“Let him know we’re working on it, and I’ll be in touch if and when.”
She clicked off before Mira could thank her again, and considered investigative approaches as they turned through the gates, and toward home.
Lights gleamed welcome in the dozens and dozens of windows, glowing against the dignified stone, even in the fanciful turrets.
She considered coming home to such a wonder after an endless day her personal miracle.
They got out opposite sides of the car, circled around.
“How long did it take you to design the house—the whole elegant fortress with a touch of castle?”
“Oh, I spent years building it in my head as a boy. Every time I went to bed hungry or bruised, it got bigger.”
Since his childhood had been as much a nightmare as her own, it surprised her he’d restrained himself to just huge.
“I pulled it in a bit,” he said, taking her hand again as they approached the door. “Eliminated the guard towers, the moat, and accepted that the catapults of my fancy had no practical purpose.”
“I don’t know. Catapults would be pretty frosty.”
When they stepped inside, she saw the first thing she’d have loaded into one: Roarke’s majordomo.
Summerset stood in his habitual black suit—the living corpse who haunted the house. The fat cat gave one of Summerset’s bony legs a rub, then jogged over to twine through Eve’s, Roarke’s, in a kind of pudgy feline ballet.
Eve waited a beat for the expected sneering remark on how late they’d come home, or some other insult. But he only said:
“Mr. Mira?”
“He’s right enough,” Roarke said, shrugging out of his coat. “Eve’s just spoken with Dr. Mira.”
“I’m glad to hear it. If there’s anything I can do, you’ve only to let me know.”
He drifted away in that nearly silent way of his, leaving Eve frowning after him.
“After a day like this, I don’t even get to take a shot at him?”
“You told a former senator’s wife to kiss your ass.” He slipped off Eve’s coat. “Be satisfied with that.”
“That was a professional kiss my ass.”
Roarke gave Galahad a quick rub before starting up the steps. “There’s always tomorrow.”
Since that would have to be good enough, Eve went up with him, and the cat thumped up the steps behind them.
“Dinner first,” he insisted. “We’ll have it in the bedroom with the fire, and the wine.”
She could live with that. After, she’d set up a board in her office, do some runs, harangue the detective in Missing Persons she’d alerted. Roarke could check finances, which would entertain him. She could—
“I’ll deal with the fire and the wine,” Roarke said. “You deal with the pasta.”
“Right. Okay. I’m going to contact his two kids, just see if they have any information. I can hit this brain trust of his in the morning if nothing’s turned up.”
“You mean a body. You think like a murder cop, don’t you?”
“I am a murder cop. A body, because if this was kidnapping, a straight deal, there’d have been a demand for ransom. If someone just hauled him off to get something out of him, maybe they let him go after.”
“But why?”
She programmed the spaghetti, added the herbed breadsticks they both liked. “Yeah, why? Unless it’s some deal where he’d have to keep it zipped or be in worse. I don’t know enough about him yet to get a solid handle. Instinct says we’ll find the body, but that’s maybe knee-jerk.”
“His wife doesn’t love him.”
The cop she’d been would have reached that conclusion, but the cop she’d become, the one who knew love, was certain of it. “Not even in the general vicinity of love. But she’s territorial, protective of their status. I don’t see her setting this up. Maybe I find something that swings it that way. Mira said he played around, but the wife didn’t care. Maybe she started to care for some reason—threat of divorce and loss of status.”
She brought plates with generous portions to the table in the sitting area of the bedroom. Now the fire crackled, and Roarke poured deep red wine into glasses.
And the cat watched avidly.
“Summerset would’ve fed him, right?” Eve said.
“Oh, of course.”
“Crap.” She went back to the AutoChef, programmed a small dish of salmon. “He’ll give us the beady eye while we eat otherwise,” she claimed when Roarke lifted an eyebrow.
When Galahad pounced like a starving thing on the fish, she went back to sit, picked up the wine.
“This was supposed to happen hours ago.” She took a deep drink.
“And still, here we are. It’s a nice thing, however delayed, to share a meal in front of the fire on an ugly winter’s night.”
She twirled spaghetti around her fork, sampled. “It seriously doesn’t suck. The Realtor.” She twirled up another bite. “I need the Realtor. Either he—or she—is in on it, or got called off. In on it is most probable.”
She forked off a bite of meatball. “It’s not about selling the house.”
She shook her head. “Mr. Mira’s the wedge there. Maybe it’s politics, maybe it’s personal. Maybe he owes somebody a bunch of money. But they got him into that house—meaning they knew about that house—where they assumed they’d have plenty of time and privacy. Mr. Mira screwed that up.”
“So while Dennis is unconscious, they spirit Edward Mira away. And that requires a vehicle.”
“Yeah, so it’s most likely, having that handy, he/she/they planned to haul him off all along. Tune him up some first. Goes back to why it sounds personal. Or it’s about money, which is pretty personal to a lot of people. Still . . .”
“If it were money, he’s pushing to sell a valuable property, which would cover all but the most insane of debts.”
“Exactly. So again, if it’s money, the sensible thing is to go after the obstacle, and that’s Mr. Mira. But they don’t. Odds are on personal.”
“Someone he judged, sentenced,” Roarke suggested. “A relation or loved one of someone he sentenced. Someone he twisted the wrong way while in Congress, or someone he passed over for a position.” Roarke lifted a shoulder. “A man who’s had those careers makes enemies.”
“A man who cats around makes them, too. A woman he dumped, the husband or lover of someone he had an affair with. A lot of ground on personal.”
Nodding, Roarke twirled some pasta of his own. “Why not just finish him where he sat?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She continued to eat while it stewed around in her brain. “That’s why I figured kidnapping at first. But it’s been hours, and no ransom demand. So . . . Wanted more time to play with him—which again leans toward getting information or just making him suffer more.”
“The attack came at Dennis from behind.”
She nodded, sampled the wine again. “Took some care he didn’t see the attacker. Now, cold-blooded? Why not give him another whack or two, take him out, and use the violence to scare the piss out of Edward. But, no. He wasn’t on the agenda.”
“Which tells you there
is
an agenda.”
“Take a look at this.” She shifted in her chair. “The attacker walks in the house with him. That says to me, he doesn’t know this person, not as a threat. Or does, again, not as a threat. The Realtor ploy—or the attacker is a Realtor, and that helped set the trap. Without the vic around to tell us, or his body to tell us, we don’t know if the attacker stunned him, lured him, forced him into the study. And we don’t know why they chose that spot—whether it’s significant—for the tuning up. Mr. Mira doesn’t think his cousin was restrained in the chair, and I didn’t see any signs of it on scene. So I think at least two people. One to hold a weapon on the vic, the other to smack him around.”
“If he owed money, which I hope to find out, they might have been a couple of spine-crackers. But the ploy to get him to that location seems a bit sophisticated and unnecessary.”
“Exactly. And why then take him instead of just breaking his legs? Maybe there will be a ransom demand, but without one, I don’t think this is about money. Not in the usual sense. We need to cross it off, but I don’t feel that.”
“Sex follows next.”
“Yeah. Sex makes people crazy. Mean, vindictive, violent.”
“Promise?” he said and made her choke on her wine.
“Such a pervert.”
“Card-carrying. But you’re talking the nonentertaining and nonconsensual crazy. And I agree. But . . .” He tore a breadstick in half, offered her a share. “If beating him to death over an affair, or a thwarted affair, why take him?”
“Mr. Mira.”
Roarke nodded. “The unexpected, perhaps some panic. But not enough to rush the beating. Take him elsewhere.”
“That’s the one I like. Shit, what do we do now? Let’s get out of here—take him with us.” She gestured with the breadstick, bit in. “Five gets you ten we find the body within the next twenty-four.”
“I feel, even for us, such a bet would be in poor taste.”
“Yeah.” As she ate, she wondered who’d come up with the concept of a ball of meat, and if they’d been properly compensated. “Anyway, I’m going to approach it as a murder—let Missing Persons handle it as a missing. But if a body turns up, I’ll have a jump on it. It’ll be hard on Mr. Mira, even though he and his cousin weren’t what you’d call friendly.”
“Family’s often a different kettle, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is, and I guess the whole cousin thing can get unwieldy. Still, when you hear McNab or Peabody talk about their cousins—then there’s your whole Irish cousins thing—there’s a lot of ties, a lot of . . . liking. But with this cousin and his fuckhead of a wife, it’s not just a lack of liking or ignoring of ties, it’s . . .”
“Contempt,” Roarke said, and she jabbed her fork at him in agreement.
“That’s the exact word. And anybody who has contempt for somebody like Mr. Mira has to be an asshole.”
“So you are expecting the dead body of an asshole within the next twenty-four.”
She nodded, ate one last bite. “Yeah. Doesn’t mean we don’t do the job. We should add that as like an addendum to the banner the bullpen made. You know, ‘No matter your race, creed, blah blah, we protect and serve, because you could get dead.’ We should put one of those . . .”
She squiggled a shape with a finger in the air, making him smile because he understood her so easily. “Asterisk.”
“Yeah, that thing. And add: ‘Even if you’re an asshole.’”
“Past tense might be more applicable, being Homicide. ‘Even if you
were
an asshole.’”
“Hmm. Good point. And I’d better get started. You’ll take the financials.”
“With considerable delight.”
They walked out together. “I’m going to send Peabody a report, bring her up to speed. I’ll copy Mira on it. It shook her up. You don’t see her shaken very often, but it really shook her, seeing he’d been hurt.”
“Love makes us vulnerable.”
“He soothed her. He’s got this way. I know he was upset, and he took a hell of a knock, so he
was
hurt, but he soothed her.”
“And love makes us strong. That’s its wonder.”
“I don’t know if many people are born kind. Like it’s just part of their DNA. I think Mr. Mira was. So I really wish I’d punched the Mandy-Bitch.”
“You have your visual of exploding blood.” Roarke patted her shoulder. “Let that be enough.”
“It’ll have to be.”
They split off, her to her office, Roarke toward his that adjoined it. The cat opted to stick with Eve, and trotted directly to her sleep chair, leaped up, circled, circled, circled, and collapsed as if he’d run a marathon.
She went to her desk first, sat, and saw from her incomings the sweepers had taken her rush-it order to heart.
The blood on the desk chair was Edward Mira’s. Floorboards, Dennis Mira. The only prints in the study, entranceway, doors, belonged to: Dennis and Edward Mira; Sila Robarts; Frankie Trent, Sila’s mother; and Dara Robarts, Sila’s daughter—the housekeepers.
So the suspects sealed up, she concluded. They’d had a plan.
She began to construct a report, with the sweeper’s early results attached. Then deciding it best to also copy her commander, cleaned it up
a little. She considered whatever hit she’d take over the “kiss my ass” comment worth it.
With the book already begun with the reports, her notes, she set up her board. Pretty thin so far, she thought, circling in and studying Edward Mira’s ID shot. But still ahead of the game when the body showed up.
She started back to her desk intending to start deeper runs on all connected parties, and Roarke stepped in.
“That fast?” she commented.
“Initially. I can tell you the senator could very much use a large influx of cash.”
“Gambling?”
“Not particularly, no. Lifestyle. And the Mira Institute isn’t yet self-sustaining. He pumped a lot of money into it, and it continues to drain his resources. Basically, they spend a great deal. Security, entertaining, travel. They have the penthouse here in the city, another home in East Hampton, a pied-à-terre in East Washington. And memberships at very exclusive country clubs in each location. The Institute also rents a suite at my Palace Hotel, as well as carrying a substantial payroll, and very high operating expenses.”
He wandered over, helped himself to the coffee she had on her desk. “He’s made some poorly considered investments in the last two or three years, and that’s depleted some of the income. There has been sporadic income from the sale of some antiques and collectibles.”
“From the grandfather’s estate.”
“Yes, indeed. But they’ll have to begin to cut a few corners, or sell off one of their properties, unless they have a serious increase in cash flow. This includes his two buried accounts, and her one.”
“You found three secret accounts already?” When he merely sipped her coffee, studied her over the rim, she shook her head. “Of course you did. Illegal accounts?”
“Questionable, and for a man in his position politically, unethical. The sale of the house would absolutely give him some breathing room.”
“But nothing that looks like he owed somebody who’d send the spine-crackers?”
“I’ll look deeper, but what I’ve already gone through paints a fairly clear picture. These are people accustomed to a certain lifestyle—and status—unwilling to pull back on expenses to keep their financial ship comfortably afloat. For instance, she spends between ten and twelve thousand a month on salon and spa visits. Not including twice a year body and face work, which triples that amount. He isn’t far behind her in that area.”