Echoes in Death (In Death #44)(52)

Daphne’s hands stopped pulling at her pajama top, clutched together in her lap. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“We’ll leave that for now. What I’m saying is: Both these women understand, and they want to reach out. Because it could help you, and because it helps them. Peabody’s going to leave their contact information, and you can decide if and when.”

“Are they ashamed?” Daphne whispered.

“Not anymore, because they know they didn’t do anything to be ashamed of. They survived, Daphne, like you did. This man— Look at me, okay? Look here. Anyone who preys on someone they see as weaker, who hurts them, violates them, traps them— Are you hearing me?”

Eve waited until Daphne nodded.

“Anyone who deliberately makes someone else feel less, feel helpless? That person is a coward. They’re the weak ones, the shameful ones. What’s not weak, not shameful, is taking help that’s offered. You said Rosa is smart and funny and kind. Lori struck me as the same. We can all use the smart, funny, and kind. So think about it.

“Peabody?”

“Already done.” Peabody hit print on her PPC, took the printout, set it on the table by the bed. “When you’re ready.”

“Maybe I’ll talk to Del, and to Dr. Mira, ask them.”

“That’s a good idea. Is there anything else before we go? Anything more you remember?”

“I’m sorry. Every time I try to think about it, to remember, I can’t breathe. His hands are on my throat, squeezing, when I try to remember.”

“It’s okay.”

“I—I have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“How can it be all of us, all, were at the same place before? That I knew Rosa and met this other woman? How can that be?”

“It’s a good question. I’m working on the answer.”

Eve stepped out, spotted the uniform chatting up a couple of nurses. Eve signaled her back before they left.

“She shows the signs,” Peabody commented. “Submissive, self-critical, unwilling or unable to make decisions without directives. Appears to have been cut off from family and friends.”

“Classic battered spouse,” Eve agreed. “Contact the lawyer. We need a conversation.”

“Do you think she’ll contact the other women?”

“I think when her doctors nudge her to, she may. She was happy to see us. She’s in that room basically alone. I think she’s used to being alone, being grateful to have anyone to talk to. I’m contacting her foster family, and we’ll see where that leads.”

She checked her wrist unit as they rode the elevator down. “Do this. Let Dominick know I’m on my way, then go back to the crime scene. You’ll know what she’d want or need better than I would. Put it together, snag a uniform to send it back. I’ll either swing back by and get you or you meet me at the border collie’s or the lawyer’s.”

“I can do that. She doesn’t even know if she has the funds to pay her hospital bill or to get a hotel room.”

“We’re going to see what the lawyer says about that. It might be she’s got enough to buy a damn hotel.”

“It’s not what she’s after, Dallas. I know you always look at the spouse or the partner—at whoever has the most to gain. But there’s no way that sad, scared woman put some ugly plot together to kill her rich, abusive husband.”

“No. She’s victim, not villain. I doubt she has a clue about the terms of her husband’s will. But we need to find out.” As they hit lobby level, Eve dug in her pocket. “Take a cab.”

“Thanks—really—but with the snow? Subway or hoofing it’ll be faster and easier. I might just beat you to the border collie. I sent the address to your PPC.”

“Don’t play with the damn makeup,” Eve called out as they went their separate ways.





11

Eve found a street slot—small miracle—and decided it was worth a two and a half block hike in the snow. She imagined some cheery optimist would call the wind bracing.

She hated cheery optimists.

She stuck her hands in her coat pockets for warmth, was surprised as she nearly always was to find gloves. Deciding it was a day for miracles, she pulled them on.

A woman—college aged, small stature, Asian—in a snug blue ski jacket, a blue hat with a long tail ending in a bouncing pom-pom, and fuzzy-topped blue boots jogged by with a couple of spotted dogs on the leash jogging with her, like it was summer in the park.

Eve just bet the woman was a cheery optimist—the dogs also had that gleeful, slightly mad look in their eyes.

Bella got that look, Eve thought, picturing Mavis’s little girl. Kids and dogs: Who knew what they were thinking?

Plotting.

She preferred the middle-aged, beefy woman stomping toward her in scarred and simple black boots while huddled in a thick black coat with a sour sneer on her face.

You knew what she was thinking: Fuck the snow, fuck the city, fuck everybody.

It made things as simple as the old black boots.

She passed a glide-cart smelling of boiled soy dogs, hot chestnuts, and bad coffee where the vendor scowled up at the sky as if the snow was a personal insult.

There, too, she could relate.