Vendetta in Death (In Death #49) - J. D. Robb Page 0,46
sending McNab up. He’ll have the unit transported.” Then she frowned. “You’re not dressed for the office.”
“Happens I have a suit or two on hand there. You take care of my cop, and see that you feed her as well.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She started for the door, glanced back. “This is good information. Maybe, before you go, you can scan for a safe—I got the jewelry ones in the bedroom already. But maybe they have another. Maybe there’s more good information inside.”
“More fun for me.”
9
She nabbed Peabody coming in as she was going out.
“Tell me in the car.”
“Okay, where are we going?”
“To talk to the vic’s ex. I’ve got some information. Tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”
“Okay, can I have coffee, too?”
“Two coffees.” Roarke’s words echoed in her ears. Annoying, she thought, but inescapable. “And there’s probably food. Like a pocket or something.”
Thrilled by the prospect of food, happy to oblige, Peabody searched the menu while she updated.
“The wit’s cooperative, but she barely caught a glance. She just happened to look out the window when she closed it—she’d had it open for the fresh air, and it was chilling down. So she saw the car, and thinks it was Pettigrew getting in, but barely saw him. She said the woman was—and this is all maybe—on the tall side, really built. She noticed that because she was wearing a really low-cut skin suit. And her hair was short and dark blond or brown with darker tips. Purple or black. Maybe.”
“She can work with Yancy.”
“She said she would, but that she really only closed the window, then turned around and walked out of the room. She’s not sure about the car, either. Dark is the best she could do, and I worked her, Dallas. She’s just not sure. She says not a compact, but not a limo. She wasn’t even a hundred percent on the time because she was doing little chores, but she knows it was at least nine because her kid was in bed, and she’s got a nine o’clock bedtime, and it was the kid’s window. She closed the window, told the kid good night, and went out.”
You couldn’t always ask for detail, Eve thought. You took what you got.
“We’ll check if Yancy’s got the sketch finished on the first murder, maybe it’ll jog something if we show it to this wit.”
“Like I said, she’s cooperative. It spooked her, having a murder basically across the street. What did you get?”
“I got the live-in was with her mother, sister, and a friend at a spa resort—and unless they’re all in on it, she’s going to be clear for this, because I’m not buying she plotted and planned this and McEnroy. But we’ll look at her.”
Eve glanced down as Peabody programmed the in-dash AC. “They’re coming back to New York. We found he likes to hire LCs, every few weeks, and he had one on the books for tonight.”
“Bang, big one. Low-cut skin suit could be an LC,” Peabody added. “Or somebody who wanted to look like one.”
“I’d say number two. Bigger bang, Roarke says it looks like Pettigrew’s system’s been hacked, and the LC was canceled a few hours before she was due.”
“Two bigs. It’s an omelet pocket.” She handed the crusty little snack to Eve. “Eggs, cheese, bacon.”
“Fine.” Grabbing it, Eve took a bite, thought: Okay, pretty good. “Possibly McEnroy’s widow and Pettigrew’s live-in made a deal, did the deeds, one doing the other. We’ve seen that, but it doesn’t feel like it.
“Who was driving the car?” Eve added and took another bite. “Somebody was driving the car because it would be crazy to risk putting it on full auto. Somebody helped with the body, somebody has a quiet, private place to do the work.”
“Plus, hacking,” Peabody said around her own bite. “Somebody knows how to hack. You hire that out, you’ve got one more person who knows. It adds more risks, right?”
“It’s very personal.” Weaving through traffic, Eve gulped some coffee. “It’s very specific. Men who cheat. In McEnroy’s case, add rape. With this one, hiring sex. Both bringing the sex into the home. Drugs and humiliation for women for McEnroy. Greed for Pettigrew. He got the lion’s share of the money from the sale of a company during the divorce. They had to both own it—I’m getting the details from Roarke. He bought the damn thing.”
Peabody nearly choked on her pocket. “What? He knew