of time to shop for sexy underwear.”
“A Merry Widow—that’s a kind of corsety thing—white silk with red rose accents, matching G-string, and a bottle of their Allure Me perfume. Time-stamped receipt—totaling thirty-eight hundred and change—at fourteen-forty-seven. She charged it.
“Oh,” Peabody added, “she’s a regular.”
“Contact her. I’m looking forward to watching her try to swim through her sea of lies.”
Peabody pushed off the desk. “On it. You know, Dallas, it couldn’t’ve been easy for Shelby to tell you all that really personal stuff. She stands up.”
“Agreed.”
“And, I’m just saying, I love her new do.”
“Do what?”
“Hair, Dallas, the pixie do with the highlights. It’s a good look for her, but then it would be. She went to Trina.”
“Trina? How does a uniform with barely two years on the job afford Trina?”
“Trina gives a cop discount.”
“Trina gives …” Eve thought of the thoroughly terrifying Trina. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, a solid twenty percent discount at her salon for cops. She started it after the Ziegler investigation last December.” Peabody flipped at her own red-streaked curls. “She said cops—us—stood up for her and her good friend Sima, so she was standing up for cops and making sure they looked damn good. Since Shelby was in on that in the end—Copley resisted and clocked her, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Trina gave her the new do on the house.”
Peabody went out, leaving Eve frowning after her. A person could be loyal, she thought, even generous, and still be pushy, bossy, scary.
She figured that wrapped Trina up in a bow.
And, putting it aside, went back to work.
As she read over her report to refine it, an incoming interrupted. She saw Feeney’s name, answered.
“Dallas.”
“Shuffled your shit in,” he told her. “No glitch on the security feed. What you see is what was what.”
“Damn it.”
He gave her a half-assed smile. He had a hangdog face with baggy basset-hound eyes. His silver-threaded ginger hair exploded over it.
She caught herself wondering if he took advantage of Trina’s twenty percent.
“Bat five hundred, you’re a baseball star. I can give you the five hundred.”
“Victim’s door.”
“Yep.” Something rustled, then he popped a candied almond in his mouth. “Not tampered with, but bullshit on the unsecured. Key card used to open it at zero-seven-eighteen.”
“About four minutes after Huffman bought the takeout.”
“If you say. Last key-card use prior, twenty-two-forty-six.”
“Is that so?” Eve narrowed her eyes on her board, and the TOD of twenty-two-forty-eight. “Is that fucking so?”
“It’s fucking so.”
“Same card? Can you tell?”
“I can tell you it wasn’t Huffman’s original. Copy used, but I can’t tell you if it was one copy or two copies. Might be able to if you get us the copy or copies.” He ate another almond. “That’s a might be.”
“I’ll take a might be.”
“I got McNab going over the vic’s ’link, her comp. Nothing much popping right now. She’s got art and business stuff on the comp, and a calendar. She’s got some of the dates marked with a little red heart. Including last night.”
“I could use those dates. I’m bringing a suspect into the box.”
“I’ll tell him to send them.”
“Appreciate it, Feeney.”
She got up to study the board, make some additions. Once again an incoming interrupted.
This time she saw Julie Byrd on the readout. The mother, the next of kin Eve hadn’t been able to reach to inform.
“Hell.” She went back to her desk, answered. “Lieutenant Dallas.”
“Yes, yes, this is Julie Byrd.”
The woman, an older version of her daughter, looked deliriously happy.
“I had a voice mail from you on my ’link. I completely forgot my ’link this morning! My daughter-in-law went into labor and we all just rushed out to the birthing center. Such an exciting day. I just got back to my son’s house. He’ll be bringing Ally and our gorgeous Fiona—seven pounds, three ounces, and eighteen inches of perfect—home in a few hours. I came back to get everything ready for the homecoming and saw my ’link sitting on the kitchen counter.”
“Ms. Byrd.”
“Yes? Oh, I forgot to stop and buy flowers.” With a laugh, the woman tapped the flat of her hand against the side of her head. “I need to run out and do that.”
“Ms. Byrd, I’m very sorry. I have some difficult news.”
“Oh, nothing’s difficult on this day. Not after watching that precious life come into the world.”
“I’m afraid it is. It’s about your daughter, Ariel. I regret—”
“Ariel. Lucas—my son—said he’d contact her when I realized I didn’t have my ’link. She’s going to be so excited! She’s an aunt!”
Never easy, Eve admitted. Notification shouldn’t be easy. But some were worse than others.
“Ms.