Festive in Death (In Death #39)(44)

“And Copley snaps. Bash, bash.”

“Maybe,” Eve said as they turned into the bullpen.

Someone had added a dented menorah to the decor. It stood on a bed of virulent greenery she suspected was supposed to be pine boughs. Beside it stood a sickly gray figure in a Santa suit, grinning viciously.

“What the hell is that?” she demanded.

Santiago glanced up from his work. “It’s Zombie Santa. We’re trying to be inclusive.”

“They make Zombie Santas? Who thinks of things like that?” Shaking her head at all mankind, she strode to her office.

It surprised her to find Feeney studying her board.

The EDD captain, her former trainer and partner, wore a rumpled suit the color of . . . reindeer dung, Eve decided. Wiry silver strands poked through his explosion of ginger hair like carelessly tossed tinsel.

Like the suit, his face had a rumpled, lived-in look. His eyes might have resembled a basset hound’s, but they were cop sharp as he scanned her photos, timelines, data.

“Your vic was an ass**le.”

“Completely,” she agreed, walking straight to her AutoChef to program two coffees, strong and black. “Lead suspect, as of now, is this guy.”

She brought up Copley’s ID shot after passing Feeney coffee. “One of the vic’s regular clients. Turns out the vic was banging his wife twice a week for the last few weeks—for a side fee. She claims the husband didn’t know.”

Feeney gave the coffee a surface blow, drank. “It’s hard to hide regular banging.”

“Damn right.” Pleased to have him to bounce around the speculations, she eased a hip onto the corner of her desk. “Rough patch, the wife claims. Separate bedrooms for a while.”

“No sex for a while’s a rough patch. Separate bedrooms is a crater.”

“Yeah?”

He eyed her. “How long you been married now?”

“Couple years.”

“Take my word. You can climb out of a crater, but it’s harder than riding out a rough patch.”

“She claims they climbed out, mostly, and are working on the rest of the way. But if he finds out she got naked with their mutual trainer, it’s off the cliff for the marriage.”

“You didn’t tell him.”

“Not yet. We ran the basics with him, and he was nervous. And he was lying. Something more there, something with the vic he’s hiding. So he’s top of my list right now.”

“Smashed his head in, hauled the body onto the bed, then put a knife in the chest. With a ho, ho, ho.”

Like Feeney, she studied the crime scene shot, drank coffee.

“The last’s a kind of rage, isn’t it?” she said. “A cold one. The smash, bash, that strikes me as hot. But the flourish? It takes cold blood. Copley could fit.”

“A liar’s one thing. A nervous one’s another. You could shake it out.”

“Yeah, but he’s already brought up the L word. I’m going to do some digging on him, let him settle. His business is a boys’ club.”

Feeney’s shaggy eyebrows rose. “He works with kids?”

“No—big public relations firm, but he runs it like a boys’ club—on the exec level, at least. One woman in the meeting I broke up today, and she didn’t look real happy with him. I think he’s an ass**le, but I have to ask myself if I’d just like to find an ass**le killer for my ass**le vic.”

She shrugged, sipped coffee, studied her board. “He had a lot of clients, used a lot of women. The killing field’s a big one.”

“Somebody who needed to put a sticker in a dead guy’s going to break at some point.”

“That’s what I think, too. I need to be there when it happens.”

He nodded, and for a moment or two they drank their coffee, studied death in companionable silence.

“The wife’s all over me to wear a monkey suit tomorrow.”

Eve frowned, shifted her thought process. “Why?”

“How the hell do I know? You’re female. Why do women like men dressed up in monkey suits?”

“I don’t, especially.”

“Tell me this.” He pointed at her. “Is Roarke putting on a monkey suit for this shindig tomorrow?”

“No. I don’t know.” For unexplained reasons, she had a moment of panic. “How would I know?”

“You live with him.”

“I live with me, too, and I don’t even know what I’m wearing tomorrow.” But Roarke would, she thought. Jesus, was she supposed to know what he was wearing? Was that another damn marriage rule?

“Did he wear one last year?” How was she supposed to remember? But she tried. “I don’t think so. I can ask him not to if that helps you out.”

“Do that. You do that.” With a righteous nod, Feeney smoothed a hand down his wrinkled jacket. “Bad enough to have to get all fancied up without that.”

“Tell me,” she said, with feeling. “I’m the one who’ll have to have glop all over my face while I walk around on stilts.”

“What you get for being female.”

“It’s not right.”

“The wife likes the fancy, and the stilts. Looks good on her, too. Anyway.” He scratched at his ear. “Anyway, I’m going to tell you she made you guys a bowl in her pottery class. It’s not bad—doesn’t even wobble. Much.”