“Ummmm. I can’t think of anything. It’s too much pressure. Oh, oh! I know. Are you all set for tomorrow night?”
“Set for what?”
“Now.”
“If it’s now, it’s not tomorrow night. What did you smoke for breakfast?”
“All I had was rehydrated grapefruit. The holiday weight just won’t get the hell off me. It’s all cookies.” Peabody gave a mournful sigh. “My ass is entirely made up of cookies.”
“What kind? I like cookies.”
“Every kind,” Peabody said. “I have no strength against the mighty variety tin of Christmas cookies. My grandmother still makes them from scratch.”
“I thought cookies were made of sugar.”
“Scratchis from sugar-and flour and eggs and carob chips and butter. Mmmm, butter.” Peabody closed her eyes and dreamed of it. “Like from cows.”
“Cows are a milk thing.” Eve waited while a herd of pedestrians tromped across the crosswalk. “And I don’t understand why anyone wants to drink something that comes out of a cow like, well, piss.”
“You make butter from milk. If you’re talking real deal. Damn it, now I’m hungry. I can’t talk about cookies, my ass is expanding just from the conversation. I was talking about something. Oh, Now.”
“It was now, it became then. Now it’s now all over again.”
Brow knit, Peabody turned her head to look at Eve. “You’re trying to confuse me, and hey-nice job. You know I mean Nadine’s new show. You’re first up tomorrow for the premiere.”
“And I’m trying not to think about it.”
“It’s going to be mag. What are you wearing?”
“I thought, just for a kick, I’d try clothes.”
“Come on, Dallas, the show’s national and satellite and it’s getting megahype. Let Roarke pick out your outfit.”
Eve’s eyes narrowed into sharp slits; she felt a snarl rising in her throat. “I know how to dress. I’ve been wearing clothes for years now.” She thought of Magdelana again, and the bold red dress with silver shoes. “I’m a cop, not some fashion whore. If he wanted someone who struts around on stilts wearing fancy dresses, he shouldn’t have married me.”
“I don’t think your wardrobe was a big factor.” Cautiously, Peabody dipped a toe in dangerous waters. “Did you guys have a fight?”
“Not exactly. But I think we’re due.” Eve punched it to swing around a sedan, then zipped onto a second-level street spot. “This is close enough.”
“I’ll say.” Peabody got her wind back, then jogged down to the sidewalk behind Eve.
The bitter cold drilled straight to the bone, and a whipping wind raced down the urban canyons. Eve shoved her ungloved hands into her pockets, and pushed her mind back to the job.
“She’s got nothing to hide, she won’t have a problem with us looking around her place. Otherwise, we can get a warrant quick enough. We look for any sign of the poison, that includes the beans themselves, or any by-product. I want to go through his data and communications, any discs, and paperwork. I want to know what he kept in his top dresser drawer, hidden in his coat pockets. The works.”
Peabody sighed with relief when they entered the building and shut out February’s blast. “If their place is like Kowoski’s, it won’t take long.”
After the hike up the stairs, Eve knocked on the door. It was opened by a woman with tired eyes and glossy dreadlocks. “Can I help you?”
“Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody to see Lissette Foster.”
“You’re the police investigating Craig’s death. I’m Cicely Bolviar, Lissy’s mother. Please come in. She’s in the bathroom.” Cicely sent a worried glance toward the closed bathroom door. “She’s taking a shower. She didn’t sleep last night. I’m going to make breakfast. She needs to eat something. I’m sorry.” She turned back to Eve and Peabody. “Please sit. Would you like coffee?”
“Don’t trouble.”
“It’s no trouble. I want to make her something. We’re meeting Craig’s family this afternoon to talk about…” Her lips quivered. “To talk about arrangements. I want to make her something to eat.”
“When did you get to New York, Ms. Bolviar?”
“Late last night. I came as soon as…when Lissy called to tell me, I came. She needs hermaman now. He called me that, too. Maman.” She moved into the kitchen bump, then stood as if she didn’t know what to do next.
“It was here she wanted to live, my Lissy, and because she had Craig, I didn’t worry. In a few years, he told me-they were so young-in a few years, they’d start a family, and I’d beGrandmaman. That’s what he said. Do you know what this person killed? They killed that sweet boy, and that family he and Lissy would have made. They killed that joy. Do you know how this happened?”
“We’ll need to speak with your daughter.”
“Bien sûr. Please sit. I’ll make coffee. They have egg substitute. At home, I have eggs from the chickens my neighbor keeps, but here…He was a sweet boy.” Her tired eyes gleamed with tears. “Such a sweet boy. This should never have happened. Please sit.”
There was a bright blue couch with bright green pillows and two chairs covered in the same vivid colors done in wide stripes. A streamlined workstation took up one corner of the room while a small table with two chairs stood in the other. The arrangement, the order, the flashing colors gave the stingy space style and function.
Cicely walked to the bathroom door, rapped lightly. “Mignon, the police are here. The lieutenant and detective. She’ll only be a moment,” she told Eve. “I’ll make the coffee now.”
Lissette came out in loose pants and a sweatshirt with thick socks on her feet. She looked like a woman who was suffering from a long illness. Her color had gone pasty, her eyes were dull and swollen. She moved as if her bones hurt.
“You know something more?” Her voice was like rusted metal. “Something about Craig?”
Eve got to her feet. “Have a seat, Mrs. Foster.”
“I went to see him. We went to see him. His parents and I went to that place. It wasn’t a mistake. You said it wasn’t. It broke them to pieces. His mom and dad, it broke them to pieces. What will I do now?” As if suddenly aware of her surroundings, she looked around the little apartment. “What will I do? Maman.”
“There, my baby. Sit now.” Cicely came back, eased Lissette into a chair. “Please, can’t you tell us something? Anything? It’s so hard not knowing why, or how.”
Eve looked into Lissette’s eyes. “Your husband was killed when he ingested a lethal amount of ricin.”
“Ingested? Ate? Ricin? What is it?”
“It’s poison,” Cicely murmured and her eyes were huge now, horrified now. “I know this. This is poison.”
“Poison? But why would he…how did he…”
“It was in the hot chocolate,” Eve told Lissette and watched the woman go gray.
“No. No. No. That’s not right. I made it for him. I made it myself. Every morning once the weather gets cold. And when it warms again, I make him sweet cold tea. Every day. You think I hurt Craig? You think I-”
“No, I don’t.” After more than eleven years on the job, Eve knew when to trust her gut. “But in order to clear you so that we can pursue other avenues, we’d like to look around the apartment. We’d like your permission to search it, to go through your husband’s computer, his work, his personal items.”
“Wait. Please.” Lissette gripped her mother’s hand. “You said poison. You said Craig was poisoned. How could he have taken poison by mistake?”
“They don’t think it was a mistake,” Cicely said. “Do you?”
“No.”
“But then…” Color came back into Lissette’s face, dull and red as she slowly rose to her feet. “Deliberately? Someone did this to him? For what? He hurt no one, ever. Not ever.”