Obsession in Death (In Death #40)(78)

“Hold off on that.”

“Sure, whatever you want. Hell of a thing, isn’t it, Bastwick and Ledo – and that attack last night on the photographer. Assholes in the media trying to work an angle that ties you up in it. I’m here to help.”

She patted the seat of a chair, took another for herself. “I don’t have as much of a jump on the research as I’d like, but I’ve been on another job for a couple days. Whatever I have is yours. You got my e-mails. You know I’m more than ready to work for you.”

“You’re not a cop anymore.”

“I admire you – both of you, really – for sticking it out, working against the rampant sexual harassment in the department. I stood up for myself. I mean, even my lieutenant made remarks and overtures. Go out and bust some balls? Is that any way to talk to a female officer? Telling me I needed to clear any OT with him – like I didn’t know he meant I’d have to put out for him to clear it? And he wasn’t even the worst.”

“Imagine that,” Eve mumbled.

“You know what it’s like. I like the work I’m doing. A skip tries anything like that, a kick in the groin takes care of it. You can’t take care of things like that on the job. But I’d come back in a heartbeat under you, Dallas. You don’t have an aide since you made Peabody your partner.

“I’ll give you my résumé,” she continued before Eve could speak. “You can talk to Charlie – Charlie Kent, the bondsman I work for. Charlie’s okay, so far, but I work out of my own place so he doesn’t get the idea he can move in on me.”

“Like everybody does.”

Farmer rolled her eyes, cast them to the ceiling. “I don’t know what’s wrong with people. But back to you and me, I’m willing to work as a civilian aide or we can request I be reinstated. I’m not picky on it. Clearly, the important thing is that we work together. But I’ll thank you not to stare at my breasts. My face is up here.”

With a thin smile, Farmer tapped her cheeks.

As Eve had been looking at her face, and only her face, she just lifted her eyebrows. “Okay. You’ve been researching my current investigation.”

“As always. You’re the reason I joined the force. I requested assignment to Central, to you, but didn’t get it. A lot of jealous people in the department, but I accepted that. Pay the dues, I told myself. But the harassment was so relentless. I actually think it was deliberate, a way to push me out before I could be reassigned to you.

“So! We should have that coffee if you want to discuss the investigation. I’ll bring up my notes.”

“We’ll pass on the coffee,” Eve told her. “Regarding the investigation, I have a couple of questions that should wrap this up.”

“I’m at your disposal. Professionally,” Farmer added, ticking her finger at Eve.

“Since you’ve followed the investigation, I’d like your whereabouts at the time of the two murders and the assault on Hastings.”

“Dallas.” Huffing out a breath, Farmer sat back. “Let me make this very clear. My personal life is personal. However closely we’ll work together, however intimate that relationship is, I won’t allow the line into personal to be crossed. I realize you and Peabody bend those rules, and while I don’t approve of the sexual free-for-all between a detective and her direct superior, I can overlook it.”

Peabody said, “Huh?”

“You don’t have to worry I’ll usurp your… dynamic, we’ll call it in polite company. I’m not interested. There will be no threesomes here.”

“Gosh, I was counting on that. I even had the outfit.”

“Peabody.” Eve’s voice remained firm and flat despite the laugh tickling the back of her throat.

“Let’s put all the sex aside,” Eve began.

“I couldn’t agree more! Now —”

“No, now,” Eve corrected. “Your whereabouts for the times in question are pertinent to the investigation. I have no personal interest in you whatsoever. If you’d check your calendar, we’ll wait.”

“Are you suggesting I’m a suspect?”

“I’m suggesting you state your whereabouts so we can stop wasting each other’s time.”

“Fine. I don’t have to check anything.” Farmer tapped her head. “On the evening of the twenty-seventh, I was in Miami, tracking, and apprehending, Janet Beaver. I returned with her to New York on the eight-fifteen shuttle – North-South Transportation. On the night of the twenty-eighth through the morning of the twenty-ninth, I was following up a lead on Montoya, which turned out to be a dead end. I stayed in the Motor Court Lodge, off Exit 112 on 68 in Pennsylvania. I used my credit card for expenses, and I did the same when I had breakfast in their coffee shop at six hundred on the twenty-ninth. For the last, I was here, working, but I ordered a pizza – personal size, pepperoni and mushroom. It was delivered about seven-thirty. The delivery girl was about eighteen, five feet, four inches, one twenty, pink hair, green eyes. Mama Mia’s Pizzeria, West Twenty-third off Seventh.”

“We’ll verify, and that should be that.” Eve got to her feet.

“I can see I misplaced my admiration and ambitions with you.”

“Yeah, you did. You should seek help, Farmer. It might clue you in you’re just not an irresistible sex magnet. Besides” – on impulse she slung an arm around Peabody, cuddled her stunned partner in – “my partner’s got the better tits.”