Indulgence in Death (In Death #31)(60)

“Yeah, take your time. Chew it over. Computer, simultaneous tasking. Background check on former spouses and cohabs of Dudley and Moriarity. Addition,” she thought quickly. “Search and find any official announcements of engagements for either subject, run background check.”

Secondary task acknowledged. Working . . .

“Computer relay the data on previous search regarding military service for ancestors of both subjects. Screen one display.

Acknowledged. Data on screen one . . .

She sat back, began to scan—and thanked God she’d limited the search to between 1945 and 1965, as there were dozens of names in each family.

She sipped coffee as she read, and found another pattern.

“Computer, separate commissioned officers, major and above, from current list. Display that data, screen two.”

Acknowledged. Working . . . Primary task complete. Probability is fifty-four-point-two that subjects Dudley and Moriarity killed both victims as competitors or partners as a game or sport.

“Not bad, but no cheers from the crowd.” She studied the remaining names on screen one. “Only five. Okay, computer, run a full background on the individuals on screen one, highlight military service.”

While it worked, she rose to update her board, to circle it, to consider it until the computer announced her secondary task complete.

She studied the composites Feeney had sent her from the partial image on the amusement security.

Could be Dudley, she mused, sporting a fake goatee and long brown hair. Could be Urich. Could be an army of other men. Which is just what the defense team would point out.

The shoe was a better bet. But she’d have the composites as weight, she’d have them to help tip those scales if she needed them, and when she was ready.

She ordered the names on screen two saved and removed, and replaced with the new data.

One ex-wife each, she noted, and each from prestigious, wealthy families. Same circle again. Barely two years for Dudley, shy of three for Moriarity. Just over two years prior to his marriage to one Annaleigh Babbington, Dudley’s engagement to a Felicity VanWitt had been announced and its dissolution announcement had come some seven months later.

“I thought that was my job.”

“Huh?” She glanced back, mind elsewhere, as Roarke came in.

“The relations.”

“This is something else. What?”

“Felicity VanWitt, engaged to Dudley for slightly more than half a year, is first cousin to Patrice Delaughter.” He nodded toward the screen. “Moriarity’s ex-wife.”

“Fucker.”

“When I can, and only with you, darling.”

“Not you.” But she laughed. “Delaughter married Moriarity right after Dudley and the cousin broke it off. Moriarity would’ve been twenty-six, Dudley twenty-five. They met through the women. I want to talk to the women. Hold on,” she snapped when the computer interrupted with another completed task.

She took a breath, cleared her head again. “On-screen.”

Pacing, she read the data on each name. “See this one? Joseph Dudley, good old Joe. Great-uncle to our current Dudley. Joe gets tossed out of Harvard, drops out of Princeton, gets a couple knocks for drunk and disorderly. Then he joins the regular Army as a grunt. He’s the only private, regular Army of the bunch, and he’s the closest relation. Not a cousin six times removed or whatever it is. But the great-granddaddy’s brother.”

“He served during the Korean War,” Roarke added. “Earned a Purple Heart.”

“I bet he had a bayonet. I bet you my ass he did.”

“I already have your ass, or intend to.”

“Cute. I raise that bet with Joe bringing that bayonet home as a memento, where it ended up being passed down to Winnie.”

“Difficult to prove.”

“We’ll see about that, but even if I can’t, it’s another strong probable. We’re loaded with them.”

“By the way, they didn’t attend the same schools. But the fiancée and the ex-wife—the cousins—both attended Smith—as did a female cousin of Dudley’s at the same time.”

“Okay, so they go back. They go back, ran in the same pack, at least in their twenties. And they’re still running in the same pack. Both had marriages that failed. Neither had offspring, and both remain unmarried and unpartnered. Lots of common ground. Like minds? Competitive.”

She blew out a breath. “Murderous, that’s a different matter. Look at the fiancée. She’s married now, married for eleven years, two kids. Lives in Greenwich, that makes it easy. Worked as a psychologist until the first kid. Professional mother status until last year.”

“The youngest would have started school.”

“She’s the one I want to talk to first. Tomorrow. They’re not going to hold off the next round too long. Not too long.”

She sat, went back to work.

13

EVE WOKE IN THE QUIET, IN THE STILLNESS, and for an instant thought the waking a dream. But she knew the arms around her, the legs tangled with hers. She knew the scent of him, and drifted into it as her mind waded through the thinning fog of sleep.

She barely remembered going to bed. He’d carried her, as he often did when she conked out over her work. Reams of data, she thought, and nothing solid in that fluid stream to push the investigation beyond theory.