J. Robb - Divided in Death

Eve crouched down so they were eye-to-eye. “Why do you sound like you’re trying to convince yourself of that, Reva, as much as me?”

Her lips trembled, her eyes swam with fresh tears. “Because I can’t remember. I just can’t remember.” She covered her face with her hands, and wept.

Eve left her long enough to get Caro. “I want you to sit with her,” Eve instructed. “I’m going to put a guard with you momentarily. That’s procedure.”

“Are you arresting her?”

“I haven’t made that determination. She’s cooperating, and that’s going to help. It’d be best if you bring her in here, keep her in this room until I come back.”

“All right. Thank you.”

“I’ve got to get my field kit out of the car.”

“I’ll get it.” Roarke walked out with her. “What do you think?”

“I’m not thinking anything until I secure and examine the scene.”

“Lieutenant, you’re always thinking.”

“Let me do my job. You want to help? Direct my partner and the CSU upstairs when they arrive. Until then, you need to back off or you’ll just muck up the works.”

“Tell me one thing. Should I advise Reva to contact a lawyer?”

“You put me in a hell of a fix.” She snatched the field kit from him. “I’m a cop. Let me go be a cop. You figure out the rest. Goddamn it to hell and back again.”

She stomped upstairs. Breaking open the kit, she yanked out a can of Seal-It and coated her hands and boots. Then, fixing a recorder on her lapel, she re-entered the crime scene and got to work.

She’d progressed to the bodies themselves when she heard the creak of a floorboard. She whirled, ready to snap at the intruder, and bit back the oath when she spotted Peabody.

She was going to have to get used to her former aide’s lack of clomping. The new detective no longer wore the hard-soled cop shoes of uniform, but cushy airsneaks that were all but soundless. And just, in Eve’s opinion, a little spooky.

She had them, apparently, in every color of the rainbow, including the mustard-yellow she wore now to match her jacket. Despite them, and the straight-legged black pants and scoop-necked top, she managed to look pressed and polished and cop-like.

Her square face was sober and concerned, and framed by her standard ‘do, the straight bowl cut that seemed to suit her dark hair.

“It’s insult on injury to buy it naked,” Peabody said.

“And embarrassing on top of it to buy it naked with another woman’s husband, or a woman not your wife.”

“Is that what we’ve got? Dispatch wasn’t big on details.”

“I didn’t give them details. Dead guy is Roarke’s admin’s son-in-law, and right at the moment, her daughter’s prime suspect.”

Peabody looked at the bed. “Looks like a messy situation just got messier.”

“Take the scene first, then I’ll fill you in on the players. Stunner.” She lifted the sealed weapon. “Suspect claims-”

“Holy wow!”

“What? What?” Eve’s free hand slammed onto the butt of her weapon.

“That.” Reaching out, Peabody danced her fingers delicately over the bracelet on Eve’s wrist. “It’s mag. I mean mondo mag, Dallas.”

Mortified, Eve shoved the cuff under the sleeve of her jacket. She’d forgotten she was wearing the bracelet. “Maybe we could concentrate on the scene of the crime rather than my accessories.”

“Sure, but that is some ultimate accessory. Is that big fat red stone a ruby?”

“ Peabody.”

“Okay, okay.” But she was going to get a closer look, when Dallas wasn’t paying attention. “Where were you?”

“Just playing around with evidence, amusing myself at a crime scene.”

Peabody rolled her eyes. “Jeez, beat me with a stick.”

“First chance,” Eve agreed. “To continue. The suspect claims that she brought a stunner with her, a reconfigured one that meets civilian licensee requirements. This is not a reconfigured stunner, but a military issue with full capabilities.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Succinct, as always.”

“That’s inscrutable detective-speak.”

“Said weapon, which I’ve already tested for prints, has suspect’s, and only suspect’s prints, all over it. As does the murder weapon.” Eve gestured to another sealed bag, and the bloody knife within. “The carry bag over there holds electronic jammers and burglar tools, also loaded with Reva Ewing’s prints.”

“Is she security-savvy?”

“Works in that capacity for Roarke Enterprises, and is a former member of the Secret Service.”

“From the setup, it appears that the suspect broke in, found her husband noodling strange, and hacked away.”

But she moved closer to the bed, the bodies. “No defensive wounds on either vic, no signs of struggle. Somebody starts hacking away, most people tend to object, at least a little.”

“Hard to when you’re stunned first.”

With a fingertip, Eve indicated the small red dots between Blair’s shoulder-blades, the matching ones between Felicity’s breasts.

“Him on the back, her on the front,” Peabody noted.

“Yeah. I’d say they were in the middle of noodling strange. Killer walks in behind, zaps him first, shoves him aside and zaps her before she can more than peep. They were unconscious, or at least incapacitated when the hacking began.”

“Serious overkill,” Peabody commented. “There must be a dozen wounds on each of them.”

“Eighteen for him, fourteen for her.”

“Ouch.”

“I’ll say. No heart wounds, which is interesting. Makes more blood if you don’t hit the heart.”

She studied the way it spread over the sheets, the light spatter on the shade of the lamp beside the bed. Nasty work, she thought. Very nasty, very messy.

“Also interesting that none of the holes in them struck the points where the stunner left the burn marks. Suspect has some blood on her clothes-not much, considering, but some. Hands and arms are clean.”

“She’d have to wash up after something like this.”

“You’d think. You’d think if she did, she’d have gotten rid of the shirt, too. But people dumb down a lot of times after they hack a couple people to death.”

“Her mother’s here,” Peabody pointed out.

“Yeah. So maybe her mother washed her up some, but Caro strikes me as more careful than that. Time of death is one-twelve A.M. We’ll have EDD check the security, see if we can determine when she bypassed and entered. I need you to check the kitchen, see if the murder weapon came from the premises, or if it was brought on scene.”

She paused a moment. “You see what’s left of the leather bomber jacket on the floor down there?”

“Yeah. Looked like nice material.”

“I want it tagged, too. Ewing says she tore it up with her minidrill. Let’s see if that matches.”

“Huh. Why’d she use a drill if she had a knife. Ripping away with a knife’s got to be more satisfying and efficient.”

“Yeah, there’s a question. We’ll also run both vics, see if we can find anyone who’d want them dead besides the betrayed wife.”

Hissing a breath out between her teeth, Peabody looked back at the bodies. “If it’s what it looks like, she’ll make diminished capacity in a walk.”

“Let’s find out what it is, not what it looks like.”

“No. No, I didn’t wash her hands or face.” Caro sat, eyes level, face composed. But her hands were knotted together in her lap, as if she used them as a rope to anchor her body to the chair.

“I tried to touch as little as possible, and just keep her calm until you got here.”

“Caro.” Eve kept her gaze focused on the woman’s face, and tried to ignore the fact-and the small kernel of resentment in her belly-that Roarke remained in the room. At Caro’s request. “There’s a master bath upstairs, off the main bedroom. There are indications, though the sink was wiped down, that someone washed blood away.”