Vendetta in Death (In Death #49) - J. D. Robb Page 0,56
to pick her targets,” Peabody told him.
“That’s cruel in itself, isn’t it? To take that circle of compassion and outreach to inflict suffering. Ah well, we’ll do what we do. I’ll have the full report to you this afternoon.”
“Appreciate it.”
Eve dug credits out of her pocket as they walked out, then tossed them to Peabody. “Cold caffeine.”
Peabody went for two tubes of Pepsi—hers Diet. “You okay?” she asked when Eve rubbed the cold tube against her forehead.
“Yeah. Little headache.”
“I’ve got blockers.”
“No, it’ll pass.”
“Are you worried about Tibble?”
“No. We did our job. If he has to give us a smack for it, we take the smack, then go out and keep doing our job.”
“You said ‘we.’” Smug, Peabody bopped her shoulders. “Ass partners.”
Back in the car, Eve sat for a moment, then cracked the tube. “We’re going to tell a second woman the guy she lived with liked to have some strange when she wasn’t around. She may get her bitch on over that—and we’ll be the ones that falls on.”
“It’s hard to get bitchy about the bitch on when we had to tell her the guy’s dead, and now we’re going to tell her he’s dead because he went off with the strange.”
“Here’s the thing.” Eve drank. “He cheated—on his ex with the current. Why the current believes he wouldn’t cheat on her is beyond me, but that’s usually how it goes. But, thinking from the killer’s perspective, there’s no evidence this one drugged women, raped them, abused them. He hired them. We’re going to talk to the booker, see if he went for the violent end of things with LCs, but there was no sign of that in the bedroom setup. The toys were toys. No illegals, just aids. You add the money in—him maneuvering the ex with the company she started. But even with that, he doesn’t reach the level of McEnroy.”
“But she went at him harder.” Following, Peabody nodded. “The other way around would make more sense.”
“Yeah. So that’s not in play. It’s not—from a twisted thinking—the punishment fits the crime. It’s either escalation or she had more reason to want Pettigrew to suffer.”
“Taking us back to the ex.”
“To the ex, to someone else he screwed with, or to the current.” Eve pulled out. “Let’s go to Brooklyn.”
“Okay, warrant’s in.” Peabody studied her ’link. “Jenkinson and Reineke are on tap to handle it. And … hey, the offices for Discretion are on the way to Brooklyn. We’d have time to hit there before we talk to Horowitz.”
“Even better. Plug it in.”
As she did, Peabody frowned. “They might want a warrant, too. Discretion, right?”
“We’ll risk it. They have a dead customer,” Eve pointed out. “One who got his johnson whacked off. Seems they’d want to prove one of their LCs didn’t do it.”
“That’s an angle. Do you think if sex was your job it’d get really boring, or more exciting because you were always mixing it up?”
“I think because it’s not just sex that’s the job, it’s pretending attraction to somebody who put me on their credit card—or, lower level, picked me up on the street, and on the upper levels you actually have to have conversations with the john like you give a rat’s ass what they think about anything—I’d rather work the night shift in some factory that tests cat food.”
“Like they have to taste it, the cat food? They don’t do that, do they?”
“How the hell do I know? I don’t work at a cat food factory. There!”
She spotted a curbside slot, hit vertical, did a one-eighty in midair, and dropped down.
“I woulda walked,” Peabody managed. “I’d’ve been happy to walk blocks. Loose pants. And more no cardiac arrest.” Because her legs still trembled, she eased out carefully to stand on the sidewalk.
“It’s starting to rain,” Eve pointed out.
“A walk in the rain’s refreshing.”
“A walk in the rain’s wet.” Pleased, Eve walked into the soaring downtown office building.
A small horde of business types moved at a quick pace in the lobby. To elevators, from them, with briefcases, suits, earbuds, take-out fake coffee.
She walked straight to the security desk, held up her badge. “Discretion.”
The short man with thin, graying hair gave them a once-over. “Sign in please, with the name of the party you’re here to see.”
“I’ll know the party when I get there. What floor?”
“Twelfth floor, east bank.” He checked his log screen. “Twelve hundred for the main office.”
Eve scrawled her name, waited for Peabody to do the same, then headed for the east bank.