Page 5 of Framed in Death (In Death #61)

“If you could get us those names and contacts—add any of the students—we’d appreciate it. And if you think of anything at all?” Eve put one of her cards on the table. “Reach out. We appreciate your time and cooperation.”

“The woman,” Opal began. “The, ah, body.”

“Will be transported to the morgue. The Crime Scene Unit will need some time to process the area. Fiona, you should use the entrance inside until they’re done.”

“What a night.” On a sigh, Roger got to his feet. “I’ll walk you out.”

Eve waited until they were out of earshot. “Mr. Whittier, I’m going to ask this to open or to eliminate a connection. You obviously care deeply about your family, so I’m asking you to be honest. You didn’t recognize Leesa Culver?”

“Who? Oh, was that her name? No, I’ve never seen her before. At least that I remember.”

“Do you or have you previously engaged licensed companions?”

He stopped, gaped. “I— What a question.”

“The victim was an LC.”

“Oh. Oh, I see. I don’t. I haven’t, not ever. Opal and I… we’re in tune in that area. In most areas, actually. Lieutenant, I’m a family man, and this has terrified my family. I can only swear to you if anything I’ve done had even the most remote application to what happened tonight, I’d tell you.”

When they reached the door, he paused. “We’re a loud, often unruly family, but we love each other. My wife and kids are the most important things in the world to me.

“Please find who did this, who killed that poor woman, who brought my family into this horror. I doubt any of us will sleep easy until you do.”

When they stepped outside into bright daylight, Peabody circled her neck. “I believe him on that last bit. They’re pissed off at the daughter, and she’s pissed off at them. She has to be to justify being stupid. But they’re a unit. You could see how they sat together.”

“That sums that up. But it doesn’t tell us why here. It could have been for the relative convenience. But the rest? The pose, the costume. All that’s so deliberate and specific. Why wouldn’t the dump spot be deliberate and specific?”

They started toward the car. New York had wakened fully. Cars buzzed along the streets; pedestrians clipped along the sidewalks.

A group of kids in navy pants and blazers, crisp white shirts, trudged their way to their private school. Across the street another pair in baggies and tees rode airboards to their less tony education facility.

“We’ll check the vic’s apartment. I’ll do the notification after that, and see what Morris can tell us. She’s got a mother in Vegas—a dealer at a casino. A father based in Maine. He runs a whale-watching gig.”

She got behind the wheel. “What if the whale objects to being watched? He’s going to be bigger than the boat, because whale.

So, if he’s feeling pissy, he could be: ‘Watch this, assholes.’ Then he rams the boat and people are splashing around in the water.

Screams fill the air. Then glug-glug, all because they’re going out there on some boat playing Peeping Tom on a whale. ”

Peabody sat quietly for a moment. “You know, up until now I’ve always wanted to go whale watching. There’s another dream crushed.”

“You’re better off.”

Eve slid into traffic.

“Coffee, please?”

Eve held up two fingers as she navigated out of the more subdued neighborhood into the crowds, the glide-carts selling crap coffee and egg pockets filled with a substance barely resembling anything laid by a chicken.

She took the coffee Peabody passed her and thought of her single undressed pancake breakfast.

She, too, was better off.

“We’re all so excited you and Roarke are coming over tonight. And I just have to say, the lamp. I never expected—it’s so perfect. Just when I think you’re tuning me out, you’re not. You remembered how much I loved that metalwork.”

“I could be tuning you out now.”

“But you’re not, so I’m going to gush for a minute. I thought I’d put it in my craft room, then our home office, and it looked so good in both. But then I realized, no, it belongs in the living room, and I found just the right place. It’s wonderful.”

“You’re welcome, sincerely. Move on.”

“I’m moving on to the birdbath with the little fountain you and Roarke gave Mavis and Leonardo. It’s so them. Birds and fairies. Fanciful, unique. Bella’s crazy about it, so bonus. Then the chair for Number Two’s nursery? Mavis cried over it, that’s how much it meant to her you’d think of it.”

“I didn’t really.”

“You made it happen, you and Roarke. And the sculpture my parents sent? Jeez, I think we all shed a few over that. And God, the blown-glass light my mother made. It’s…”

Peabody just pressed a hand to her heart. “Wait until you see it. Wait until my mom and dad see it, hanging over the table my dad made the year I was born! He doesn’t even know I found it in that secondhand shop.

“It’s all… The moving in, spending our first weekend there. Knowing that’s home, that’s really our home now. It’s not just having our things there, even seeing it finished. It’s having things people who matter to us gave us for our home.”

She let out another sigh.

“Anyway, we’re all stupid happy.”

Eve pulled into a street slot on Tenth, then sat a moment.

“It took me a year, maybe more before I started to think about Roarke’s house as mine, as ours. As home, for me. It took longer before I really felt it. So I know what it means, I know how much it matters to have home.”

Eve got out of the car, waited for Peabody on the sidewalk.

“Now, save anything else on all that for tonight, and get your head into the job.”

“Done. Thanks for letting me spill.”

“Spill what? I tuned you out.” On Peabody’s laugh, Eve pointed. “The vic’s building’s there, across the street.”

Together they walked to the corner to cross.