Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(25)

“I never did any such thing.”

“Prove it. Let’s see your ’link.”

“You want my ’link? Fine.” In a jerky movement, Gwen pulled it out of her handbag.

Eve took one look, held out her hand, turned the shining gold ’link over. “This looks brand-new. Doesn’t this look—what is it?—brand-spanking-new, Peabody?”

“It sure does.”

“Are we going to find out you bought this ’link today, Gwen?”

“So what?”

“Where’s your old one?”

“Recycled. It had texts on it to and from Ariel, and I realized if Merit saw them, he’d wonder. It was my personal property.”

“Destroying evidence. We’ll add that to the list. Who’d you tag on the other ’link? Who did you tell about Ariel?”

“No one. No one. No one.” She banged her hands on the table with each denial. “My parents could cut me off like they did my brother if they find out about any of this. Merit will call off the wedding.”

“And those are very strong motives to kill the person who knows all of it.”

“I was in my apartment.”

“Yeah, got me there. For now. And for now, Gwendolyn Huffman, you’re under arrest for—”

“What! You said you’d help me if I told you the truth.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t. Not all of it. You’ve had plenty of experience, and it’s debatable who seduced whom from where I’m sitting.”

Eve pushed off the table. “She meant nothing to you, nobody does. At least not nearly what you mean to yourself. The door of her apartment wasn’t unsecured, you weren’t in shock. You calculated every step of this.

“Now you’re under arrest, for leaving a crime scene, lying to the police, destroying evidence. We’ll hold the murder charge for the moment, but, believe me, we’re working on it.”

“You can’t do this!”

“Done.”

“I want my lawyer.”

“You’re free to use your spanking-new ’link to contact him once you’re booked. Peabody, would you take Ms. Huffman where she very much needs to go?”

“Happy to.”

“I won’t go with you!”

“Easy to add resisting to the mix,” Eve said. “In fact, it would be some nice icing.”

She cried now, and there was nothing pretty about it. And kept crying as Peabody led her out.

“Interview end.”

Eve gathered her files. She stepped out to wait for Shelby.

She watched Carmichael give Shelby a squeeze on the shoulder, then peel off toward the bullpen.

“My office,” Eve said.

“I’m not worried about anybody hearing about this, sir.”

“My office is better.”

But this time when they went in, Eve didn’t close the door.

“Thoughts, Shelby?”

“First thought is it’s an education to watch you and Peabody work in the box, so I appreciate the opportunity.”

“Is that sucking up?”

“It’s pure truth. You didn’t need me in Observation to separate her lies from the truth when she tried to fold them together to her benefit. You nailed her there. I want to say, from my own experience, she’s sexually aggressive. She likes to be in charge, so it’s unlikely the victim seduced her. She was making a lot of that up on the fly, and when she does that—or did back in the day—she tends to talk faster, tap her foot. She was doing that.

“But I think she was telling the truth about her father.”

“Why?”

“If there’s anyone she’s afraid of, it’s her father. He controls everything. I know she gets money from a trust because she told me that summer she only had a couple more years before she started getting some of her own money. Money at eighteen, as long as she went to college for at least a year. An increase at twenty-one, and, if I remember right, another at twenty-five, another at thirty, or when she marries. If she gets married and has a child, the trust hits the top of the income stream.”

“That sounds … bat-shit,” Eve decided.

“It’s how Natural Order works. Women are meant to have children—within wedlock. Once she does that, it’s hers, free and clear. At least that’s what she said back then, or thought back then. Until she hits thirty-five, it might’ve been, or marries and has a kid, her father controls the amount she receives annually from the trust. And as he heads it, he can cut it off, like he did with her brother.”

“So if her father found out …”

“Premarital sex, with another woman? If he didn’t cut her off completely, he’d sure as hell turn down the stream. I don’t know the fiancé, but most people don’t like being lied to and cheated on, so she has to calculate the odds he’d ditch her. She thinks he will, that came off as true to me.”

“Yeah, me, too. We’ll see if she’s right, because he’s sure as hell going to find out. Meanwhile, because I had plenty of probable cause before the interview, Baxter and Trueheart are searching her apartment with a duly executed warrant.”

“She won’t like that.”

“No, she won’t. That gives me a little spark of joy. She’s a lousy human being, Shelby.”