Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(18)

Peabody eased a hip on the corner of the desk. “Someone with those qualities could, on impulse or out of self-preservation, kill, and without much remorse, if any. But.”

“Yeah, but, current evidence indicates Huffman was tucked up in her apartment at the time of the murder. New information, however, tells us the Huffmans are part of the whacked fringe group Natural Order.”

“Members of which have been known to use violence. The group leadership disavows violence,” Peabody added, “but.”

“Yeah, but again, the violence happens. Huffman’s pissed, slams out of Byrd’s apartment. Maybe she doesn’t secure the door. Maybe being pissed, knowing Byrd could threaten her cushy life and splashy wedding, she contacts someone she knows is capable of violence, of murder. Possibly she spins them a story—she’d be good at it—or possibly she tells them the truth, depending on her connection with this person.”

“I’m liking this.” Eyes on the board, Peabody nodded. “What if she contacts someone, spins that story, a little weepy, a little desperate, and asks them to go put a scare into Byrd, threaten her so she’ll back off.”

“Not bad,” Eve considered. “It could tie in with her going back in the morning. Lattes and muffins, let’s make up. Let’s be friends. Sees the body, realizes things went too far. Now she has to figure out how to get herself out of it, how to manipulate the situation so she’s just an innocent bystander.”

“We’ve got her on her relationship with Byrd. I bet it’s her DNA on the sheets, her prints.”

“And pubic hair,” Eve added. “Harvo came through.”

“So did the uniforms,” Peabody added. “We have her buying the wine, the flowers two blocks from Byrd’s residence—when she claims to have been urban strolling uptown. The statements, from both vendors who ID’d her, is she comes in at least once a week, always pays cash.”

“She doesn’t want a paper trail. But she had to cobble all this together fast. She didn’t have time to polish all the details. She’s in this, Peabody. Maybe she swung that mallet, maybe not. But she’s in this.”

“Want me to have her picked up?”

Eve shook her head. “Let’s play it this way. Contact her. She’ll remember you as sympathetic. Request she come in to sign an official statement. Let it slip we’re looking at this as a botched burglary. That’ll take the pressure off her so she may not knee-jerk into tagging her fiancé. And he can’t spend all day with her if he’s prepping for a court case, can he?”

“Which he is, that’s confirmed. He and five others worked in the conference room at the law firm until after midnight. Nobody left. They ordered food in—twice. And the wedding planner confirms the meeting with Huffman. They met at about eleven-thirty, parted ways about quarter to two.”

“Which gave Huffman plenty of time to shop for sexy underwear.”

“A Merry Widow—that’s a kind of corsety thing—white silk with red rose accents, matching G-string, and a bottle of their Allure Me perfume. Time-stamped receipt—totaling thirty-eight hundred and change—at fourteen-forty-seven. She charged it.

“Oh,” Peabody added, “she’s a regular.”

“Contact her. I’m looking forward to watching her try to swim through her sea of lies.”

Peabody pushed off the desk. “On it. You know, Dallas, it couldn’t’ve been easy for Shelby to tell you all that really personal stuff. She stands up.”

“Agreed.”

“And, I’m just saying, I love her new do.”

“Do what?”

“Hair, Dallas, the pixie do with the highlights. It’s a good look for her, but then it would be. She went to Trina.”

“Trina? How does a uniform with barely two years on the job afford Trina?”

“Trina gives a cop discount.”

“Trina gives …” Eve thought of the thoroughly terrifying Trina. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, a solid twenty percent discount at her salon for cops. She started it after the Ziegler investigation last December.” Peabody flipped at her own red-streaked curls. “She said cops—us—stood up for her and her good friend Sima, so she was standing up for cops and making sure they looked damn good. Since Shelby was in on that in the end—Copley resisted and clocked her, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“Trina gave her the new do on the house.”

Peabody went out, leaving Eve frowning after her. A person could be loyal, she thought, even generous, and still be pushy, bossy, scary.

She figured that wrapped Trina up in a bow.

And, putting it aside, went back to work.

As she read over her report to refine it, an incoming interrupted. She saw Feeney’s name, answered.

“Dallas.”

“Shuffled your shit in,” he told her. “No glitch on the security feed. What you see is what was what.”

“Damn it.”

He gave her a half-assed smile. He had a hangdog face with baggy basset-hound eyes. His silver-threaded ginger hair exploded over it.

She caught herself wondering if he took advantage of Trina’s twenty percent.

“Bat five hundred, you’re a baseball star. I can give you the five hundred.”