Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(12)

“Okay, this is a good start. I appreciate the quick work.”

“I’m sorry to see such young talent snuffed out,” Morris said. “Who knows what she might have created in an uninterrupted life span.”

“I get what you’re thinking,” Peabody said when they walked out.

“What am I thinking?”

“That Gwen Huffman was cheating on her fiancé with the victim.”

“It could play. Side piece way downtown. Keep her out of your neighborhood, your social circle. She knows the fiancé’s tied up for the evening, the night. Sitting could be their code for a romp. She doesn’t come empty-handed. The wine, the flowers. Huffman’s careful. After the wedding planning, she goes home. I bet the security feed’s going to show she changed. Then she doesn’t have the doorman get her a cab, or call her car service. Doesn’t want any possible record of her trip to the West Village.”

“Walks a couple blocks, hails one. Maybe gets out a couple blocks before Byrd’s place.”

“There you go,” Eve agreed. “Wine and flowers. We’re going to have uniforms check on that because she’d have bought them close to Byrd’s.

“Have some wine,” Eve continued as they got into the car. “Have some sex, some more wine, maybe some more sex.”

“And the fiancé texts!” Into it now, Peabody shot up a hand. “How are you going to feel when you’re all soft and snuggly and the woman all soft and snuggly with you gets a text from her fiancé?”

“Irritated. More irritated right up to pissed when your bedmate answers the text, then spends time texting back and forth with you right there.”

“I’m liking this now. I’m seeing this now.” Because she did, Peabody wiggled a little in her seat. “Byrd’s like, ‘This is supposed to be our time, but you bring him here. I’m tired of being a convenience to you.

“And it escalates. Maybe Byrd even threatens to tell the fiancé.”

“But if Huffman was home at TOD—”

“It’s a fine alibi. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t know another way out. Fire exit, staff exit. We’re going to check. You’re steamed.” Eve continued with the scenario. “If Byrd goes to Caine, it’s over. Maybe you can convince him it’s a lie, or was a mistake. But maybe he calls off the wedding, dumps you. You come home, establish you’re in, find a way out again you don’t think we’ll think of or bother to look for. Go back, go in—because you’ve got a key card, you’ve damn well got one. Bash her head in.”

“Then you go back in the morning, pick up the takeout to cover yourself, because you’ve realized you might have left prints. But … why don’t you get rid of the wineglasses, the sheets?”

“Not as smart as she thinks she is.” Eve tapped her fingers on the wheel. “Or, in the hard light of day, looking at your dead lover with her head bashed in really does shock you. And you run. Then, because you panicked, you have to cover as best you can. You come up with a plausible story, call nine-one-one, and put on a show.”

“It’s a good theory.”

“But that’s all it is. With as many holes in it as there are in her story. Do a run, see if her prints and DNA are on file.”

Eve hunted up parking again, this time for the lab, and scored a second-level street spot nearly at the door.

“A day of miracles.”

“Not if you want her prints and DNA. Which is kind of weird because both her parents—married thirty-one years—are doctors. Mother an ob-gyn, father a general surgeon. They ought to know better. Parents’ prints—not DNA—on record at Mercy Clinic, where they both work—hold that, own as well as work—and where all staff are required to have prints on file. Her older sibling—that’s Trace Huffman, twenty-nine—resides in Vegas, has both his on file, due to an arrest for drunk and disorderly—underage drinking—and possession of illegals when he was sixteen. Second arrest, at twenty-three, in Vegas, for simple assault. Bar fight, charges dropped.

“He goes by Trace D. Huff. He’s a musician-slash-performer-slash-songwriter.”

“We’ll poke at the holes in Huffman’s story,” Eve said as they walked into the warren of the lab. “And widen them enough to get her prints and DNA.”

She glanced up the steps that led to DeWinter’s territory.

“Take Dickhead, see if he’s got anything for us.”

“I don’t have anything to bribe him with.”

“Use charm. I’m going up to see if DeWinter knows any more about the victim.”

She found DeWinter examining what might have been a tibia from the carefully arranged bones on a worktable.

She’d contained her hair in a sleek twist and wore short, sparkly dangles at her ears. Her lab coat matched the deep pink tone of her body-skimming dress. Her shoes, a creamy white, boasted deep pink, needle-thin heels.

She studied the bone with a magnifier, had started to reach for goggles when she spotted Eve.

“Dallas.”

“DeWinter.”

They still tended to be wary of each other. Eve figured they probably always would.

“And what can I do for you?”

“I want to ask you what you can tell me about a victim.”