equals bollocks, she thought and, shoving up from her desk, strode into Roarke’s office.

“I believe your instincts on your victim’s children are on target,” he began. Then glanced up, saw her face. “And you have something.”

“Yale.”

“An honorable and prestigious institution.”

“The vic went there.”

“Yes, I recall. It would have been nearly a half century ago.”

“That’s a long time, but I have two connections to Yale through my sidepiece list. Downing’s alibi did her undergraduate work there—she’s a biophysicist, whatever the hell that is. Mixed race Asian, from a smart, successful family.”

“I have to mention that a considerable number of people from smart, successful families have attended Yale in the past half century.”

“Yeah, and another one of them’s Carlee MacKensie. Partial scholarship, did one semester and dropped out.”

“Which also happens quite a bit, but—” He sat back. “It’s interesting, isn’t it, that with all the universities out there, you’d cross the same one three times in such a small group.”

“A numbers geek like you could probably run the odds, but let’s just say interesting for now. I went a little deeper.”

She eased a hip onto his workstation. “All that crap about your permanent record’s pretty serious. Her grades were stellar.” Eve held a hand, palm down, over her head. “She’d had two short stories published in literary venues before she turned twenty. And after two months into Yale, the grades?” Eve dropped her hand. “Totally tanked it. And, yeah, that happens, too. She managed, over the next five years, to get a degree from an online college, and she’s eked out a living freelancing. But no more high-class literary venues.”

Considering, Roarke picked up the bottle of water on his desk, gestured with it. “Devil’s advocate must point out, this also happens far too often—that early peak and fall. And she would have attended Yale, however briefly, some four decades after your victim.”

“Maybe, but coincidence is bollocks, and it’s more bollocks it doesn’t pertain. Another big scoop of bollocks that one name on the list has another Yale attendee as her alibi. And how does an artist who works in a SoHo gallery get to be pals with a scientist who’s on staff in a fancy uptown R&D center? Where’s the common ground?”

He offered her the water, got a head shake, drank some himself. “Some might ask the same about you and Mavis.”

“She was on the grift. I arrested her. Cop, criminal, common ground.” She held up two fingers as she spoke, tapped them together. Then pointed them at him. “Just like you and me, ace.”

“I feel obliged to point out you never arrested me—nor did any other cop.”

“Being slick doesn’t negate the common ground. Is it thin?” She swiveled to face him more directly. “I’ll give you it’s thin, but it’s there. Add on the fact that the vic went through sidepieces like Feeney goes through candied almonds, and those odds of paths crossing. Maybe you show Su’s ID shot to your people at the hotel. Maybe she’s another of his affairs. I link that, not so thin.”

“I can do that.”

“Can’t see the motive, not yet. These women chose to have sex with him. He didn’t hold a stunner to their throats. Every single one stated it was consensual, and I’m betting any others I turn up will say the same. Not a single one of them showed or expressed any genuine affection for him, so thwarted passion doesn’t click. And if any of them worked as partners, and that’s going to slide in when I figure it all out, jealousy doesn’t play.

“‘Justice is served,’” she murmured. “For what? What crime, what sin, what wrong? That’s the motive. So it’s back to the vic.”