Echoes in Death (In Death #44)(80)

“Then we won’t.”

“I’ll let her know you’re doing this. I … I can’t talk now, but thanks for this.”

“They’re mine as they’re yours. Tag me if you’re going to be delayed, more than usual, getting home.”

“I will.”

She clicked off as she turned into Homicide.

“Carmichael’s on the way with the new uniform to scoop up Anson Wright,” Peabody told her. “I just got off with Baxter. He and the other detectives are coordinating, and they can handle the rest of the list. One of the couples he and Trueheart talked to are friends of the Patricks, and were at their table the night of the gala. No connection to the vendors, but the wife’s done numerous vid ads, and is currently one of the stars in one of On Screen’s projects in development. Baxter says she’s ‘Ooh-la-la.’”

“Other than him getting a woody over an actress who’s someone else’s wife, any more buzz?”

“Neither of them remember anything unusual about that night. The wife admits she gets hit on pretty regularly, just part of the package, but doesn’t recall anything that night, or anything period that’s gone beyond her expected hitting on. Oh, and some mildly creepy and suggestive fan mail. They asked if we can take a look at that.”

“Take a closer look at her, send me what you get.”

In her office, Eve updated her book, her board, wrote detailed reports on the interviews. Then meticulously wrote up the report on the double homicide.

Rather than take the time to return to Mira’s office, she wrote out an e-mail, read it, fiddled with it, sent it.

It would be harder for Mira to argue the need for Roarke’s visit if Eve didn’t give her a way to argue.

She flicked over to an incoming, read Peabody’s quick, additional run of one Delilah Esterby.

Eve remembered the name, the face—husband of ten months (only dating at the time of the gala), Aidan Malloy, of the really, seriously rich Malloys.

Both stupidly good-looking, ages twenty-seven and twenty-six, respectively. Young, rich, beautiful, and living in a classy house on the Upper West.

Fit like a glove.

Eve opened the vid attachment to the report, lifted her eyebrows as she watched a montage of Delilah’s ads.

Selling with sex, she thought. Wear this, buy that, use this, and every man—or woman—alive will want to bang you the way they want to bang me.

Considering, Eve studied her board, all the other victims. Stunners, with faces and bodies gifted from gods.

But this one added straight-out fuck-me sex to the mix.

So why hadn’t he gone there? Why pick the soft, the submissive, the busy professional, or the happily devoted wife and daughter instead of the bombshell who made her living selling sex?

Fitting another piece into the twisted puzzle of the killer’s mind, Eve replayed the video as Peabody came in.

“Makes me want to run out and buy that entire line of bath and body products,” Peabody said.

“Why?”

“Well, ah—”

“Serious question.”

“Because it makes me think—absolutely illogically and unrealistically—that I’d end up looking like that, sounding like that, and being just, I don’t know, aware how iced and powerful I am.”

“And that’s why she’s not on a slab in the morgue.”

“What? I don’t follow.”

“She intimidates him.” Eve rose, paced the stingy confines of her office. “She’s saying wouldn’t you like to have a taste of this, and you know I’d let you. She’s overt, available, and, yeah, totally confident in her sexuality and appeal.”

“So … she’s too much for him?”

“He goes for the soft, the vulnerable, the … more subtle. He may be working his way to her level, but he couldn’t start there. What’s the point—for him—to rape a woman who’s inviting him to have a bang?”

“Well, but she’s not. Not really.”

“No, she’s not, but that’s the image. That’s what he sees. She comes off strong and fearless. Yeah, she—types like this—intimidate him. I want to see those creepy fan contacts. Maybe he approached that way. Maybe he dipped a toe in the pool that way, but she doesn’t fit his … mold.”

She turned back from the board. “We’re going to go through the list again when we have interviews with all. Look at them from the angle of the more vulnerable, the more subtle, the more … traditional,” she ended, finally finding the word that had eluded her. “The vics, they all run on that track, in most ways,” Eve continued. “Married, and they all took their husband’s name.”

“I never thought about that,” Peabody admitted, frowning at the board. “Never noticed.”

“Only one of them had a career outside volunteer work, charity work, that kind of thing. Why does that break the pattern, why is that?”

Eve paused, stared at Lori Brinkman’s photo. “Is it that her job’s acceptable? The human rights lawyer who writes on the side? Or is that just something he discounted?”

Something there, she thought, and she needed to pull it out.

“It’s not coloring, body type, even age,” she concluded. “It’s looks, yeah, but also, maybe, his perception. And his perception of the woman or couple they’re substituting for. I want to get this to Mira, see it from her take.”