Innocent in Death (In Death #24)(95)

“By being the maternal aunt of Allika Straffo. Means,” Eve stated. “Closing right in on means. Computer, search date books on each Straffo individual in evidence for any travel to New Mexico over the past six months. No, amend. A full year. And/or any mention during that time period in same of Harmon, Quella, to New York.”

Acknowledged. Working…

“You think Straffo took a sample of ricin from this woman, with or without her knowledge, carried it back to New York, then used it to poison Foster.”

“I damn well do.”

“All right, means I’ll give you, Eve, but you’ve lost motive again, haven’t you? Unless the computer reports that there was contact with this Harmon in the last couple of months, it would have been prior to Allika’s affair with Williams, prior to Foster having knowledge of it.”

“Uh-huh. Parallel lines.”

Task complete. Straffo, Oliver, Allika, and Rayleen traveled by commercial shuttle from New York to Taos, New Mexico, on November twenty-six. Returned to New York by commercial shuttle on November thirty…

“That’s before Allika took up with Williams, according to their statements. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” But Eve was smiling grimly.

“Then unless Straffo is a sensitive with psychic tendencies, why would he transport a poisonous substance on a commercial carrierbefore his wife strayed?”

“Maybe it wasn’t a poisonous substance at that time, maybe it was just a bag of beans. But it’s all about planning and possibilities. Opportunities. Curiosity.”

As she spoke, she walked back, circling the board again. Then she continued to pin photos, lists, notes, data. “Computer, print out displayed data. Hard copy.”

Acknowledged…

And now Roarke circled, studied, scanned while she went to retrieve the printout.

He could see she was building something. It was the way she’d arranged the pieces on the board, how she continued to arrange them. Into some sort of pattern she, obviously, saw in her head. Or felt in her gut.

Her mind, he knew, was labyrinthine and linear, fluid, flexible, and stubbornly rigid. He could and did admire it without ever fully understanding its workings. Her gut, he believed absolutely, was close to infallible.

He stepped back and let his own mind clear, refocus, in an attempt to see what she was moving toward.

When he did, his shock was instant. His denial automatic. “You can’t be serious.”

“You see it?”

“I see what you’re stitching together, what pattern you’ve made out of it. But I can’t put my head around why you’d aim in that direction.”

“What? You don’t think a ten-year-old girl can be a stone-cold killer?”

She said it casually as she pinned Harmon’s photo and data to the side of the triangle she’d made out of the Straffos. “I murdered at eight,” she reminded him.

“Not murder, not close to it. You saved your own life, and destroyed a monster. You’re talking about a child deliberately and coldly planning and carrying out the murder of two adults.”

“Maybe more than that.” Eve reached into her file, took out the ID photo of Trevor Straffo she’d already printed. And pinned it in the center of the triangle.

“Christ Jesus, Eve.”

“Maybe he fell down the steps. Maybe he did. Maybe he had help. Maybe it was a tragic accident, which involved his sister.”

Her gaze was pinned now, to Rayleen Straffo’s violet eyes. “Excited, running, a couple of kids, one trips over the other, over his own feet. Whatever. But you know what?”

She turned, and those flat cop’s eyes met Roarke’s now. “I don’t think so. I think she pushed him. I think she got him up when her parents were sleeping, lured him out of bed. Don’t make any noise. Santa’s downstairs! Let’s peek.”

“Well, my God,” Roarke muttered.

“Then, when he gets to the steps, a good hard shove. No more little brother edging in on your territory. Squeezing into the center of your circle.”

“How can you think this? She’d have been all but a baby herself when that happened.”

“Seven. She’d have been seven. She’d had all the spotlight for five of those years, and now she has to share it. Maybe it’s a novelty at first, let’s play with the baby. But it got old, and they’re not paying nearly enough attention to Rayleen. Princess Rayleen. Just have to fix that, won’t we?”

“What you’re saying, it’s obscene.”

“Murder always is. The mother knows,” Eve said quietly. “She knows. She’s terrified and she’s sick and she tries different ways to escape the horror of it. But she can’t.”

“You’re so sure of it.”

“I saw it in her. I know it. But knowing it and proving it, especially something like this, are way different.”

He had to struggle to overcome an innate and instinctive denial. “All right, even considering you may be right about the boy, why Foster? Why Williams? Because of her mother’s affair?”

“I don’t think she’d give a flat shit about her mother’s affair. Sex isn’t on her radar, not really. And it doesn’t really apply to her directly. I don’t know why, that’s the bitch of it. I’ve got Peabody searching through Foster’s student records to start. Maybe he caught her cheating, or stealing.”