“Yes, that’s true.” He measured out milk, poured it into the chocolate. And crushed some sort of bean in a little marble bowl with a little marble dowel. “But then, my wife is a renowned and respected criminal profiler, and you are a renowned and respected police lieutenant. I’d have been foolish to settle for less with such talent available.”
He added the crushed bean, sugar, and stirred methodically.
He’d given good answers, she thought. Very good, simple, logical answers. But she wasn’t done.
“Did you fight with your cousin, Professor Mira?”
“Oh, yes.” He said it so easily, without even a hint of guile. “Over the years we fought—argued, that is—numerous times. Our worldviews had shifted away from each other’s, on different orbits you might say, and we had little in common. Not like when we were boys.”
“You argued about the disposition of the property on Spring, which was left to both of you equally.”
“We did.” No hesitation, and no animosity. “We’d promised our grandfather to keep it in the family, and Edward believed that promise had an expiration date. I didn’t.”
“Did you argue yesterday, at the house?”
“No. We didn’t even get a chance to speak. I said his name, but then someone struck me. I never got to speak to him, or him to me. I believe we would have argued if . . .”
Though he continued to stir, he looked down at his pot as if he’d forgotten why it was there.
“Upon his death, what happens to his share of the disputed property?”
“I’m sorry? Oh, yes. Unless he changed his will—I can’t be sure—it would go in equal parts to his two children.”
He took the bowl out of the freezer, along with something she was pretty sure was some sort of whisk. Into the bowl he poured . . . milk, cream—something out of a small container—added some sugar. He stuck the whisk on some little hand tool.
It hummed busily in the bowl.
“What’s your relationship with the children?”
“They’re fine young people. We get along very well. We need to go see them. I hope they’re with their mother now, but we’ll go see them. They’ve lost their father, and will need family around them.”
“Will they be more inclined to keep the property in the family, Professor Mira?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
She saw he’d made whipped cream. People actually whipped cream to make whipped cream? Who knew?
He set the bowl aside, used another tool to make shavings from the remaining chocolate bar. “Eve—that is, Lieutenant Dallas, Edward, no matter how determined he was, couldn’t sell our grandfather’s house. There was nothing he could do to make me break my promise. I believe we would have remained at odds, but then, as I said, we haven’t been close since my early college days. We were together at Yale, though he was a year ahead of me. If he’d lived, we weren’t likely to ever be close again, but I would never wish him harm. And he would never have bullied me into selling.”
“Sometimes people strike back at bullies.”
“Yes, they do. I counseled my children to do just that. And I’ve done just that myself with Edward for more than forty years.”
He turned, took mugs from a cupboard. “Some mistake a mild disposition for weakness. Do you?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“I can—my family will attest—be extremely stubborn when something is important.”
From across the room Gillian made a little snorting sound that had a smile twitching at the corner of his lips.
“A promise to a man I loved deeply is important, even sacred. I didn’t have to hurt Edward to keep it; I simply had to continue to keep it. I’m not a violent man.”
He poured the rich hot chocolate into the mugs. “And while I didn’t like Edward, didn’t like the man he’d become, I loved him.”
“Professor Mira, would you give me your whereabouts from eleven last night to three-thirty this morning?”
“Right here—or not right here, in the kitchen, that is. In the house. Charlie, my wife, insisted I go to bed early. I can be quite the night owl as a rule. But she was right, I was very tired. I believe I went to bed by ten. She doesn’t think I know she was checking on me every couple hours.”
He smiled, sweetly, toward the breakfast nook. “And our daughter Gillian snuck in twice to make sure I hadn’t lapsed into a coma—which is exactly what she said to her mother at about midnight. I didn’t sleep very well. I did rest,” he added quickly, with another glance toward the nook, as he piled whipped cream on top of two mugs of hot chocolate. “But I was worried about Edward, and didn’t sleep very well.”
“Okay. Okay. Thank you for your time and cooperation. Record off.”
Dennis sprinkled chocolate shavings over the cream, then put the mugs in front of Peabody and Eve.
“Stand up,” he said to Eve.
She got to her feet, braced.
“You need a hug.” He wrapped his arms around her, and melted everything inside her. “There now. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“It was horrible.”
“Well, that’s all right. It’s all done.”
“I’m so—”
“Hush. You sit and drink your chocolate.”
“I could use a hug.”
Dennis beamed at Peabody, obliged. “You’re a good girl,” he told her. “Gilly, Charlie, come on now. I made enough for everyone.”
Mira walked over, framed his face with her hands. “I love you, Dennis.”
“It’s a good thing. Where would I be otherwise?”
“You sit down. I’ll put the rest of these together.”
As she dolloped on the whipped cream, Mira looked over at Eve. “You did exactly right. It was hard for you, hard for me to listen to. But you did exactly right.”
“Sorry, but will you just say it—that you know he was here during the aforesaid hours.”
“I absolutely do. He’s right. I did check on him every couple hours, and Gilly went to check on him just before midnight, and again around three. We thought he was sleeping.”
“You’d have started poking at me again if you’d known I was awake.”
“He’s right about that, too. Do you believe it was a woman?”
“There had to be at least two involved, and one of them was a woman. I’m sure of that, and Mr. Mira gave that some weight.”
“He’s never been a suspect,” Gillian put in.
“No. There’s no motive, no opportunity. I just needed it all spelled out on the record. It’s going to be a feeding frenzy in the media. With this on record, Mr. Mira is firmly, unquestionably a witness.”
“I just want to say something.” Peabody, eyes closed, took another sip from her mug. “This is the Holy Grail of hot chocolate. Mr. Mira, you’re a genius, but I don’t know how I’m going to settle for the sludge at Central ever again.”
“Knock it back, Peabody. We’ve got to get back to work.”
It took a little time—Peabody wanted to savor—but even with the extra, Eve felt lighter when Gillian walked them back, got their coats.
“I’m going to apologize for wanting to smack you even though I could see it was hard for you to push at him that way.”
“I want to smack people all the time. And he’s your father.”
“I love my husband, and one of the many reasons is he’d agree with me when I say my father is the best man I know. You’re a little bit in love with him.”
“Probably more than a little.”
“And you’re going to look out for him.”
“That’s a promise.”
“All right then. Bright blessings on both of you, and safe travels wherever the path takes you.”
As they hiked back to the car, Eve shoved her hands in her pockets, found her gloves again. Tugged them on. “Plot us a sensible route to hit the sidepieces.”
“Already done, and you can cross off Allyson Byson, for now anyway. She’s been in St. Lucia for the past week with her husband and several friends. It’s an annual thing. Spends six weeks there every winter.”