Golden in Death(74)

When she stepped out, she saw Peabody pacing the visitor’s lot. Not clumping now, but stomping. And since every few seconds, Peabody waved her arms, shook a fist, Eve imagined her partner replayed the scene in Grange’s office—and added fresh, pithy things she should have said.

Very much still pissed, Eve concluded as she went down the stairs, moved along the walkway.

“So,” Eve began, “I think your intimidated pretense needs some work.”

“I’m sorry, okay?”

She didn’t sound the least bit sorry.

“I couldn’t maintain, not when she’s taking swipes at my family. Bad enough she started on you, but sure, you can handle yourself, but nobody gets away with saying shit like that about my parents, about the job, either. Nobody.”

Eve leaned back against the hood of the car, let Peabody stomp and rant.

“I mean, I don’t give a jumping damn if some asshole on the street calls me whatever, or some fucker in the box goes after me that way. But not my parents, making them sound like they, what, mistreated me or something. Like they’re idiots. And like you’re substandard because you didn’t go to some fancy school like this. Bullshit on that. Just bullshit.”

Eve waited a few seconds. “Are you done yet?”

“I guess.”

“Okay. We’re going to interview Hayward. While I’m driving, you can start the report of this interview for Whitney.”

“Oh God, the commander.” After squeezing her eyes shut, Peabody opened them toward heaven. “He’s going to give me such a slap.”

“Worry about that later. Once we’re finished here, we’ll complete the report on the shuttle home, send it to Whitney. So he can, in turn, notify the board of trustees that Headmaster Grange is a POI in our investigation, was not cooperative, and we have evidence that during her tenure at Gold she engaged in sexual congress, on school grounds, with a subordinate. We have evidence she routinely engaged in sexual activities outside her marriage and so on.”

“We’re going to do that?”

“Oh yeah, we are. We’re going to hit her board with the statements on bullying, cheating, sex, the works.”

“I’m starting to feel better.”

“Good, get in, get started.” Eve slid behind the wheel. “Because I intend to kick her ass with the boots she’s not worthy to wipe.”

Peabody gave a sheepish chuckle. “That was actually a pretty good one.”

“I liked it,” Eve said, and drove out of the lot.





16


Kendel Hayward’s showroom and offices were a pretty, peppy place with a pretty, peppy staff. It was, Eve thought, like being surrounded by a bunch of former cheerleaders.

Fortunately for Eve’s mental health, the head cheerleader currently in charge told her Kendel had appointments at home until three, when she needed to be on-site to supervise a load-in.

Still she had to drag Peabody away from a display of sample napkins of various colors, sizes, patterns.

“It’s a nice place,” Peabody said as they got back into the car. “Cheerful, energetic.”

“That kind of cheerful energy gives me a headache. Who goes into business to plan other people’s parties anyway? And why can’t you just get pizza and beer?”

“Sometimes you want the fancy.”

“Not if you’re sane. There was a whole deal in there for kids’ parties. Jesus, buy a cake, some kid food, have alcoholic beverages for the adults. Done.”

Since she was still thinking of her family, Peabody couldn’t really disagree. She remembered her own kid parties. They didn’t buy a cake. Somebody made it, and the kid food, and, yeah, even the adult beverages.

Good times.

Still …

“I think if you like parties—which definitely excludes you—planning them would be fun. Hayward’s probably good at it—like I said, cheerful place.”

“For all we know, Hayward lazes around her house, goes out to fancy lunches, gets her nails done or whatever while that bunch of obsessively peppy types do all the work.”

“That could be true. So … I’m coming to the part of the report where I didn’t maintain.”

“We’ll pick it up from there on the shuttle. This is Hayward’s street.”

Big, important houses stood well back from the road at the end of long drives—curved ones, circular ones, paved ones. Big, important trees with their leaves unfurled to a tender spring green spread or speared.

Ornamental shrubs showed hazes or open pops of color while lawns rolled, uniformly trimmed and green.

Eve turned into Hayward’s drive, paved in earthy brown hexagons, circled around an island shrubbery centered by a small tree with fountaining branches already blooming snowy white.

The house itself stood two stories with generous and gleaming windows in quiet brown brick, with stone terraces graced with dark bronze railings. A single story, almost entirely glass, shot off the left side. A garage with reflective doors shot off the other.

Eve parked in front of the deep portico at the entrance.

As she got out, a dog about the size of a football covered in puffy white fur raced around the glass-walled side of the house to bark like a maniac.

Since Eve figured she could have drop-kicked the dog a solid twenty yards through the goalposts, she just gave it a cool stare.