Lisa Scottoline - Moment Of Truth

'No.' Brinkley stared at the platter. Next to the mustard was a large pool of gloppy, smooth goo. A tan color. It didn't look like a dressing for the steak. 'Look at that, Kovich. That's hummus.'

'What?'

'Hummus.' Brinkley knew it because of Sheree. When she turned Muslim, she started eating all sorts of shit. Out went the greens and pork ribs, in came the bean soup and whole wheat bread. 'It's a dip, made with chickpeas and tahini.'

'Tahini? Isn't that an island, like Hawaii?'

'No, it's a paste. From sesame seeds.'

'Looks like baby shit.'

'Tastes like baby shit.'

'You eat that?'

'Only to save my marriage.' They laughed, then Brinkley stopped. 'It ain't the kind of appetizer most people put out.'

'Like cheese balls.'

'Right.' Brinkley didn't know what a cheese ball was, but didn't ask. Kovich ate trash. Ring-Dings and hot dogs. 'Like cheese balls.'

'Okay, so?'

'So why they serving hummus with meat? Wife's got the appetizer out and she's waiting for Newlin to come home to dinner.' Brinkley shoved the Polaroids into his pocket and waved at the platter, thinking aloud. 'Newlin says the wife likes filet. We know she likes Scotch. They Scotch and meat people, dig?'

'I guess, Bill.'

Brinkley let it go. He felt like he was on to something, whether it was something that mattered he didn't know. 'So why they got hummus, too? Meat people don't eat hummus. Hummus is a substitute for meat. You eat either hummus or meat.'

'I understand. One or the other. So, you think Newlin eats hummus?'

'No. No man eats hummus. Not unless he wants to save his marriage.' Brinkley wasn't joking. 'People who eat meat don't eat hummus. Don't work that way.'

'How the hell do you know that, Mick?'

'I just know.' He didn't want to get into it. Sheree's conversion. The white keemar she took to wearing, covering up her fine body. All the time reading the Koran. It was the beginning of the end for them. The hummus is for somebody else. Whoever else was at dinner tonight.'

'What? Kovich pushed up his glasses, leaving red marks on his nose.

'You heard me. Let's check the rest of the house.'

Brinkley and Kovich went through the kitchen, where a large dinner salad sat waiting in pink Saran, and then went through the bathroom, noting the bloodstained towels and the toilet where Newlin had vomited. There was no mistaking the smell, and the detectives took notes, made sketches, and went upstairs. The master bedroom was sterile, the closets neat and well stocked, with a wedding picture on the white vanity, the wife in a flowing white gown that trailed like a cloud. The his-and-her bathrooms were in order, and Brinkley took notes and ordered everything bagged.

Everything looked perfect, even the library, and the wife's home office, which contained a slew of photographs of herself, her husband, horses, and a boat, but only a single photo of the daughter. It was a posed publicity shot, and though the girl looked gorgeous, it wasn't personal in the least. Brinkley tagged the files to be boxed and seized, and listened to the messages on the office answering machine, all routine. Nothing he bagged was remotely as intriguing as the earring back.

He located the daughter's room, which looked like a room for the kid who had everything. Big canopy bed, school desk with books, and three shelves of pretty white

dolls. He scanned the shelves but the dolls stared back at him blankly, and nothing was out of order. He had that earring back on the brain. He went over to the dresser and eyeballed it for a jewelry box. Bottles of perfume, hair things, and a box of burled wood sat against the mirror, and he probed its lid with a pen. It was locked. The key must be somewhere. Brinkley searched the drawers with his pen. Silk undies, T-shirts, sweaters, all folded in a rainbow of colors. No key to the box, no nothing. He'd get it after it was seized.

He left the dressers, searched under the bed, between the mattress, and then moved on to the bathroom. It was well stocked but nothing looked unusual, except he found a pink plastic wheel of birth control pills. Brinkley had never seen them before; Sheree didn't need them. He turned away at the memory and left the room to find Kovich.

'I keep thinking about that earring back,' Brinkley said, as they walked down the grand, carpeted staircase. 'Something that falls off easy, by the body. Makes sense it belonged to the killer. Got knocked off during the struggle.'

'Give it up, Mick. Like I said, that earring coulda been dropped a long time ago.'

True, or maybe it was dropped by whoever Newlin's lying to protect. Whoever eats hummus and puts their feet up.' They reached the bottom of the staircase where the techs were working on their final tasks. A low steel gurney rolled in on wheels that squeaked as they negotiated the thick, costly rugs. One of the coroner's assistants gave Brinkley the high sign, and the detective nodded absently. 'Earrings, a vegetarian, and dirty feet on the table? I'm no expert, but it says teenager to me.'

'You're serious?'

'Dead serious. I want to talk to the daughter.'

'Christ, Mick.' Kovich's eyes widened behind the big window of his glasses. 'She's Kelley's age.'

'Kelley loses her earring backs, too. You just told me that,' Brinkley said, but was suddenly distracted by the shouted one-two-three count of the coroner's assistants, the sound of an industrial zipper being closed, then the squeaking of the gurney's wheels back across the rugs. The gurney rattled past the detectives, bearing the black body bag.

'Film at eleven,' Kovich said, but Brinkley was making Honor Newlin a secret promise.

I'll get your killer, he told her, and he knew that she heard him, in some other place and time.

After Mary had delivered Paige to her father, she went to find Judy in the Roundhouse lobby, busy despite the late hour. Groups of department employees stood chatting in street clothes, oblivious to the activity around them. Two cops hurried to the exit, their gun holsters and waist radios flapping, and three others dragged a vastly overweight drunk between them in handcuffs. The toes of his sneakers squeaked across the polished floor, making the cops at the security desk laugh.

The oval lobby, with its dramatic curved shape, was modern when it was built, but now looked obviously dated, reminding Mary of The Jetsons come to life. Wooden acoustic slats ringed the room, the floor was a funky flecked tile, and the walls were covered with oil portraits of police brass, odd in the space-age setting. An American flag and the blue flag of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania flanked the security desk, the fluorescent lighting glinting dully on their synthetic weave. Mary spotted Judy reading the newspaper across the room and hurried over.

'Yo, come with me,' she said, grabbing Judy's arm. 'We have to talk.' She hustled Judy aside so no one could hear and told her what had happened in Paige's apartment with the photo. 'Don't you think it's odd that she lied about being with her boyfriend on the night her mother was killed?'

'You don't know that she lied. You don't know that the kid in the hall was her boyfriend.'

'I think he was. So why would she lie?'

'Maybe she doesn't want you to know her business, whiz.'

This is the night the murder was committed, and Paige was supposed to go to dinner at her parents' house, she told me. She let it slip.' Mary glanced over her shoulder. A circle of women talked near a display case that contained model squad cars. 'What do you think about that?'

'I don't think it means anything. Not much anyway.'

'What if she really did go to her parents' tonight? What if her boyfriend went, too? That doesn't mean much?'

'That didn't happen, Mare. Newlin confessed. He called nine-one-one from the scene. He's even willing to take responsibility for the crime, which he should.'