Imitation in Death (In Death #17)(107)

Even with the added weight, it was almost midnight before Eve had the warrants in hand. Still, her earlier fatigue had burned away in a rush of adrenaline.

"How did you know?" Roarke asked as she drove uptown. "Walk the civilian through it."

"It had to be one of them. The stationery was too pointed, too much there for it not to be. He used it purposefully, to bring himself into it. The attention, the amusement, the excitement. He needs that."

She swung in behind a Rapid Cab, and let the cabbie plow the road for her. "But he'd have to know there'd be others, in New York, viable suspects. So he wouldn't have been the first to buy it. Smith was, and Smith would be easy to track. He's public, and he likes to make a splash."

"Go on," Roarke prompted.

"There's Elliot Hawthorne with his supply of the same paper. Speaking of him, he's divorcing his current wife. Something about a tennis pro."

She took time to smirk. "Figured Hawthorne would get around to it. He was a toss in, never seriously on my list. Too old for the profile, and nothing there. No pop."

"But you still had to take the time to check him out, had to have him in the general mix. That would've pleased Renquist."

"There you go. Then Breen, sending him the paper, just added a nice touch for Renquist. Breen was the expert, and someone Renquist probably admired. A month's pay says we find Breen's books in Renquist's office. He's studied Breen, the work and the man."

"You never thought it was Breen."

"Didn't fit. Arrogant enough, knowledgeable enough. But this isn't a guy who hates or fears women." She remembered his devastated face as she hammered at him, remembered the broken look in his eyes. She'd have to live with her part in putting it there. "He loves his wife, and that makes him a sap, not a murderer. He likes being at home with the kid. Probably he'd do it whatever the mother did. But I pushed him anyway, pushed. him hard."

He heard the regret in her voice, and`' brushed a hand over her arm. "Why?"

"In case I misjudged him. In case..." She blew out a breath and tried to let the guilt blow out with it. "In case I was wrong. I liked him, right off, the same way I didn't like Renquist."

"So you worried part of it was personal for you."

"Some. And Breen could've been involved, that was an angle I had to factor in. He could'vee provided the killer with data, pooled all of it to put into his next book. How he acted and reacted, answered, didn't answer, in interview mattered."

"He'll get through it, Eve, or he won't. It's his wife who betrayed him, not you."

"Yeah, all I did was shatter his nice fantasy shield. Anyway, anyway. Renquist's got a good line on Breen. I bet he knows about the wife's sidepiece. I'll double that bet and say we'll find unregistered equipment in his office, equipment he's used to research and track the other suspects. He lined them right up for me, the son of a bitch."

"I value my money too much to take that wager. Why not Carmichael Smith?'

"Because he's pitiful. He needs a-woman to adore him, and tend to him. He doesn't kill them or who'd rub his feet and stroke his head?"

"I appreciate a good foot rub myself."

"Yeah." She snorted. "Take a number."

He reached out to twist a lock of her shaggy hair around his finger, just to touch. And asked the next question just to keep her talking. "Fortney, then."

"Peabody's favorite. Mostly she leaned toward him because he offended her sensibilities. She's soft , yet you know."

"Yes. I know."

"She'll keep some of that, the soft." Eve tried not to think about the exam in the morning, and how much of Peabody's ego and esteem was wrapped up in it. "That's good," she added. "It's good she's got the makeup to keep some of it. You get too hard, you stop feeling, then the job's just being on. the clock."

You've never stopped feeling, he thought. You never will. "You're worried about her."

"I'm not." She shot the words out, then hissed when he chuckled. "Okay, maybe I am. A little. Maybe I'm worried she's so nervous and sweaty about this damn, stupid detective's exam that she'll blow it. Maybe I wish I'd waited another six months to put her up for it. If she blows it, it's going to set her back-inside. It's so f**king important to her."

"Wasn't it to you?" " That was different. It was," she said with conviction when he raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't going to blow it. I had more confidence in myself than she does. Had to. I didn't have anything else." She surprised, herself by smiling, looking over at him. "then."

It didn't surprise her to feel his hand brush her cheek. "Enough mush. Back to Fortney. He clouded Peabody's thinking.. He's a putz, and just not smart enough for this. Not an organized thinker, and not cold enough. Violent tendencies toward women, but a sock in the eye isn't mutilation. You gotta be cold to mutilate. And brave, in a screwed-up way. Fortney's not brave enough to go the whole route. For him, sex is his way of humiliating women. He bought the paper second, and I imagine that gave Renquist a smile-if he was following the- purchases."

"And you believe he was."