Indulgence in Death (In Death #31)(54)

“Word travels.”

“Oh, and I sent you the monthly eval on Trueheart. He’s going to make a good detective. Needs a little more time, but if you give me the green light, I’m going to tell him to start boning up for the exam.”

“That’s a pretty fast track, Baxter.”

“He’s quick, unless you’re talking about with women.” He grinned at that. “He’s got good instincts, and he thinks things through. Plus, the kid’s got me for a trainer. How can he lose?”

“I’ll look over the eval, think about it.”

“He’s made for Homicide,” Baxter added as Eve turned away.

She stopped. “Because?”

“He looks at a DB and sees a person. We can forget that, just see the case. You know how it is. But he doesn’t, and not just because he’s still a little green. He’s wired that way. This is his place, that’s what I’m saying, even if you figure he needs more time in uniform.”

“I’ll think it over.”

She got what she needed from her office and joined the end-of-shifters on the exodus.

She set her vehicle on auto so she could let her mind drift.

Baxter and Trueheart, she thought. Some would have seen it as an odd pairing, the slick, often brass detective and the shy, sweet-natured rookie.

She hadn’t, and that was why she’d assigned Trueheart as Baxter’s aide. She’d believed they’d complement each other, and that Baxter’s style would ripen and toughen the rook.

It had, but the partnership had also . . . softened wasn’t the word, she thought. Maybe opened was better. It had opened Baxter. He’d always been a solid cop—smart, smart-mouthed, competitive. And, in her opinion, mostly out for number one.

Trueheart had changed that so that now they were much more partners than trainer and aide.

They understood each other, communicated with and without words. They trusted each other. A cop couldn’t go through the door with a partner unless there was absolute trust.

A man didn’t kill with a partner unless there was absolute trust. Trust, knowledge, understanding, and a common goal.

What was the common goal?

How had they developed the trust and understanding? How and when had they decided to kill?

Friendships, she thought, took all kinds of forms, and formed for all kinds of reasons. But they stuck, didn’t they, out of genuine affection, genuine need, or the solid base of common ground?

Considering, she used the dash ’link to contact Mavis Freestone.

“Dallas! Belle and I were just talking about you!”

Since Belle was about six months old and mostly said “ga!,” Eve figured it had been a short conversation. “Yeah? Listen, I—”

“I was just telling her all the things she could be when she grows up. You know like president or goddess of all she surveys, or a vid star like Mommy, a designer like Daddy. How she could be the total of totality like Roarke or a kick-ass supercop like you.”

“There you go. I was just . . . are you wearing a crown?”

Mavis lifted a hand to the sparkly gold crown perched on a mountain of hair—currently a bold grass green. “We were playing dress-up.”

“Mavis, you’re always playing dress-up.”

Mavis laughed, a bright, happy giggle. “Being a girl is the frostiest. Oh! Oh! Look. You’ve got to see!”

Eve blinked when Mavis swung the ’link screen—in that second or two the world was a swimming blur of color and shape. Then in the middle of it, the chubby blond baby motored across the floor on all fours toward some sort of red animal. A bear, a dog, a species of undetermined origin, Eve wondered. In any case, Belle zeroed in like a blaster stream, grabbed the animal, then plopped down on her butt and chewed on it vigorously.

“Is that mag or what?” Mavis demanded. “Our Bellamia is growing up so fast.”

“Don’t cry. Jesus, Mavis.”

“It just makes me go all fountain. She’s crawling already and see how she knows just what she wants and goes for it? This morning she crawled over and picked out her pink sandals with the stars all by herself.”

“Amazing.” Maybe it was—how would she know? One thing she did know, common ground wasn’t the base of her friendship with Mavis. The grifter and the cop hadn’t had anything in common, not on the surface. Eve supposed what had cemented them was a kind of recognition.

“Where’s Leonardo?”

“Oh, he had a fitting. He’s picking up some yums on the way home.”

“With who, a regular client?”

“Ah, yeah.” Mavis bent, scooped up Belle and the red mammal. “Carrie Grace, the screen queen. You need him?”

“No. But I’m working on a case—”

“Shockamundo! Right, Bella?” Bella giggled, much like her mother, and waved the red thing in the air by its drooled-on ear.

“The thing is somebody’s killing people who provide what we’ll call fancy or exclusive services. Expensive services, and at the top of their line.”

“I don’t—oh. Oh! Like my honey bear?”

“Yeah, like your honey bear, and like you, Mavis. Just do me a favor, and don’t take any solo appointments or meetings until I close this up. Same for your honey bear. No new clients.”