J. Robb - Fantasy in Death

She couldn’t argue when she smelled it herself. “You’re looking at the wife.”

“Yeah. Neighbors say they never fought. Never.” He shook his head, his eyes cynical, and all cop. “You know that ain’t normal. And coincidentally, there’s a call on the house ’link, about five minutes before she tried to tag the dead husband. Wrong number, the guy says, sorry about that. And it came from a clone ’link so we can’t trace it back.”

“Yeah, that smells pretty ripe. Insurance?”

“He upped it six months ago. It’s not a bundle, but it’s sweet enough. And for a couple months more than that, she’s been going out two nights a week. Pottery class.”

“With the thing.” Eve made a vague outline of a wheel with her hands. “And the gunk.”

“Yeah. You put the gunk on the thing and shape it up into something and put the something in the cooker. I don’t know why the hell, because if you want a vase or some shit, they’ve got ’em right in the store.”

“Feeney’s wife took pottery classes. Maybe she still does. She makes stuff then gives it away. It’s weird.”

“Yeah, but they got classes for every damn thing. We checked it out, and the wife, she’s registered. Never misses a class. But the thing is, it’s an hour class, and a couple of the neighbors who pay attention say how she leaves those nights before the husband gets home and doesn’t get back until ten, sometimes later. Class runs from seven to eight, but she’s out of the house before six. So you ask yourself, what’s she doing with those extra three hours when the class is a five-minute walk away? Instructor lives in the studio, and that’s pretty handy.”

“Sounds like they’re doing more than making vases. Priors?”

“Both of them clean up to now.”

“What’s your play?”

“We’re trying to track the pipe, and we could bring them in, sweat them, but at this point they gotta figure they got away clean, and she’s used to making those vases a couple times a week, and maybe she’d get a little antsy for a lesson. Seems like she’d want to, you know, get her hands in the gunk again. No classes tonight-we checked. Seems like a good time for some personal instruction, if you get me.”

“I’ve deciphered your complex code, Reineke. Go on and sit on her for a night, see if she’s compelled to take a spin on the pottery wheel. Either way, bring them in tomorrow and work them.”

“Will do.”

She started out again, stopped again. “If he’s got no priors, and he killed for her, he’ll be harder to crack. She’s at home, fully alibied while he does the dirty work. He’s going to start off trying to protect her. She’s the cheat. She’ll roll first.”

Marriage, she thought as she made her way up the glide, was a minefield.

Following hunch and hope she bypassed the chaos of the EDD bullpen and tried the lab. She wondered what compelled e-types to work in glass boxes. Were they innately claustrophobic? Closet exhibitionists? Was it a need to see out, or a need to be seen?

Whatever the reason, Feeney and his team manned the comps and stations inside the glass, movements and voices silenced by the clear barrier. It was a little like watching a strange species in their natural habitat.

Feeney, his hair sticking up in mad tufts, popped one of his favored candied almonds in his mouth. Callendar, hips jiggling, fingers snapping, paced in front of a screen that scrolled incomprehensible codes. Someone she didn’t recognize-who could tell them apart?-rode a wheeled stool up and down a counter, his baggies and skin tank red and orange blurs, his ring-studded fingers flying over keys and controls.

And Roarke.

He’d shed his suit jacket and rolled the sleeves of his black shirt up to his elbows. The twist of leather restraining his hair at the nape indicated full work mode. He, too, sat on a stool, but unlike his companions remained almost preternaturally still but for the rapid movements of his fingers on controls.

She knew he was focused, utterly, on whatever task he worked on. If it gave him trouble he’d be thinking in Irish, and muttering curses in the same.

He’d filed away whatever business he’d done that day, whatever he would deal with that evening, or the next. Which would be considerable, she thought. He did that not just for the man-the boy as he thought of him-he’d enjoyed, nor for the pleasure he gained from the work, the puzzle of it. He did it for her.

Whether or not they always agreed on the ways and the means of the work, that single fact shone through the gray between them. In her life no one had ever put her so completely, so absolutely first.

And as she knew him, she knew the moment he sensed her. His fingers paused; he turned his head. Those brilliant eyes locked on hers as they had the very first time at a funeral for another of the dead they’d shared.

Her heart opened, and it lifted, weightless and free.

Marriage was a minefield, she thought again, but she’d risk every sweaty, breathless step for moments like this.

He rose, evading the orange and red blur, skirting around the pacing Callendar, and came out to her.

She didn’t protest when he tilted up her chin and brushed his lips against hers.

“You had such a look in your eyes, a ghrá.”

“I was thinking about people. Friends, lovers, partners. You get a check in the all-of-the-above column.”

He took her hand, a light link of fingers. “Conclusions?”

“Sometimes you get lucky with who you let in your life. Sometimes you don’t. I’m feeling lucky today.”

His lips curved slowly as he brushed hers again.

Feeney shoved open the door. “If that’s all the two of you can think about doing, go up to the crib and get it over with. Some of us are working.”

If she’d been the blushing type, she’d have turned scarlet. Instead mortification hunched her shoulders even as Roarke laughed.

“I’d be up for a break.”

“You’d be up for eternity if you could manage it,” she muttered. “No sappy stuff on duty.”

“You started it.”

She couldn’t argue so she said nothing and went inside the glass box. “Progress?” she said in a crisp cop’s voice.

“We’re peeling the layers off the vic’s holo-system,” Feeney said in the same tone. “Looking for any shadows, echoes, and signs of tampering. So far, it’s coming up a hundred percent on all levels. Same with his droid. No sign of tampering, no breaks in time or programming.”

“Holo-room security’s clean as well,” Roarke told her. “We’re picking it apart, bit by byte, but there’s no indication anyone left or entered that room after Bart and before the droid bypassed the lock the next morning.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say the kid’s head just magically chopped itself off.” Feeney puffed out his cheeks. “I sent a team over there this morning. Had them scan and manually search every inch of that room, looking for another access. It’s tight.”

“I’ve got some semi-good,” Callendar told her. “I’ve done analysis on the logs from the office holo-room and the vic’s. Serious player. He could easily put in ten-twelve hours on a series of games in a day, and pulled a few all-nighters. A lot of solo play in there, too, but he logs in with a variety of partners, home and office.”

She took a swig from a tube of Orange Sweet. It made Eve’s teeth ache.

“He logged in a lot of time on the new game over the last several months, again solo and office. And this isn’t the first time he took a demo disc home to give it a whirl.”

“Is that so? Always logged it before?”

“Always. Like a half-dozen home whirls before the last one. Crossing it with his home unit it was always solo play. The thing is, it’s different stages and versions of the game.”