When this is done, you’ll matter. And, to my way of thinking, that’s the kind of payback money can’t buy.”
Eve rose when Peabody came in with two officers.
15
CONNECTIONS, EVE THOUGHT AS SHE WATCHED Patrice walk away flanked by two burly uniforms.
“You picked big males so she’d feel safer.”
“I thought it would add to it,” Peabody admitted. “She nailed Crampton’s photo. It’s been better than twelve years, but she nailed it.”
“Some faces stay with you.” Her own father’s, Eve thought, over hers in the dark while he pushed himself inside her. She understood, too well, how some faces, some moments, some nightmares never quite faded away.
“So Crampton wasn’t random.”
Eve shook her head, gave a come-ahead gesture as she started back toward her office. “What she was, was unlucky. And your instinct that there were some links in the whole mix was on target.”
“Yay, me. Even if I couldn’t find what I thought should be there.”
“It wasn’t going to show, and that’s something they counted on. The odds of us talking to any of their exes had to be long from their perspective. And if we did, neither of them would consider the women would talk, relive old humiliations.”
“We got lucky.”
“No,” Eve corrected. “We worked the case and got lucky. Ava Crampton’s not only a connection, but probably a sore spot for Moriarity at last. And that added a little bonus to the contest. The random isn’t altogether random, and that’s where I’ve been off, and you were on.”
“Again, yay me. Woot! Sorry, just needed the moment.”
“And the moment’s gone.”
“Okay. So contest structure demands there be some connection between killer and vics. And maybe in both cases, it’s back a ways, and that’s why it’s unlikely the vics recognized their killer.”
“Dudley killed Crampton,” Eve pointed out, “and while he probably fucked her that night, the connection’s with Moriarity. He hired her. His wife. His place.”
“Another kind of switch-off.”
“Yeah, or,” Eve considered as she kept moving, “another flag of friendship. Let me do that for you, pal.”
“It’s not friendship, it’s . . . Mira would have a word for it. A fancy word.”
“Whatever the word, there’s going to be some connection between Dudley and Houston. Maybe back a couple decades, too. Probably where you were going before, when Houston was getting in trouble. Illegals,” Eve said when she turned into Homicide. “Dudley and Moriarity used and I’m betting Dudley, at least, still does. They had to buy them somewhere. Houston used and sold, and they’re all of an age. They might have done a few deals before Houston straightened out.”
She angled it, turned in. “Patrice said their families spent a lot of money greasing palms, keeping them out of jail, off the books. Houston maybe gets busted for a deal, and the deal’s with Dudley say. Dudley’s father has to pony up to keep his son out of it, but he was probably pissed, punished the son some other way.”
“It plays for me. Another pay-it-back factor. Both the vics serviced them in some way,” Peabody proposed, and followed Eve into her office. “Then became successful, got the cache, but still offered services.”
“It could be enough. Both vics played to what Delaughter called their underlayment.” Eve stood, studying the board. Saying nothing, Peabody moved to the AutoChef, programmed two coffees. “Who they are beneath the surface, and now what they can and do command. They bought them then, they buy them now.”
Eve took the coffee, eased a hip onto her desk, continued to study the board. “Who’s going to put them together with an LC they booked in their twenties? That’s what they think. They’re not in her book. And who’d put them together with a limo driver who dealt illegals when they were all hardly more than kids?”
“Even connecting them this way doesn’t lock it in.”
“No, but it will. Another mistake of arrogance—their little private joke.”
“And maybe, like you said, they still use.”
“No maybe about it. Dudley’s got the whole toy store, and he’d never resist taking samples. And with this twisted relationship they have, I’d say Moriarity would share.”
“The sex is another angle. They weren’t in the vic’s book, but they might be in someone else’s.”
Again, Eve shook her head. “Too much ego to pay for sex or more to risk anyone finding out they did. They’re above that, too high on the food chain to have to pay at this stage. Women are supposed to be eager to give it to them. It’s not about sex anyway. It never was. It