“I’ll think about it.”Eve got to her feet. And saw, under the mess he’d made of his desk, a box of cream-colored stationery.
“Fancy writing paper,” she commented, stepping over to pick up the box.
“Hmm? Oh yeah. I use it when I want to impress somebody.”
“Is that so?” Her eyes flashed to his like lasers. “Who did you want to impress lately?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I think I used it a couple weeks ago when I sent what my dad always called a bread-and-butter note to my publisher. A thanks for a dinner party thing. Why?”
“Where’d you get it? The paper?”
“Jule must’ve bought it. No, wait.” He rose himself, looking baffled as he took the box fromEve. “That’s not right. It was a gift. Sure, I remember now. Came through my publisher with a fan letter. Readers send stuff all the time.”
“A token from a reader, to the tune of about five hundred dollars?”
“You’re kidding! Five hundred. Wow.” He was watchingEve more carefully now as he set the box back on his desk. “I should be more careful with it.”
“I’ll want a sample of that paper,Mr.Breen. It matches the type left at both homicides I’m investigating.”
“This is just too fucking weird.” He sat, heavily. “Take it.” Several emotions seemed to run across his face as he scooped a hand through his luxurious hair. “He knows about me. He’s read my stuff. What the hell did the note say? I can’t remember, just something about how he appreciated my work, my attention to detail or something like that, and my-what-enthusiasm for the subject.”
“Do you have the note?”
“No, I wouldn’t keep it. I answer some of the mail personally, have a droid do the bulk. If it’s snail mail, we recycle the paper after it’s answered. He’s using my work as research, don’t you think? That’s horrible, and really flattering at the same time.”
Evepassed one of the sheets and envelopes toPeabody to seal into evidence. “Give him a receipt for it,” she ordered. “I wouldn’t be flattered if I were you, Mr. Breen. This isn’t research, or words in a discbook.”
“I’m part of it now. Not just an observer this time, but part of something I’ll write about.”
She could see he was more pleased than appalled.
“I plan to stop him, and soon,Mr.Breen. Things go my way, you’re not going to have much of a book.”
“I don’t know what to think about him,”Peabody said when they were outside. She turned back, studied the house and imagined the good-looking Breen swinging his handsome son onto his shoulders and taking him to the park to play. And dreaming of fame and fortune written in blood. “The stationery was right out of the blue. He didn’t try to hide it.”
“Where’s the excitement if we don’t find it?”
“I get that-and he likes the rush, no question. But his story sounds solid, especially if the killer has read his stuff.”
“He can’t prove where it came from, and we have to waste time trying to trace it. And Breen’s juiced by it.”
“I guess it’s the sort of thing that’d juice him. His job’s on the sick side.”
“So’s ours.”
Surprised,Peabody hiked withEve to the car. “You liked him?”
“I haven’t made up my mind. If he’s no more than he claims to be, I’ve got no problem with him. People like murder,Peabody. They jive on it when it’s got at least one of those degrees of separation.Reading about it, watching vids about it, turning on the evening news to hear about it. As long as it isn’t too close. We don’t pay to watch a couple of guys hack each other to death in an arena anymore, but we’ve still got the bloodlust. We still get off on it. In the abstract. Because it’s reassuring. Somebody’s dead, but we’re not.”
She remembered, as she climbed into the car out of the vicious heat, how that thought raced through her head, again and again, when she’d huddled in the corner of that frigid room in Dallas and looked at the bloody waste of the thing that had been her father.
“You can’t feel that way when you see it all the time. When you do what we do.”
“You can’t,”Eve said as she started the car. “Some can. Not all cops are heroes just because they’re supposed to be. And not all fathers are good guys just because they give their little boys a ride on their shoulders. Whether I like him or not, his lack of alibi, his line of work, and his possession of the notepaper put him on the list. We’re going to do a very careful check onThomasA.Breen. Let’s run the wife, too. What didn’t we hear from him in today’s conversation,Peabody?”
“I’m not following you.”
“He told us she came home from a late meeting. She went to bed. He worked. He slept in. She took the kid to the park. But I never heard anything about we. My wife and I, Jule and I. Me and my wife andJed. That’s what I didn’t hear. And what impression do you suppose I get from that?”
“You’re thinking the marriage isn’t good, that there’s friction or disinterest between Breen and his wife. Yeah, I can see that, but I can see how with two careers and a kid a couple could get into a routine that revolves around work and pass the toddler.”
“Maybe. Doesn’t seem much point in being together if you never are though, does there? Good-looking guy like that might start getting resentful and frustrated with that sort of routine. Especially if he sees it as a repeat of his own childhood. A guy doesn’t want to look in the mirror at thirty-something and see his father looking back at him. We’ll take a good close look atThomasA.Breen,” she repeated. “And see what we see.”
– -«»--«»--«»--
Evedecided her next stop would be Fortney. But it was time to play it, and him, a different way. “I want to nudge Fortney on the second murder, revisit the first. His alibi’s bullshit. And since I tend to get cranky when people lie to me, I’m not going to be particularly friendly.”
“As you are the epitome of cheer and goodwill by nature, sir, this will be somewhat of a stretch.”
“I smell the distinct aroma of lame-ass sarcasm in this vehicle.”
“We’ll have it fumigated.”
“But fortunately I’m the epitome of cheer and goodwill and will not rub your nose in it at this time. A few minutes into my unfriendly conversation with Fortney, I’m going to get a tag on my pocket ‘link.”
“As I’m in awe of you in all ways, I’m unsurprised by this sudden psychic ability.”
“I’ll be annoyed, but will have to take the communication, thereby passing the interview to you.”
“Do you also know who’ll be tagging… What? To me?”
That,Eve thought, had wiped the sassy little smirk off her aide’s face. “You’ll pick it up as good cop. The long-suffering, somewhat inexperienced, and apologetic underling. Play that up, fumble around.”
“Sir.Dallas. I am the long-suffering, somewhat inexperienced, and apologetic underling. I don’t have to play it up or pretend to fumble around.”
“Use it,”Eve said simply. “Make it work for you. Let him think he’s leading you. He’ll see a girl cop in uniform, who takes orders from me. Second-string. He won’t see past that to what you’re made of.”
I don’t know what I’m made of,Peabody thought, but drew a deep breath. “I can see how it could work.”
“Make it work,”Eve said again, and parked outside the office building to set the timer on her ‘link.
– -«»--«»--«»--
Evebullied her way intoLeoFortney ’s office and set the mood. Enjoyed setting it, she admitted. She put a little swagger in her step as she broke in on his holo-conference with a video producer.
“You’re going to want to reschedule your little confab,Leo,” she told him. “Or letHollywood here in on our conversation.”