Festive in Death (In Death #39)(41)

“I can’t make you any promises, but we won’t share that information unless we find it necessary to the investigation. While your marriage is your priority, Ms. Quigley, finding the person responsible for taking Trey Ziegler’s life is ours.”

Eve got to her feet. “Did Ziegler ever push you for more money, ever indicate he might use your relationship with him against you?”

“No. It was, as I said, mutually beneficial. We enjoyed each other for a brief time. No more, no less.”

“Okay. Thanks for your time.”

“What would you do?” Quigley rose, clasped her hands together. “In my place, what would you do?”

“I can’t tell you. I’m not in your place.”

Peabody bundled up her coat again as they stepped outside. “What would you do? Would you confess the cheating, or bury it like she’s trying to do?”

“I wouldn’t have cheated in the first place.”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“There’s no ‘but.’” Eve pulled open the car door, slid in. “You go into marriage, you plow a road. You’re going to hit rough patches, and some may be rougher and last longer than others, but you’ve got choices to make. You work to smooth them out, you hold until they do, or they don’t. You stick with the road, or you get off. But you don’t do something to make it worse, don’t do something that maybe makes you feel better for the short term while it sucker punches the person you’re married to.

“Plug in Copley’s office. We’ll talk to him next.”

Peabody keyed the address into the in-dash. “Some people cheat because they can’t see a way out.”

“Bullshit. There’s always a way out. You just have to pay the price, whether it’s money, status, the emotional hit, or all of that and more. Cheating’s cheap and it’s lazy.” Pausing at a light, she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “It’s not just about sex,” she said. “Marriage is a series of promises.” When she’d realized that—marriage equaled promises—she hadn’t feared it. As much.

“Maybe you can’t keep them all. The whole till-death-do-us-part business. Maybe you can’t keep that one. Life can be long, and people change, circumstances change, so okay. You realize you don’t really want this life or this person, or the person you made the promises to isn’t who you thought, or they’ve changed in a way you can’t accept or support. Whatever. You make a choice. Stick and try to work it through, or don’t. But don’t give me the boo-hoo, I’m not happy so I’m getting naked with somebody else on the side. It insults everybody.

“Walk or work,” she concluded. “But don’t make excuses.”

“I can feel that way personally—and philosophically. But . . . people are flawed.”

“People aren’t flawed, Peabody. People are deeply f**ked up.”

“So, considering that, didn’t you feel a little sorry for her? For Quigley?”

“I might if she grew a pair and went to her husband, told him she’d f**ked up, been stupid and selfish and so on. She cheated, now she’s lying. How’s that going to fix anything if she’s serious about fixing things? Added to it, I don’t feel sorry for either of them at this point because one of them may have killed Ziegler. Since she’s a known cheater and liar, she may be lying about Ziegler not pushing for more. And if he did, bash, bash. Or the illusion of romance she claims was more real, and she finds out he’s playing her like he played the rest.”

“Bash, bash,” Peabody said as Eve hunted for parking.

“Or, Copley did find out, confronted Ziegler. Bash, bash from his side. So let’s stay objective here.”

Peabody climbed out of the car, pulled on her gloves. “Pretty much everyone we’ve interviewed had motive to bash, bash. Our vic’s the guy people loved to hate. They used him—as a trainer, as an employee, as a massage therapist, as a bedmate, but any one of them could’ve picked up that trophy and given him a couple solid whacks.”

“And murder trumps cheating, lying, blackmail, and being a general ass**le. So let’s see where John Jake Copley falls on the map.”

Inside the steel-gray lobby of the office building, Eve badged the security guard at the sign-in station. “John Jake Copley. ImageWorks Public Relations.”

He scanned her badge, nodded. “That’s your thirty-ninth floor, elevator bank B.”

Peabody pulled her gloves off as they joined a small pack of sharp suits for the elevator. Half of them nattered away on earbuds, others frowned importantly at their ’links or PPCs as they scrolled through data.

One of them, a six-foot blonde in a dark purple coat with lips dyed to match, did both.

“The Simpson meeting ran over,” she barked as they all piled on the car. “Shift my three-thirty to three-forty-five, and my four to four-thirty. I know I have a four-thirty, Simon, you’re going to reschedule that for five—drinks at Maison Rouge. I’ll follow up with the five-thirty, same place. Keep these meetings on schedule, Simon. There’ll be hell to pay if I miss Chichi’s holiday pageant tonight. I’m on my way up now. Get it together.”

As the woman marched off on the twenty-second floor, Eve decided she’d hold her own stunner to her own throat—on full—if she had to live by meetings scheduled minute by minute.