“Oh, Ned.”
“What’s the point, Gwen? I didn’t like or respect him. But he was my father. My mother’s a pain in the ass.”
“God, she is.” Gwen sighed, let her head tip to her brother’s shoulder. “But she’s our mother, and she’s grieving. Our father’s been murdered, and however strained our relationship, he didn’t deserve to be killed, to be hurt the way he was hurt. We’ll tell you anything you need to know, answer any questions you have to help you find who did it.”
“And we’ll release a statement to the media that reflects family unity. We’ll maintain the image for him, and for our mother.”
“Let’s get this out of the way,” Eve began. “Where were you yesterday, four to six, then midnight to four.”
“Four to six, in the shop, working. Well, until about five-thirty,” Ned corrected. “Then Grant—one of my partners—and I hung out, talking shop for a while while we closed up. I was probably home by six or a little after. We had dinner around seven. My wife, the kids, and I. By midnight? I was out for the count.”
“In court until nearly five,” Gwen said. “Custody case, nasty. Trewald v. Fester, Judge Harris presiding. I had to check in at the office, but I was home by six. Chaos ensued. I have a thirteen-year-old girl in the crazed clutches of puberty who was going into the tenth round with her eleven-year-old brother, whose job it is to irritate her. About midnight my husband and I were having a second glass of wine, in bed, and trembling like earthquake survivors—and wondering where our sweet, loving, happy little girl had gone.”
“You’ll get through it,” her brother told her.
“As long as there’s wine at midnight.”
“Mr. Mira—Dennis Mira—indicated the two of you will inherit your father’s interest in the Spring Street property. My information is it’s worth eight figures.”
“Sure it is.” Ned nodded. “If it’s coming to us, that simplifies something at least. It stays in the family. We don’t need the money, Lieutenant. Both Gwen and I are solid there, and that place means a lot to Dennis.”
“Let’s set that aside. Do you know any of the women your father was involved with?”
“We made it a point not to,” Gwen began. “A few years ago I was facing off against Leanore Bastwick in court, and during a recess she made it a point to follow me into the ladies’ room and tell me she was sleeping with my father. She did it to throw me off my game.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“When I heard about what happened to her a few weeks ago, I was shocked. But—brutal honesty—I didn’t lose any sleep over it.”
“Down, girl.” Ned squeezed her hand. “One of them came on to me.”
“What!” Gwen goggled at him. “You never told me!”
“It was twenty years ago, easy. I don’t even remember her name, but she came into the little storefront we had back then and cornered me. Said she wondered if I resembled my father in all ways. She grabbed my crotch—not something I wanted to tell my sister. Zoe saw it—my wife. Well, not my wife then, we weren’t even dating yet. She is—and was—a designer, interior. We were working with her on some projects. But she saw the whole thing, and while I was trying not to scream like a girl, she marched over, kicked the crotch-grabber out, and told her if she ever came back, she’d call the cops.”
“I love Zoe,” Gwen said, with feeling.
“Me, too. It took me over a month to get up the courage to ask her out after that. But it all worked out. Sorry, that doesn’t help you.”
“You’d be surprised. You’ve told me that for most of your life, your parents had this sort of arrangement, but each of you only clearly remembers one incident where the woman involved at the time made herself known. That tells me as a rule, they were discreet, and not looking for trouble when the liaison ended. So, to the best of your knowledge, none of the women he had affairs with caused trouble for him, threatened him?”
“He’d have crushed them. I don’t mean physically,” Ned said quickly. “But in every other way. If they’d even hinted at causing trouble, he’d have let them know how he could and would ruin them. Their lives, their business or career, their family. He was my father, and I want whoever killed him found and put away. But he was vindictive, and he was ruthless, and he never forgot anything he considered a betrayal.”
“Is that enough? Can that be enough for now? It feels awful to talk about him this way.” Tears swirled into Gwen’s eyes again. “We want to help, but can this be enough?”
“Sure. And you have helped.”
“Then I want to go home. I want my family.”
“I’ll take you home.” Ned got to his feet.
“You don’t need to.”
“How about if Zoe brings the kids, we just hold together at your house for a while?”
Gwen closed her eyes. “That would be great. That would feel right. My aunt—our mother’s sister,” Gwen told Eve, “came in. That’s who our mother really wants now. The rest of us will hold together.”
They’d do just that, Eve thought when they left. They’d hold together.
“It had to be rough, growing up that way. Being ordered to toe a line, never seeing real love and loyalty between your parents.”
“They got out of it,” Eve said. “They made their own.”
She’d done the same.
She went back to her office, added to her notes. Hesitated, then copied Mira. It might be hard to read what Ned and Gwen had said, but she imagined Mira already knew all of it.
She wanted home, too, she realized. She’d find her focus again working at home.
She gathered what she needed, grabbed her coat, then made the mistake of answering her ’link.
The media liaison informed her she needed to give a statement on the Mira case.
Resigned—she’d known it was coming—she went out to the bullpen and Peabody’s desk.
“I have to go do the media statement, and I’m taking this home from there. I want reports on the spouses, and the verified alibis. You can do the rest here or at home, as long as I have everything tonight.”
“I’ll stick with it here until McNab’s off.”
“Copy Mira, but not through official channels. Got that?”
“Got that.”
She might hate this part of the job, but she would get it done. And she was grateful the liaison set a strict time of ten minutes, for statement and questions.
The questions sent up an echoing bang in her head on the drive home.
Is it true Senator Mira was found naked?
Why was his abduction not reported?
Is Dr. Charlotte Mira attached to this investigation?
Is Professor Dennis Mira a suspect?
How long was Senator Mira tortured before his death?
Christ, she thought, Christ, what public had the right to know that? Which was exactly how she’d answered the question before she’d walked away.
Home, she told herself. Maybe a workout or a swim before she dug back into it. Just something to take the edge off the ugliness of the day.
A workout and a swim, she decided as she drove through the gates. Thirty minutes each. She could take an hour, then start back fresh.
Just seeing the house made her feel more centered. She didn’t know why the conversation with Gwen and Ned had left her so unsettled.
They hadn’t been beaten or brutalized. They’d grown up privileged. Nothing like her own experience. But she’d felt her own old dread rising up as she’d listened to them, greasy memories of fear, of helplessness.
She needed it gone.
She prepped herself as she parked. She could start getting it gone by exchanging swipes with Summerset. That should shove back the echoes.
But Summerset wasn’t in the foyer, and that threw her balance off even more. He was supposed to be there, lurking, sneering, making some lame-ass comment.