Brotherhood in Death (20 page)

“To anyone who'd listen. The Moms love to travel. And I follow you. Someone who knew she'd be gone, out of contact, used her name. God. She'll be so upset.”

Lillith shoved up from the chair, belly first, when the door opened. The way she said “Mike” told Eve the seed of fear planted by the early morning visit had rooted.

“Hey, babe, what's—” He all but came to attention when he spotted Eve. “Lieutenant.”

“Detective. There's no problem here. We're looking for Ms. Anson to assist in an investigation.”

“CeCe?” He wrapped an arm around Lillith, his eyes on Eve.

“We believe someone used her name, may have impersonated her, to gain access to Jonas Wymann.”

“Wymann. I heard about that. Hey, Peabody.”

“Hey, Mike.”

“Come on, Lil, sit.”

“I'm just glad to see you.” She rubbed a hand on his cheek, a little scruffy after his night shift. “Just glad to see that face. I want my one measly cup of coffee for the day. How about I make some all around?”

“That'd be great.”

“I'll do that and the lieutenant can fill you in. I didn't even ask your name,” Lillith remembered, and Mike shoved the dark watch cap off a messy thatch of sandy hair.

“Man, Lil. It's Dallas.”

“It's— Oh!” Lillith held the belly and laughed. “Hormones ate my brain. Of course it is. Dallas and Peabody. We've seen the vid three times. Mike loves it. Well, I'm going to stop worrying about the Moms right now. If Mike thinks you're the best, you are. I'll get the coffee. He can help,” she added as she walked away. “He's a really good cop.”

“She has to say that. But I'll help any way I can.” He pulled off his coat, a man with a slim build and a cop's keen eyes. “Edward Mira, Jonas Wymann. Pretty high-powered targets. I can't see how CeCe, or either of the Moms could connect. They're solid as they come.”

“Lillith said they'd had this trip planned awhile.”

“Yeah.” He sat on the arm of the chair Lillith had vacated. “We had to give them a boost out the door because of the baby, but CeCe really wanted to go, to absorb the place, to talk to people who'd known this guy she's writing about. So we compromised. They were going for six weeks, but cut it down to four. And we talk to them every day. Sometimes a couple times a day.”

“Did they book the trip—the travel, the lodging—themselves or use a service?”

“Annie handles all that. CeCe and Annie—the Moms.”

“Can you give us a list of people they'd talk to, people who'd know they'd be gone?”

He puffed out his scruffy cheeks. “It'd almost be easier to give you a list of who wouldn't know.” He popped up when Lillith came back in with a tray, took it from her.

“Do they belong to any clubs, any groups?” Peabody asked. “You know, women's groups?”

Eve saw the quick understanding flicker in Mike's eyes. They were looking for female killers.

“Oh Lord, yes.” Obviously amused, Lillith sat while Mike passed around the coffee. “I remember how you like it, if the vid's factual. Anyway, Femme Power—that's a lesbian-based activist group. They're charter members there. They go to a book club that's pretty much all women, and help out at a couple of shelters for battered women, rape victims. C-Mom teaches writing as therapy, as an outlet for self, and A-Mom does the same with art. She does bad watercolors. I mean not horrible, just bad. But it makes her happy.

“Now the three of you are wondering what you can say in front of me. I can go in the other room, but it'll annoy the crap out of me.”

“It's okay.” Mike rubbed her shoulder. “You're thinking someone they know through their hobbies or volunteer work used CeCe as a ploy.”

“It's possible. I'd like as many names from those areas as possible.”

“They won't betray the women who they've met through the shelters or in the therapy sessions,” Lillith said, and her shoulders squared under Mike's hand. “You can't expect that.”

“I'm looking for names that are already on my list of suspects,” Eve explained. “Someone used your mother to get close enough to kill someone. She's killed twice. I believe she'll kill again.”

“Let me work on that, Lieutenant.” Mike kept rubbing Lillith's shoulder. “I'll talk to them, explain. It's doubtful they have full names, not from the shelter or the sessions anyway.”

“Staff,” Eve added. “We might be looking for other volunteers or staff.”

“They run what they call Positive Forces on Wednesday nights at Community Outreach on Canal,” Mike told them. “The social worker who coordinates is Suzanne Lipski. Twenty-five-year vet, tough and sharp. And clean. I ran her.”

“You did not! Mike!”

“Once I hooked you, they became my moms, too. Bet your ass I ran her. She'll protect her women, Lieutenant, but she won't protect a killer. She knows me, so maybe I can get something there if there's something to get. Or at least pave the way for you some.”

“The more names, the better. And the sooner the better,” Eve said as she rose. “I appreciate the time, the help, the coffee. How do you live on one cup a day?”

Lillith took a tiny sip. “I ask myself that every day when I've finished the one cup. And somehow I do.”

—

T
hey look good together,” Peabody commented when they walked back to the car. “Come off solid. And since he's got an in, he might be able to wrangle some names.”

“Maybe. It's worth giving him a shot at it first. Clearly somebody connected to Anson knew she'd be out of the way long enough to use this ruse, and wasn't worried about cops following up.”

Once in the car, Peabody unbundled herself a little. “Those groups—support groups—they're like priests in the confessional. Absolute confidentiality. So whoever tapped Anson counted on that. A lot of it's just first names, or code names.”

“Everybody's got a face,” Eve said and pulled away from the curb. “We show pictures, get reactions. We may not get confirmation, but we'll get reactions.”

And that's what she was looking for with Lydia Su.

—

E
ve had to settle for a crappy little parking lot and a two-block hike in wind that decided to swirl up and kick through the city canyons. Peabody rebundled, and Eve yanked the snowflake cap on.

It made her think of Dennis Mira.

“We need to get Mr. Mira's impressions of the three names I got from the senator's daughter. We'll notify them first, talk to them, but I want his take.”

“He usually has good ones.”

“Yeah, he does. But Mira told me he's got a blind spot where his cousin's concerned. She taps Edward Mira as a sociopath—highly functional. Said he was always a bully, and a sexual predator.”

“Harsh. But if we're following the right line, it fits.”

“It's the right line.” Eve stopped in front of Su's building. A slick high-rise, probably along the lines of what Nadine was after.

No doorman, she noted. An auto-scan that accepted a scan of her badge with minimal fuss.

Identification verified, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Please state the nature of your business and/or the party you wish to visit.

“That would be police business seeing as you scanned the badge, and we're here to speak with Lydia Su, unit 2204.”

Thank you for that information. The resident of unit 2204 is being notified. You are cleared to step inside and wait.

Eve walked into a generous lobby of white and silver with some bold blue chairs, verdant potted trees, and a moving map of the building.

It boasted its own market, both a men's and women's boutique, a
business and banking center on its mezzanine level (for residents and their guests only). It held a fitness center, two bars, and three restaurants. Building management and administration had offices on level three.

By the time she'd scanned the map, noted the location of 2204—corner unit, facing south and east—the computer cleared them to an elevator.

Guests cleared to twenty-second floor,
the elevator announced.
Have a pleasant visit.

“Why can't they ever just shut up?” Eve wondered. “Who needs a comp to wish them a pleasant visit? Su cleared us pretty quick,” she added and, glancing around the silver box, noted the security cams. “Maybe expecting this follow-up to your conversation with her yesterday, verifying Downing's alibi.”

“She breezed through that. Just the right amount of surprise, and all cooperation.”

“I bet if we checked her 'link, she alerted Downing we're here.”

Eve stepped off on twenty-two. She walked down the wide hallway carpeted in muted silver, past glossy black doors to 2204. She pressed the bell with one hand, held up her badge with the other.

The minute Lydia Su opened the door, she thought: You're in this.

It was only a flicker, there then gone, an angry awareness that lit the long, searing brown eyes before Lydia offered a polite if puzzled smile.

“Good morning. Is this about Senator Mira's murder? I spoke with a detective yesterday.”

“This is a follow-up. You spoke with Detective Peabody,” Eve added, gesturing to her partner.

“Oh, yes. Well, please come in. I'm a little befuddled. I was sleeping. I had to work quite late.”

“Sorry to disturb you. We won't take up much of your time.”

“Can I offer you some coffee or tea?”

“We're fine.”

“Please, sit.” She led the way into an airy living area with two curved chairs, a long, low sofa with a central pillow fashioned as a peacock, tail feathers spread. Some sort of exotic flowers speared out of a clear, square vase with shiny black pebbles layered in the base. Filmy shades flowed down the windows.

Lydia hit about five-two and crossed to the sofa on small feet clad in house skids. She wore a lounge set in creamy white with a long black cardigan.

She might have been sleeping after a long night, Eve thought, but she'd taken the time to groom her hair—straight as rain—back into a sleek tail.

She sat, graceful as a dancer. “How can I help?”

“You spent your day off with Charity Downing. Day before yesterday.”

“That's right. We had lunch, did some shopping, had our nails done. We were enjoying ourselves, so we stopped for a drink, then decided to go back to Charity's, have some dinner, watch some screen. I left around nine, I think. It was a nice day with a friend.”

“Sounds like it. How did you come to be friends?”

“I'm sorry?”

“You don't seem to have much in common.”

Eve shrugged as she looked casually around the room. And at the fancy bronze riot bar on the door.

Fancy or not, a riot bar was overkill in a place like this.

“The struggling artist,” she continued, “and the Yale alum, the scientist with the doctorate. How long have you been friends—the intimate sort of friends you must be, as Charity said you were the only one she'd told about her relationship with Edward Mira?”

“We found we have a great deal in common. An appreciation of art,
we enjoy—for the most part—the same music, enjoy watching vids at home, in the quiet. We like each other's company. I like to think I was supportive and nonjudgmental when it came to the choices she made with Edward Mira. As a friend should be.”

“Right. How'd you meet again?”

“I went into the gallery where she worked one day, and we simply hit it off, as some do.”

“Lucky chance. I figured you had that whole insomnia thing going together.”

“Excuse me?”

“The studies you both volunteered for.”

“I . . . Yes. But . . . We weren't in the same study, and didn't know each other until after.”

“What a coincidence. So you were looking for some art?”

It came again, that flicker. But only anger this time. “I was,” Lydia said coolly. “Browsing, really, and Charity was knowledgeable and personable. We ended up going for coffee on her break, and simply became friends. Is that so unusual?”

“Like I said, lucky chance—just like the insomnia. So, did you buy anything?”

“Yes. That painting.” She gestured to a large study of a trio of bushes flowering in deep, deep pink, and a woman in the background, facing away, head bowed.

“Lucky chance for her, too. So you left Charity's place about nine. And then?”

“I came home, caught up on some reading, and went to bed.”

“How about last night?”

“Last night? Why?”

“Jonas Wymann, a close friend of Edward Mira's, was murdered. Were you and Charity hanging out again?”

“No. I was at work until nearly ten, then came home and put another three hours in on a project. At least three. I didn't go to bed until after two.”

“Did Charity ever mention Wymann to you?”

“No. I don't recall the name. I don't believe she met any friends of Edward Mira's, or she would have told me.”

“Even if she'd slept with him, too.”

The muscles in Lydia's jaw tightened, as did—for just an instant—the fingers of the hands she'd calmly folded in her lap. “As I wouldn't have judged her, I believe, yes, she would have told me. And if you see Charity as whorish because she was foolish enough to sleep with a powerful, married man who appears to have made it a habit to prey on foolish women, you judge far too harshly. His death is, undoubtedly, difficult for his friends and his family, but to my mind he victimized Charity and others like her.”

“That's pretty judgmental, isn't it, Peabody?”

“Leans that way.”

“But we all have our own scale, don't we? How about Carlee MacKensie?” Eve threw out the question on the heels of the other, and got a reaction. More than a flicker—a quick flash of shock.

“I'm sorry?”