Strangers in Death (In Death #26)(98)

“It probably was true. Let’s switch over to the Anders case. Peabody and I caught this one.”

Baxter rose to get more coffee as Eve laid out the salients. “Are you looking for a connect?” he asked. “Because both vics appear to have been killed by an LC, or a sex partner?”

“That’s an interesting connection, isn’t it? And one of the mistakes made. Ava Anders.” Eve ordered Ava’s ID photo and data split screen with Suzanne’s. “Also solidly alibied at the time of her husband’s murder. While she apparently has more friends, certainly more influence and resources than Suzanne, no evidence leads to murder for hire. Her circle of friends don’t play in. She also gains financially, and when you scrape away at the surface of her claims of a happy marriage to the lies and manipulations underneath, she gains on several other levels.”

She turned to study the screen. “These women have a great deal in common, under the surface. And they’re connected. Another mistake. Suzanne Custer’s two kids are part of the Anders sports programs. She’s attended several of Ava’s seminars and mommy retreats. She’s done some volunteering, too.”

“Huh.” It was all Feeney said, but Eve glanced at him, and saw it had clicked.

“You think the Anders woman got the idea to off her husband from what happened to Custer?” Baxter’s brows drew together as he stared hard at the screen. “Little Suzanne caught a lucky break, why can’t I? Maybe she talks an LC into doing her the favor, pays her off through the program or the company, then…”

“Simpler than that,” Feeney commented and enjoyed another scoop of hash browns. “Simpler’s best.”

Baxter frowned, then…“Well, Christ.”

It hit, Eve noted, hard enough for Baxter to forget his coffee and pig meat. “Give me a hand, will you,” she said to Roarke.

Together they turned Eve’s murder board so the second side faced the room. “Ava Anders to Bebe Petrelli and Cassie Gordon. They didn’t pan out for her, but she tested waters there. Ava Anders to Charles Monroe. Professional LC, clean record, sterling rep. Use him to build her claim that her husband liked the kink, and she didn’t. That she loved him regardless. Ava to Brigit Plowder and Sasha Bride-West. Alibis. Girlfriends, tight circle.”

As she outlined, Eve tapped each photo, each connection.

“Ava to Edmond and Linny Luce—friends of vic who would, in turn, testify as to the comfortable and happy marriage. Except they don’t like her—under the surface, they don’t like her a bit. She didn’t count on that. She didn’t count on any real connection being made between her—lady of the manor, lady bountiful—with the less fortunate women in the program she oversees.”

Now she pinned her finger to Ned Custer’s photo. “She sure as hell didn’t count on any connection between the murder of a philandering, blue-collar ass**le and the murder of her renowned philanthropist husband. Murders committed months apart, with different MOs, in different parts of the city.”

“It could work,” Peabody said under her breath. “It could really work.”

“It did work,” Eve corrected. “Two men are dead.”

“You think they traded murders. Fuck me,” Baxter added.

“I know they did. Ava’s been planning this a long time. At least two years, since I believe she killed her father-in-law. But probably longer than that. Once the father-in-law was out of the picture—” Eve tapped Reginald Anders’s photo on the board. “Lots more at stake. More money, more power, more control. That skin she was wearing, boy, that really had to start to tighten up on her. Every single day, to have to look at this guy she’d married, play the contented wife, listen to him drone on and on about his sports, his business, his programs. Planning the murders, that would help her get through it. That light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Yes,” Mira agreed when Eve turned to her. “For a goal-oriented personality, one who sees the big picture, the planning is part of the reward. For one who’s skilled in long-term role-playing, there would be considerable satisfaction in the success of that role. But you’re talking years, Eve. Any actor, even one so amoral and self-serving, would require breaks.”

“The vic traveled a lot, she encouraged it. And she would often entertain during those trips, leaving out the vic’s nephew and closer friends. Her parties, her way. And Charles. He added to her cover, to the picture, but let’s not discount the release of good sex—especially when you’re in the driver’s seat. The client holds the power with an LC.”

“If she did Custer, she must’ve stalked him,” McNab put in. “The wife couldn’t know what bar he’d troll in the night of. And Anders couldn’t have pulled it off on impulse. She had to be set.”

“Exactly right. We’ll canvass his haunts again, and show Ava’s photo, and the photo of her with red hair I’m having Yancy generate. She picked the flop, had to. Her type wouldn’t leave that to chance.”

“Agreed,” Mira said.

“We find a connection between her and the flop. Show her photo there. She’s not going to be alibied for the night of Custer’s murder, but we’re going to get that solid. She bought the wig, she bought the clothes. We’re going to find out where. We’re going to go over the case file from the father-in-law’s death and find her mistakes. And we’re going to bring her in. We’re going to sew her up, and we’re going to take her down for two counts of murder, and one count of conspiracy to commit.”