“I believe so.”
“We should find one of those, too. So maybe you could figure out a costume store or something where we can get them on the way to dinner.”
It was remarkably simple to find a rhinestone tiara and plastic scepter, especially when he was shopping with a woman who made a habit of grabbing the first thing that came close to the mark and making an escape.
And since he knew his woman, for the meal he chose Italian in a crowded little trattoria where the atmosphere was simple and the food stupendous. By the time she’d dug into spaghetti and meatballs and hadn’t brought up the case, he let it lie.
“You missed lunch.”
She spun pasta around her fork. “Probably, but I had a donut in there. And I think I forgot to inform you that Peabody and McNab are bunking at our place tonight.”
“Inform me?”
“Summerset. He got pissy because I forgot about a delivery coming in today. Anyway, Peabody wants to decorate for the shower – which I don’t get. You’re getting a party, presents, food. What more do you need?”
“I suppose we’ll find out. That’s handy though. I can pluck McNab up tomorrow, and we’ll go do something manly.”
“Go? Leave?” Absolute panic rushed into her face. “You’re not going to stay for the thing?”
He took a bite of manicotti. “There’s nothing you could do, say, nothing you could possibly offer – including deviant sexual favors – that would induce me to be within a hundred yards of that baby shower.”
“Crap.” She forked up a nice chunk of meatball. “Not even if I combined chocolate sauce with the outfit?”
“Not even.”
“There could be whipped cream. And choreography.”
“An excellent bribe, I grant you, especially for a desperate woman. But no. I’ve already made arrangements to escape with Leonardo. We’ll just add McNab to our happy little troupe.”
“But what if something goes wrong?” She grabbed his arm. “Like the caterer goes whacko, because sometimes they do. Or we lose one of the pregnant women in the house.”
He merely picked up his wine with his free hand.
“Okay, okay.” She rolled her eyes. “I can handle it. But it stinks, if you ask me, really stinks, that you get to go out somewhere drinking beer while I’m stuck at Baby Central. Just because you have a penis.”
“We’ll think fondly of you over beer, me and my penis.”
She ate a little more, then smiled slowly. “You’ve still got to be in the birthing room when she pushes it out.”
“Shut up, Eve.”
“Your penis won’t save you then, pal.”
He picked up a breadstick, broke it in half to offer her a share. “And are you playing games tomorrow? Will there be prizes?”
She winced at his perfect delivery of the perfect stinger. “Okay, I’ll shut up. Want to talk about murder?”
“Please.”
She brought him up to date as they finished the meal and lingered over cappuccino.
“So Cavendish and his admin struck you wrong.”
“Vibes all over the place. Something off there, and the admin pulls his strings.”
“I don’t know him, though I have met the other players in today’s cast.”
“I’ve got the basics on him. Forty-six, trust-fund baby. Likes squash – the game, not necessarily the food. Two marriages, ditched the first wife eight years ago. One child, female, age twelve. Mother has custody, and moved to Paris. Married wife number two as soon as the divorce was final. She’s twenty-nine. Former model. My take there is he went from starter wife to trophy wife and fools around with the admin on the side.”
She narrowed her eyes as she sipped the frothy coffee. “And she wears leather, high-heeled boots, and makes him bark like a dog when they do it.”
“Really?” Amused, Roarke sat back. “And you know this because?”
“Because, of the two of them, she’s the one with the balls. He pushes paper, attends events, takes meetings, and does what he’s told.”
“And did someone tell him to kill Copperfield and Byson?”
“Maybe, and wouldn’t that be tidy?” She frowned over it. “But I’m leaning away from that. The killer was too level-headed, too confident. Cavendish broke a sweat just talking to me. But he knows something, and one of the things he knows is who did it.”
“So you’ll sweat him a bit more.”
“I can do that. I can talk to him again, poke at him a little. But I don’t have enough to charge him with anything and make him flip. I need more. A direct line. I have to find more because I’m betting he was just where he said he was on the night of the murders. Home in bed, and with the covers over his head because he knew what was going on.”
“If the New York branch of the law firm was part of it, used to funnel money or wash funds, I’ll find it.”
He would, Eve thought, not only because he was good, but because his pride was on the line this time out. “Counting on it,” she said. “Maybe we should go get started.”
She knew Peabody and McNab were already there because she could hear the music and the voices coming from what she’d designated as the party room. If it made her a coward, she’d live with it, but Eve made a bee-line for her office.
There she updated her board, then sat down to take a closer look at Ellyn Bruberry.
Forty, she mused as the data scrolled onto her wall screen. No marriages, no offspring. The West Side address listed would give Bruberry a grand view of the park and the price tag to match. Not bad for a paralegal and administrative assistant.
American born, though she’d moved from Pittsburgh to London in her early twenties. To join the firm of Stuben, Robbins, and Cavendish – Mull came later – as a legal secretary. Relocated to New York, and the branch there, as Walter Cavendish’s admin six years before.
After the second marriage, Eve mused.
No criminal record.
Eve took a dip into the financials. Hefty salary, she decided, but it wasn’t illegal to pay employees well. Major influxes in income jibed with Christmas, Bruberry’s birthday, and the time she’d come into the law firm – and would be easily explained as bonuses.
But wasn’t it interesting that her personal accounts were handled by Sloan, Myers, and Kraus?
Not Byson’s client though, she confirmed after a check of his list. She made a note to find out who at the firm handled Bruberry’s financials.
Direct lines, she thought again. What was the most direct line from Copperfield/Byson to Cavendish/Bruberry?
The firm again, but if she spiked out from there it was the Bullock Foundation. Clients of both the law firm and the accounting firm. And Cavendish had been flustered when she’d asked if he’d seen the foundation people during their time in New York.
It was the youngest partner, Robert Kraus, who’d been entertaining Bullock and Chase – and who was alibied by them.
“Hey, Dallas.”
She grunted as she called up Kraus’s data.
“You’re not still working. Come on.” Peabody stood beside the desk, hands on her hips. “You need to look at the decorations we’ve got going. I need to run some stuff by you.”
“You just do what you’re doing. It’s fine.”
“Dallas. It’s after ten.”
“Golly, Mom, did I miss curfew? Am I grounded?”
“See, you’re cranky.” Peabody pointed an accusing finger. “Take a break, take a look. It’s for Mavis.”
“Okay, okay. Jesus.” But if she was going to be dragged into decorations, she wasn’t being dragged alone. Eve marched to Roarke’s office. “We’re going to look at decorations and see what else needs to be done. I think.”
“Have fun.”
“Un-uh. We is you, too.”
“I don’t want to.” But he made the mistake of glancing up, and met the same glowering look on Eve’s face she’d seen on Peabody’s. “All right, then. But when this whole business is finally over, you and I are taking that postponed holiday, and doing naked handsprings on the sand.”