Forgotten in Death(114)

“I’ll never forgive them. No punishment the law allows is enough for what they destroyed. Did she have family?”

“We’re going to look into that.”

She nodded. “He’s weak.” She cleared her throat, drank more water. “You know how to do your job, obviously, but I want to tell you because it might help you. He’s a weak and selfish man. It’s not love with him, either, for his mother. It’s dependence, and some fear. He’ll tell you everything if he’s afraid, or if he thinks you’ll give him something he needs. He lies. I can tell, almost always, when he lies.”

“He taps his right foot,” Eve commented.

“Does he?” She laughed a little. “I’ve never noticed. It’s his eyes. I can see the lie. We’ve known each other almost sixty years. I can almost always see a lie in his eyes. Will I have to testify?”

“It’s possible,” Reo told her.

“I don’t want to speak to them. Ever. I’ll testify if it helps. But I won’t speak to them. And God, I don’t want to go back to that house.”

“You should go to your son’s. Stay there for now. They’ll want you,” Eve added when she saw the hesitation. “I’m going to have Peabody contact them, tell them you’re coming. We’ll have you taken there.”

“They need you now, Marvinia,” Roarke told her. “As much as you need them.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I know it.” Roarke took her hand. “I saw it.”

“Peabody, go ahead and fix this up. Reo, any more questions?”

“Not right now. We’ll contact you when we need to talk again. I know this is hard for you,” Reo added. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

“I’ll wait here with you,” Roarke said.

When they stepped out, Reo looked at her ’link. “Give me a minute,” she told Eve. “Elinor Singer’s lawyer’s demanding to speak with me.”

“You want my office?”

“No, I’ll take it in the lounge. It’s Michael C. Breathed.”

“Breathed? Why would she have a criminal attorney on tap?”

“I’ll find out.”

They peeled off, Reo to the lounge, Eve to her office.

Eve hit the coffee and sat to start the paperwork.

When Roarke came in, he went straight to her AutoChef, programmed more coffee. “It’s difficult to watch a woman’s world fall apart.”

“She’ll get through it.” She shook her head at him when she saw the gleam of annoyance in his eyes. “I’m not being cynical, especially. I know death when I see it. It may be the first time I’ve watched love die, just stop breathing, but I saw it. I saw just that on her face when she understood what he’d done. She stopped loving him and she has her son, her son’s family.

“She’ll get through it.”

“You’re right about that, but it won’t be easy for her.”

“No, nothing’s going to be easy for any of them for a while. If the Singers push this to trial, it’s going to be a lot harder.”

“You think they will?”

“She hired Breathed, and he’s damn good at this. Not good enough,” she added. “Nobody is. She shot me, twice. That gun and the bullets—from me, from Johara—are in the lab right now. They’re going to match. And in the morning, I’ll break J.B. So Breathed’s going to want a deal. We’ll see how she feels about that.”

She looked over as she heard rapid heel clicks. “Here’s Reo now.”

Reo pointed at the coffee. “I want that.” She waved Roarke away before he could go back to the AC. “I’ll get it. Elinor Singer’s on some committee with Breathed’s wife, and Breathed and J. B. Singer golf together.”

“Explains the quick turnaround,” Eve said.

“In any case, Breathed’s trying the we’re-all-in-a-huff routine. Centenarian client dragged from her home in a storm, in the middle of the night.”

“The storm was done, and it wasn’t twenty-two hundred.”

“I said ‘trying.’” Reo gulped coffee. “She should be immediately released on her own recognizance, would even suffer the humiliation of wearing a tracker.”

“No and no.”

“And when he got no and no, he insisted we go tonight.”

“They want to do this tonight?”

One more unexpected turn, Eve thought.

“Mira’s on her way in. I was going to dump all this on her, apologize, and send her back home.”

“Are you up to go tonight?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely. But she waits while I have a round with her son first.”

Reo toasted with her coffee. “We’re drinking out of the same pot. He’s got Indina Cross—junior partner in Breathed’s firm. She’s good.”

“Junior partner. Mother took the top cream for herself. Let’s get it lined up. This is going to go long,” she told Roarke.

“And should be quite a show. One I wouldn’t miss. There should be popcorn in Observation.”

Now Reo tapped her mug to his. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said that.”