J. Robb - Judgment in Death

She took a drink, set the glass aside. "It ran almost exactly as you thought it would. I went to him, asked for money for information. That pissed him off, so I let him push me around a little until I gave it for free. That also cheered him up."

Absently, she rebuttoned her cuff. "I told him you were distracted, bad-tempered, how you were cracking the whip to get the place open because it was costing you money to keep the doors closed. That, and your feathers were ruffled because the cops were breathing down your neck. I topped it off by saying I overheard you arguing with your wife."

"Good." Roarke sat on the arm of a chair.

"You were going around about the investigation, how it was looking for you, and more, about the position she was putting herself in. You're frantic about that, and pushing her to resign from the force. You two had a real blowup about that.

"I told him there were some hard words about being on opposite sides of the line, and you just lost it. I hope you don't mind that I painted a very clear picture of a man on the edge. You were getting damn tired of walking on eggshells, tired of losing money by keeping your business on her side. A lot of threats and recriminations. You cried," she said to Eve, not without some satisfaction.

"Well, thanks."

"He liked that part. Anyway, after you stormed out, I went in, offered Roarke a sympathetic ear. He was prime for it, so we had a couple drinks. That's when you told me you'd had enough of the straight life. You were bored, restless, and your marriage was shaky. Not that you didn't love your wife, but you needed an outlet. She didn't have to know you were dipping back into the pool, did she? You needed something to distract you from worrying about her. And you figured you might kill two birds by going to Ricker and making a deal. A nice quiet business association, the high side of profit for him, and he leaves your wife alone. You're going to get her off the force, but you want her in one piece while you work on that. You're stupid in love with her, but damned if she's going to castrate you and keep you on a leash. I agreed with you, then offered to talk to Ricker for you. That was the part that took him awhile to buy."

She touched her fingers to her sore arm. "I convinced him you agreed to it because you haven't been yourself. You'd gone soft and careless in certain areas. I think he swallowed it because it's what he wanted and because he doesn't believe I'd have the guts to lie to him."

She picked up her glass again, wet her throat. "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," she decided. "He was biting at the bait before I'd finished hanging it. The lawyer, Canarde, he doesn't like it, but Ricker told him to shut up. When he didn't, Ricker threw a paperweight at him. Missed, but it left a hell of a dent in the wall."

"Ah, to be a fly," Eve murmured.

"It was a moment," Rue agreed. "In any case, Canarde shut up then, and Ricker will be here. He won't miss the chance to humiliate you, to grind you under his heel a bit. And if he sniffs out that he should've listened to the lawyer, to take you out where you stand. If he can't have you ruined, he'll have you dead. Those were his words, exactly."

"Then it's perfect," Roarke decided, and he felt the thrill of the hunt heat his blood.

"Not quite." Eve hooked her thumbs in her front pockets, and turned toward Rue. "Why didn't you have Roarke cry?"

Rue shot her a look of such profound gratitude Eve had hope it was all going to work.

Time was running short. Running two critical operations meant every hour was crammed with two hours' work and worry. She left Purgatory in Roarke's perhaps too-competent hands and, switching gears, drove out to Clooney's suburban house.

"Whitney already had Baxter question the wife," Peabody said and earned a steel-tipped stare from Eve.

"I'm following up. Do you have a problem with that, Officer?"

"No, sir. No problem at all."

Time might have been rushing by for Eve, but for Peabody it seemed the next thirty hours were going to crawl like a slug. She decided it best not to mention the surveillance car parked in full view of the single-story ranch house on the postage-stamp lot.

Clooney would spot it, too, if he attempted to get to the house. Maybe that was the point.

Keeping her silence, she followed Eve up the walk, waited at the door.

The woman who opened it might have been pretty in a round, homey way. But at the moment she merely looked exhausted, unhappy, and afraid. Eve identified herself and held up her badge.

"You found him. He's dead."

"No. No, Mrs. Clooney, your husband hasn't been located. May we come in?"

"There's nothing I can tell you that hasn't already been said." But she turned away, shoulders slumped as if they carried a fierce burden, and walked across the tidy little living area.

Chintz and lace. Faded rugs, old, comfortable chairs. An entertainment screen that had seen better days. And, she noted, a statue of The Virgin-mother of Christ-on a table with her serene, compassionate face looking out over the room.

"Mrs. Clooney, I have to ask if your husband's contacted you."

"He hasn't. He wouldn't. It's just as I told the other detective. I think, somehow, there's been a terrible mistake." Absently, she pushed a lock of brown hair, as faded as the rugs, away from her face. "Art hasn't been well, hasn't been himself for a long time. But he wouldn't do the things you're saying he did."

"Why wouldn't he contact you, Mrs. Clooney? You're his wife. This is his home."

"Yes." She sat, as if her legs just couldn't hold her up any longer. "It is. But he stopped seeing that, stopped believing that. He's lost. Lost his way, his hope, his faith. Nothing's been the same to us since Thad died."

"Mrs. Clooney." Eve sat, leaning forward in an attitude that invited trust and confidence. "I want to help him. I want to get him the kind of help he needs. Where would he go?"

"I just don't know. I would have once." She took a tattered tissue from her pocket. "He stopped talking to me, stopped letting me in. At first, when Thad was killed, we clung together, we grieved together. He was the most wonderful young man, our Thad."

She looked toward a photograph, in a frame of polished silver, of a young man in full dress uniform. "We were so proud of him. When we lost him, we held on tight, to each other, to that love and pride. We shared that love and pride with his wife and sweet baby. It helped, having our grandchild close by."

She rose, picked up another photograph. This time Thad posed with a smiling young woman and a round-cheeked infant. "What a lovely family they made."

Her fingers brushed lovingly over the faces before she set the photograph down again, sat.

"Then, a few weeks after we lost Thad, Art began to change, to brood and snap. He wouldn't share with me. He wouldn't go to Mass. We argued, then we stopped even that. Existing in this house," she said, looking around at the familiar, the comforting, as if it all belonged to strangers, "instead of living in it."

"Do you remember, Mrs. Clooney, when that change in your husband began?"

"Oh, nearly four months ago. Doesn't seem like a long time, I suppose, when you think of more than thirty years together. But it felt like forever."

The timing worked, Eve calculated, slid the puzzle piece of the first murder into place.

"Some nights he wouldn't come home at all. And when he did, he slept in Thad's old room. Then he moved out. He told me he was sorry. That he had to set things right before he could be a husband to me again. Nothing I could say could change his mind. And God forgive me, at that point I was so tired, so angry, so empty inside, I didn't care that he was going."

She pressed her lips together, blinked away the tears. "I don't know where he is or what he's done. But I want my husband back. If I knew anything that would make that happen, I'd tell you."