She whipped off her coat, dumped it on the newel post just because she could, and strutted up the stairs. The quick and habitual sally made her feel marginally better. It was just the thing to take Bobby’s devastated face out of her head, at least temporarily.
She went straight to her office. She would set up a murder board here, set up files and create a secondary base, on the off chance Whitney vetoed both her and Mira. If she was ordered to step aside, officially, she intended to be ready to pursue the work on her own time.
She engaged her ‘link to touch base with Morris.
“I’m going to come by in the morning,” she told him. “Am I going to get any surprises?”
“Head blow did the job, and was incurred about thirty hours after the other injuries. While those were relatively minor in comparison, it’s my opinion they were caused by the same weapon.”
“Got anything on that?
“Some fibers in the head wounds. I’ll be sending them over to our friend Dickhead at the lab. A weighed cloth sack would be my preliminary guess. Tox screen’s come back positive for legal, over-the-counter pain meds. Standard blockers. She took one less than an hour before death, chased it with a very nice Chablis.”
“Yeah, there was a bottle of that in her room, and blockers on the bed table.”
“She had some soup, mostly chicken broth, and some soy noodles about eight, and some soft meat in a wrap closer to midnight. Treated herself to some chocolate frozen dessert, more wine with her late supper. She was, at time of death, nicely buzzed on wine and pills.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll catch you in the morning.”
“Dallas, are you interested in the fact that she’s had several sculpting procedures over the last, I’d say, dozen years? Face and body, tucks and nips. Nothing major, but considerable work, and good work at that.”
“Always good to know the habits of the dead. Thanks.”
She ended the transmission, sat back at her desk to study the ceiling.
So she’d gotten herself roughed up sometime Friday after leaving Roarke’s office. Doesn’t, by their statements, tell her son or daughter-in-law, doesn’t report same to the authorities. What she does, apparently, is hole up with wine and pills and easy food.
Either leaves her window unlocked, or opens the door to her killer.
Now why would she do that if the killer had already played a tune on her the day before? Where was her fear, her anger? Where was her survival instinct?
A woman who could run a game on CPS for over a decade had damn good survival instincts.
Even if you’re in some pain, why would you get buzzed alone in a hotel room when someone’s hurt you, and obviously can hurt you again? Especially when you have family right down the hall.
Unless it was what was down the hall that hurt you. Possible, she thought. But if so, why stay where they could so easily get to you, hurt you again
She glanced over as Roarke came in through his adjoining office.
“You get yourself beat up,” she began, “you don’t want the cops involved.”
“Certainly not.”
“Right, okay, I get that. You don’t tell your son?”
“I don’t have one to tell at the moment.” He eased a hip onto the corner of her desk. “But pride might very well prevent me.”
“That’s guy thinking. Think like a woman.”
“A stretch for me,” he said with a smile. “How about you?”
“If I’m thinking like this woman, I whine ASAP to anyone who’ll listen. But she doesn’t, which gives me a couple of possibilities.”
“One, she doesn’t have to tell her son, because her son’s the one who used her as a punching bag.”
“That’s one,” she agreed. “One that’s not fitting so well into my memory of their relationship. If that relationship soured since, why does she stay where he can get to her again?”
He picked up the little statue of the goddess, a symbol of mother, he thought, from her desk. He toyed with it idly as he spoke. “We both know relationships are thorny areas. It’s possible that he made a habit out of knocking her about. She was used to it, and didn’t consider telling anyone, or getting out of his way.”
“There’s the daughter-in-law. No marks on her, no typical signs of an abusive relationship there. A guy who pounds on Mommy is likely to smack the little woman around, too. It doesn’t fit very well for me.”
“If you bump that down the list”—he set the statue back on her desk—“what leapfrogs over it?”
“She doesn’t want anyone to know. Which isn’t pride, it’s planning, it’s precaution. She had an agenda, a personal one.” And yeah, Eve thought, she liked that a lot better.
“But it doesn’t explain why she drank a lot of wine, took blockers, got herself impaired.”
She shuffled the close-up still of Trudy’s face to the top of her pile. And took a hard look at it. “That doesn’t say fear to me. She’s afraid, she uses her son as a shield, she locks herself up tight, or she runs. She didn’t do any of those things. Why wasn’t she afraid?”
“There are some who enjoy pain.”
Eve shook her head. “Yeah, there’s that. But she liked being tended to. Run me a bath, get me a snack. She’d used the tub, and I got a prelim sweeper’s report that tells me there was some blood in the bathroom sink, in the drain. So she washed up after she got tuned.”
Missing towels, she remembered, and made another note of it.
“And she turns her back on her killer. Blow came from behind. She’s not afraid.”
“Someone she knows and mistakenly—as it turns out—trusts.”
“You don’t trust somebody who smashes your face the day before.” Love them, maybe. She knew there was a kind of love that ran to that. But trust was different. “Morris thinks the same weapon was used throughout, but I’m thinking two different hands on it, two different times. You’ve got the run from your building security.”
“A copy, yes. Feeney has the original.”
“I want to see it.”
He took a disc from his pocket. “Thought you might.”
She plugged it in, ordered the review on the wall screen.
“I’ve had the whole business put on here,” he said as Eve watched Trudy enter Roarke’s Midtown building. She crossed the acres of marble, passed animated screens, rivers of flowers, sparkling little pools, and moved straight to the information desk that handled the offices.
That suit, she noted, had been in the closet of the hotel room. Neatly hung. The shoes had been tuckedin there, too. She hadn’t been wearing that outfit when she was beaten.
“Done her research,” Eve mused. “No fumbling around, no looking around to get her bearings.”
“She presses at information, as you see. ‘No, I’ve no appointment, but he’ll want to see me,’ and so on. Look confident, look friendly, and as though you belong. She’s very good.”
“She got upstairs, anyway.”
“They called through, got to Caro, who passed the request on to me. I had them make her wait a bit. I’m good as well. She doesn’t care for it, as you can see by the way her face tightens up, but she has a seat in one of the lobby waiting areas. Unless you want to watch her twiddle her thumbs for the next bit of time, you can move forward.”
Eve did, then slowed it down when a young woman approached Trudy.
“Caro, who knows the ropes, sent one of the assistants down to escort her up on one of the public elevators. Takes her round about, up to my level, through outer areas, down the skyway. A goodly hike, and when she arrives, well, she can wait a bit more. I’m a busy man, aren’t I?”
“She’s impressed,” Eve commented. “Who wouldn’t be? All that space, the glass, the art, the people at your beck and call. Good job.”
“Here you see Caro coming to get her at last, to walk her back. Then Caro goes out, shuts the doors, and we have our little chat.”
Eve ran the disc forward, marked the time elapsed at twelve minutes before Trudy came hurrying out.
And there was fear, Eve noted, a hint of wildness in the eyes, a jerkiness to the walk that was nearly a trot.