Innocent in Death (In Death #24)(85)

“Rayleen.” Straffo’s voice was quick and sharp. “Let the police get on with what they came to do.”

Still looking more excited than abashed, Rayleen lowered her eyes. “Yes, sir.”

Eve started with the third floor. There was what she supposed was termed a family room. A couple of long, cushy sofas, double-sized chairs, oversized entertainment screen.

A fireplace, currently cold, was topped by a wide white mantel that held copper urns and a grouping of family pictures in matching copper frames. The family at the shore, Rayleen in school uniform, another of the kid in a pink tutu, the couple in black tie, looking polished and happy.

Sectioned off from the lounge area was a home gym. Nicely equipped, Eve noted, and with a view of the city from a long ribbon of windows.

There was a small second kitchen—minifriggie, miniAutoChef, short counter with a couple of stools.

A full bath complete with jet tub and steam shower.

There was no work space.

Still, she searched cabinets, drawers, cushions, took art from the walls to check backings and frames.

“Looks clear,” she said to Peabody. “McNab will check the electronics.”

“Family sanctuary. Pretty juicy one.” Peabody took one more scan. “They use this place more than the living area downstairs when they’re going to hang. Watch some screen, play games on the table over by the window. Downstairs is more for entertaining. This is where they get together as a fam.”

“Yeah, I’d say.” She glanced toward the fireplace again, studied the pictures on the mantel. “Let’s take the second floor.”

They separated, with Peabody taking Straffo’s home office and Eve taking Allika’s sitting room. She studied the fireplace again, the mantel, the family pictures and portraits.

Interesting, she thought. Then dug into the room.

It was all very female, Eve decided. Mags and discs on fashion and decorating and child rearing. Memo cubes were reminders to send thank-you notes for parties or gifts, to send invites for dinner or cocktails or lunch. Reminders to buy a hostess gift for so and so or an anniversary gift for him and her whoever. The sort of thing the wife of a high-powered and successful man did, she supposed.

The sort of thing she never did.

Who did? she wondered. Did Roarke handle that himself, or Summerset, or Caro?

Allika kept separate date books for herself, for her husband, for her kid.

Straffo’s golf dates, dinner meetings (whether she was needed to attend or not), his salon appointments, doctors’ appointments, meetings with his tailor, scheduled out-of-town trips. A family trip scheduled for March, which coincided with the kid’s spring break from school.

She compared it with Allika’s. Shopping dates, lunch dates, salon dates, dinner with her husband, some with clients or friends, some without.

She noted that neither of them had scheduled appointments during the time frame of either murder.

The kid’s appointment book was a shocker. Dance class, twice weekly, socialization dates (what the hell?) three times a week with various other kids. Melodie Branch was down for every Thursday afternoon from three-thirty until four-thirty. Swapping houses, Eve saw. One week at the Branch place, one week here at the Straffos’.

There was soccer practice once a week beginning in March, and something called Brain Teasers the kid attended every Saturday morning. Followed, two Saturdays a month, by a volunteer stint with an organization called From the Kids.

In addition to the monthly schedule, there were additions of birthday parties, field trips, school projects, Drama Club meetings, doctors’ appointments, museum and library trips, art projects, family outings.

As far as Eve could see, the kid had more going on than both of her parents.

No wonder they needed the au pair, Eve mused. Though it was a little odd that Allika had carried professional mother status from the time Rayleen was born until the death of the son. Though she wasn’t pursuing a career, or even a paying hobby outside the home, Allika had let that status lapse.

Eve bagged the notebooks. She wanted more time to study them, and to verify all the names and groups and locations.

She went through the little desk. Monogrammed stationery—so Allika handwrote some of those thank-yous and invites, Eve mused. Huh. An organized-by-occasion selection of cards—birthdays (humorous, flowery, formal, youth), sympathy, congratulations, and so on.

Spare discs and memo cubes, address book, a file of clippings on decorating.

It made Eve think of the clippings Peabody had found in Lissette Foster’s cube. Common ground, Eve mused. Something there? Maybe the women had crossed paths in their interest in decorating.

She made a note to check it out, though she doubted Allika and Lissette shopped for doodads or draperies at the same level.

Correspondence Allika had saved ran to cute little cards or notes from girlfriends, printed out e-mails from same, or from the kid.

There were birthday cards and feel-better cards from Rayleen, all of them handmade. And with more style and skill, Eve admitted, than she herself could claim. Pretty paper and colors, some comp-generated, some hand-drawn.

DON’T BE SAD, MOMMY!

One of the cards announced in big, careful printing on heavy pink paper. There was a drawing of a woman’s face with shiny tears on the cheeks.

Inside the woman was smiling, with her cheek pressed to the cheek of a girl’s face. Flowers bloomed all around the edges and a wide rainbow curved at the top. The sentiment read: