Vendetta in Death (In Death #49)(32)

“That’s not true.” Flushes of color, high and bright, rode her cheekbones. “I won’t have you slander my husband, the father of my children. I won’t have it.”

Blind eye, Eve thought. Deliberately, desperately blind.

“We’ve confirmed, with evidence and with firsthand accounts, what he did, where he did it, and in many cases already with whom. You were aware of his proclivities, Ms. McEnroy. Attempting to protect your husband now also protects his killer. It’s my job, my duty, my purpose to find his killer and bring that individual to justice.”

“Do you think I care about your duty?” Her voice pitched high as the color on her cheeks. “You’d destroy a man’s reputation for your duty? Destroy his family?”

“Your husband hunted women for sport,” Eve snapped out. “He used them like toys. He drugged them, and in many cases brought them to your bed, recording the sex for his private library—and to humiliate them, to prevent them from taking action against him. Were you unaware of this?”

“You’re lying!” She hissed it out, a venomous snake with terrified eyes. “You’re a liar.”

“Geena.” Roarke spoke softly even as Francie rushed over to sit on the arm of Geena’s chair, wrap an arm around her. “This is a terrible time for you, and these are horrendous shocks, one after another. Someone killed your husband out of a twisted sense of justice that is in reality revenge. The lieutenant’s purpose is justice. She’ll stand for your husband, work to find the person who took him from you and your children.”

“She’s saying terrible things about him.”

“You loved him very much. That only made it more difficult for you, more painful when he was unfaithful. You understood, through all that, he loved you and your children.”

“He did! He did!” Weeping now, she buried her face against Francie. “He wasn’t perfect. None of us is perfect. He had a weakness, but he fought it. For me, for the girls, he fought it. And he stopped. He swore to me he stopped.”

“You have some tea.” Gently, Francie drew away, picked up the cup to press it on Geena. “Dry your eyes now and have some tea.”

“He was so attractive, you see. Women were drawn to him,” Geena claimed as she obeyed and dabbed her face with a tissue. “And with his weakness he sometimes … He faltered. It shamed him, and he struggled. But in the last year, he renewed his vows to me, and kept them. He swore it. And he never used drugs, he never touched illegals. He’d have no need to use them on a woman. He was magnetic.”

Eve let that slide for the moment. “Did you speak with anyone about this aspect of your marriage? The difficulties you had when your husband faltered?”

“No one. Francie,” she corrected, reaching for Francie’s hand, gripping it. “She’s family, and more of a mother to me than my own.”

“Anyone else? A friend, a therapist, a doctor?”

“It was no one’s business but ours. It is no one’s business but ours. If you try to say he did these things, used illegals on women, brought them into my home, I’ll sue you for slander. Do you hear me? I’ll go to your superior and have you fired.”

Eve let the fury, and the fear behind it, roll off her. Duty, she thought, couldn’t always be kind and patient.

Could rarely be either.

“Would you like to see one of the vids? He liked redheads, curvy ones. He kept date rape illegals locked in his office. Did he ever use them on you, with or without your consent?”

Shock came first, stripping even a hint of color out of Geena’s face. But her eyes went hard. “How dare you?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“He did not. My husband loved me. Why are you trying to destroy what I have left of him?”

“Someone knew his habits, his routines, and used that knowledge to lure him to his death. If you told no one, someone else did or one of the women he used sought and found her revenge. If you lie to me, or hide information that relates to the investigation, you’re obstructing that investigation. If you knew of and/or participated in his use of illegals for sexual compliance and deny same, you’re obstructing.”

“I say you’re a liar, a woman so blinded by ambition she would smear a good man, a family man, a father, to further those ambitions.” Fury forced color back into her face as she surged to her feet. “I want you out of my home, and I’ll see to it you’re removed from this investigation if not removed from the NYPSD over this vicious vendetta you’re waging against my husband.”

“Geena,” Francie began, but Geena shook her head.

“Get them out. Get them out,” she repeated, and rushed to the stairs, all but sprinted up them.

“I’m very sorry.” Francie twisted her hands together. “She’s not herself. Understandably. I’ll talk to her, but I can assure you she knew none of this. He was so attentive, so loving to her and the girls.”

“But you knew.”

“Not about the illegals. I swear it. She’s like a daughter to me, and those girls are my grandchildren in all but blood. If I’d known, I’d have told her. I’d have found a way. I allowed myself to believe he’d turned a corner and was faithful, but there were signs I ignored because Geena and the girls were happy.”