Strangers in Death (In Death #26)(78)

“You want me to see if the wife diddled with the box?”

“Yeah. If you can open it up, see if anything was taken out or added before his death. Couple of days before, probably. The wife left New York on March fifteen.”

“Let me play with it.” Feeney initialed the bag, unsealed it to draw the box out. “Bitch is heavy. It’s got voice or manual settings. She did it manually, it’s going to be tougher to pin. Even if she did it by voice, a lawyer’s going to argue she was his wife. She filled it or added to it at his request, even the sleeper. He’s not here to say different.”

“One step at a time.”

She left him to it, started back down. She needed to see if Peabody had contacted Petrelli’s tenant, then they needed to start working on the other possibles she’d culled from the files. Run some probabilities.

She had a feeling the computer would look favorably on Petrelli, given the data, but…

She paused when she spotted Benedict Forrest outside her bullpen. It was getting so she couldn’t scratch her ass without coming back and finding some civilian waiting for her.

He sprang to his feet. “Lieutenant Dallas, I need to talk to you.”

Since she wouldn’t mind having another round with him, she gestured. “Let’s take it in my office.” She led the way, caught Peabody’s eye as she moved through the bullpen. The gleam in it had her pointing Ben toward her office. “Go ahead in. I’ll be a minute.”

She skirted around desks to Peabody’s. “What do you have?”

“Charles and Louise are getting married. ”

“I know. Did you—”

“I know you know because Charles just told me he told you, but you didn’t tell me. All morning you didn’t tell me.”

“It wasn’t the first thing on my mind.”

“But this is huge.” She bounced in her chair, and made Eve wonder what it was about weddings that made grown women bounce. “It’s mega-mag! And he said he’s turned in as LC and he’s opening a practice as a therapist, and they’re going to have the wedding at your house in a couple months, and—”

“Gee, Peabody, I have this connection to a murder waiting in my office. Maybe we could not take an hour later to talk about somebody else’s life.”

“Aw, but it’s so sweet. And romantic.”

Eve leaned down. “You do not sit here getting shiny-eyed at your desk, Detective. Not in my bullpen. Not unless you’ve gotten tagged by Ava Anders who gave you a full confession. Also, the words ‘sweet’ and ‘romantic’ don’t come out of your mouth in my bullpen unless they are coated and dripping with sarcasm. Now suck it up.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Lieutenant Spoilsport to you. Nina Cohen.”

“As far as she knows, Petrelli didn’t leave the house on the night of the murder. But she also says Petrelli never leaves the house after midnight, so she’d assume she didn’t leave.” Peabody checked her watch. “Getting closer to the time you owe me twenty.”

“Don’t count your twenty before it crosses the road,” Eve warned, and walked to her office.

Ben paced. Eve could hear the slap of his feet on her worn floor. Back and forth, back and forth. She tended to do the same herself if something was screwing with her mind.

“Sorry about that,” she said as she went in. “Have a seat.”

“You’re looking at Ava as a suspect.”

Eve closed the door behind her. It turned her office into a smaller box, but it was private. “It’s a habit of mine to look at people as suspects.”

“But if you’re wasting time looking at someone who couldn’t possibly have hurt my uncle, then you’re not looking for the person who did.” He pushed at his hair with both hands. “Leopold told me you were in asking questions about her. He’s half inclined to think you’re right and felt he had to warn me. As if she’d strangle me with my own belt or something. It’s crazy.”

“Your uncle was a wealthy man. Now she’s a wealthier woman than she was when he was alive.”

“So am I. Man, I mean. I’m wealthier if you want to look at the damn dollars and cents of it.”

“Dollars and cents are a tried and true motive for murder.”

“She wasn’t even in the country. Now you’re asking for files on staff and volunteers, on women with kids in the programs. Good God.”

Eve eased down on the corner of her desk. “You’re pretty passionate in her defense.”

“I’m the only family, the only close family she has left.” He rubbed the back of his neck as if pain lived there. “Uncle Tommy would expect me to take care of her, to support her, and damn right to defend her.”

“I got the impression you and Ava weren’t particularly close. Before.”

“As I said—” Both his voice and his handsome hazel eyes chilled. “I’m the family she has left.”

“And between you, you own all but a fistful of Anders Worldwide. I guess something like that brings people closer.”

Coldness flipped so quickly, so completely into shock, it surprised Eve the man didn’t physically revolve with it. “That—that’s a despicable thing to say.”