“Actually, Joe filled me in.” Awareness came into her eyes. “And that wasn’t entirely accurate. What is this about?”
“We’re investigating an old connection of your husband’s. Do you know Lino Martinez?”
“No, but I know the name. I know Joe was in the Soldados, and I know he did time. I know he had trouble, and he pulled himself out of it.” She gripped the doorknob, eased the door closed a few more inches, as if to shield the children behind her. “He hasn’t had anything to do with any of that business for years. He’s a good man. A family man with a decent job. He works hard. Lino Martinez and the Soldados were another life.”
“Tell him we were here, Mrs. Inez, and that we’ve located Lino Martinez. We’re going to need to follow up with your husband.”
“I’ll tell him, but I’m telling you he doesn’t know anything about Lino Martinez, not anymore.”
She closed the door, and Eve heard the locks snick impatiently.
“She’s pissed he lied to her,” Peabody commented.
“Yeah. Stupid move on his part. It tells me he’s hiding something from his wife. Something from now, something from then? Either way, something. I’m going to drop you at the subway and work from home. Keep on those John Does. I think I’ll comb through those old case files, see if something swims up from the deep.”
“I know what you said back there to López is right. We’ve got to do the job no matter what a creep Lino was. But when you know some of the shit he pulled, and the shit we think he pulled, it’s hard to get worked up because somebody ended him.”
“Maybe if somebody had gotten worked up a long time ago, he wouldn’t have been able to pull so much shit, his mother wouldn’t be crying tonight, and somebody who strikes me as an especially good man wouldn’t be honor-bound, or faith-bound, to protect a murderer.”
Peabody sighed. “You’ve got a point. But I like it better when the bad guys are just the bad guys.”
“There’s always plenty of them to go around.”
18
SHE NEEDED THINKING TIME. CLOSED IN WITH the case time where she could put the pieces of everything she knew, didn’t know, everything that had been said, left unsaid together with people, events, evidence, and speculation, and see what kinds of pictures formed.
She needed to take a good hard look at the victims in the two bombings, and their families, their connections. She needed to consider the blackmail angle, which she already knew would be a deep and sticky well. If López wouldn’t tell her the name of a murderer, he sure as hell wasn’t going to share the names of people who’d confessed blackmail-able transgressions to him.
She didn’t buy murder for blackmail in Lino’s case, but she couldn’t discount it as possible. Or connected.
How had Lino collected the money? she wondered as she drove home. Where had he kept the funds, or had he just pissed it away as it came in? Expensive hotel rooms and lavish meals, gaudy jewelry for his bed partner.
Not enough, she thought. A few thousand here and there? What was the point in risking exposure for a fancy suite and a bottle of champagne?
Showing off to the old girlfriend? Stuben said Penny Soto had been his weak spot. So… It could be that simple. Wanting to be rich, important, and having his woman see him as both.
Or as simple as needing the rush, of knowing you were pulling a fast one. Reminding yourself who you were while you were pretending to be another. Like a hobby.
Something else to think about.
She drove through the gates, then slowed down. There were flowers where she was damn sure there hadn’t been flowers that morning. Tulips-she was pretty sure-and daffodils. She liked daffodils because they were so bright and silly. Now there were rivers of both where there hadn’t been so much as a drop ten hours earlier.
How did that happen?
In any case it was… well, it was pretty, and added a splash to the hazy green of the trees.
She continued on, stopped and parked. And there were three enormous red pots literally engorged with petunias. White petunias-her wedding flower. Sentimental slob, she thought even as she went gooey herself. Simple pleasure warred against the ugly tension she’d been fighting to ignore since her interview with Penny Soto.
She walked in to see Galahad perched like a pudgy gargoyle on the newel post-new spot for him-and Summerset hovering, as usual, in the foyer.
“I assume the city has been cleared of all crime as you’re only an hour late and appear to be unbloodied.”
“Yeah, we’re renaming it Utopia.” She gave Galahad a quick rub as she started upstairs. “Next stage is to get rid of all the assholes. You should get a head start and pack your bags.” She paused briefly. “Did Roarke talk to Sinead?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She went directly to the bedroom. Roake was probably home, she thought-Summerset would’ve said if her wasn’t. And he was probably in his office, so ahe should’ve gone there, connected with him.
But she wasn’t ready, just not ready for the connection. That war continued, beefing up now that she’d made it home. Where she knew she was safe, where she knew she could let go, just a little. Home, where she could acknowledge her belly was raw, the back of her neck tight knots of stress.
She laid back, closed her eyes. When she felt the thump beside her, Eve reached out, let her arm curl around the cat.
Stupid, she thought, it was stupid to feel sick, to have to fight against being sick. To feel anything but suspicion and disgust for a woman like Penny Soto.
She didn’t realize Roarke had come into the room until his hand brushed her cheek. He moved so quietly, she thought, barely stirred the air if he didn’t choose. No wonder he’d been such a successful thief.
“What hurts?” he asked her.
“Nothing. Nothing really.” But she turned to him, turned into him when he lay beside her. And pressed her face into his shoulder. “I needed to be home. I needed to be home first. I was right about that. But I thought I needed to be alone, just be alone until I got level. I was wrong. Can we just stay here awhile?”
“My favorite place.”
“Tell me stuff. Stuff you did today. I don’t care if I don’t understand it.”
“I had a ’link conference here shortly after you left this morning regarding some R amp;D at Euroco, one of my arms in Europe that deals primarily with transportation. We have a very interesting sea-road-air personal sports vehicle coming out early next year. I had meetings in midtown, but Sinead called from Ireland before I left. It was nice to hear from her. They’ve acquired a new puppy and named it Mac, who she claims is more trouble than triplet toddlers. She sounds madly in love with him.”
She listened to his voice, more than the words. Something about a meeting with team leaders on a project called Optimum, and a holoconference dealing with his Olympus Resort, a lunch session with key members of one of his interests in Bejing. A merger, an acquisition, conceptual drawings.
How did he keep it all straight?
“You did all that, and still had time to get petunias?”
His hand trailed up and down her back, up and down. “Did you like them?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I liked them.”
“It’s been nearly two years since we were married.” He kissed the top of her head, then turned his to rest his cheek there. “And with Louise and Charles about to have their wedding here, it made me think of the petunias. How the simple-a flower, a few minutes to talk to a relation-makes the complicated worthwhile.”
“Is that why we have tulips and daffodils? They are tulips, right?”
“They are. It’s good to be reminded that things come around again, fresh and new. And some things remain, steady and solid. The call from Sinead brought both back to me. Are you ready to tell me what’s the matter?”