“Could she have lured Debra Bernstein here as a patsy?”

  “Played with that, but I don’t see it. She was really pissed when she found out Bernstein had been in her home, even more about the Tony. And there she lied again when she said, with tears—she’d have given her the award, given all her awards if she had Brant. Trust me, she wouldn’t. She loved him, but she gives up nothing.”

  “Well now, you’ve convinced me, and I wasn’t expecting to be convinced. How do you intend to prove any of this?”

  “Working on it. I think the next round with Bernstein may give me more play. And she got the poison somewhere. Does she know a film photographer who does his or her own darkroom work? Did she commission something from a textile artist who uses cyanide in his or her work? And so on. Maybe she managed to get it off the street, but that’s more doubtful.”

  Fascinating, he thought, how, with her points and circles, she’d made this leap. It shouldn’t have been altogether logical, he considered. And yet it was.

  “Where do you begin there?”

  “Assistants, staff, friends, and any connection there to possible access. I believed her that night—always look at the spouse, but I believed her. Then Debra. All that’s put me behind on this, so that’s a pisser.”

  “I suppose we’d best walk back and catch up.”

  “Yeah.” They rose. “You don’t travel nearly as much as you used to.”

  “I don’t, and have more reason to stay home than I once did.”

  “I just want to reassure you that if you did, I wouldn’t poison you for it.”

  He took her hand, kissed it. “What man could ask for more?”

  * * *

  She worked on two fronts. That the most logical and obvious equaled Debra Bernstein. And the more convoluted solution pointed to Eliza Lane.

  Either way, she needed to prep for the next phase of the interview and find ways to work around the lawyer. At the same time, she laid out her theory on Eliza as concisely as possible, revised it, replayed it, ran the probability.

  She got under eighty percent on Rose Bernstein’s death, but closer to ninety on Fitzhugh.

  The computer agreed, she thought. Always look at the spouse.

  After one more pass, she sent it to Mira for an opinion.

  Considered coffee—again—as Roarke came in.

  “You’ll be interested to know that, after an extensive search, I’ve found Cara Rowan, Eliza’s housekeeper, has a nephew who’s a metal artist. Fairly unsung at this point, but he’s had a couple of small shows, has his own studio in Brooklyn, and does electroplating in his work.”

  And there it was, Eve thought.

  “They use cyanide for that. That’s not coincidence, that’s connection. If Lane didn’t commission something, visit his studio, something, I’ll kiss Summerset on the mouth. With tongue.”

  “As much as I’d enjoy seeing that—and his reaction to it—I can’t see how you’re wrong. It’s too bloody convenient.”

  “Give me the name, the contact, and we’ll find out.”

  “I’ll do that, of course, but, Eve, it’s gone midnight.”

  “It can’t be. Shit!” She banged the heels of her hands on the sides of her head. “Why does that happen?”

  “There’s that pesky rotation of the Earth again. Shut it down now, Lieutenant, and you can sleep well knowing you’re likely to close this tomorrow.”

  “Fine, good, yeah. Let me text Peabody, let her know I’ll pick her up. We can get to Brooklyn and back, check this guy out, before we put Debra back in the box. Or put that off until the afternoon and pull in Lane instead.”

  She sent the text and pushed to the next step as they walked to the bedroom.

  “No payments from Lane to this guy?”

  “None from her accounts.”

  “Cash, maybe. That’s smart, and she’s not stupid. If she ordered something, commissioned a piece—‘Oh, how does this work?’—and gave him a cash deposit, what are the odds of us finding out, putting it together?”

  “Exceptional, I’d say, as you’ve done just that.”

  “Maybe. I’ve still got it laid out pointing at Debra. The thing is…”

  In the bedroom she took off her weapon, emptied her pockets.

  “She’s not stupid, either, but not as smart as Lane. And she sure as hell isn’t as good an actor. I don’t buy that shock from her when we hit her with killing Fitzhugh was faked. She never went there—which is how she’s not as smart as Eliza. She never went there because she didn’t do it. It was the award, the payback, the basking in the celebrity light at that party. She admitted to talking to Fitzhugh. Hell, bragged about it.”

  She dragged on a sleep shirt.

  “You had it from the beginning.”

  “I had it at the beginning,” she corrected as she slipped into bed with him. “Then I lost it, now I’ve got it again.”

  He drew her against him, and the cat curled against her back.

  “All’s well that ends with the killer unmasked and justice done.”

  “The victim’s still dead, but yeah, it’s the best you can do. Except there’s one more benefit to this one.” She smiled as she closed her eyes. “That smug snot currently in London ends up paying a crapload for a hotshot, high-priced lawyer to do not much of anything.”

  * * *

  The signal from her communicator woke her barely two hours later.

  “Hell. Lights on, ten percent. Block video. Dallas.”

  “Lieutenant, Officer Manning. A nine-one-one came in from the hotel we’re sitting on, for the individual we’re sitting on. We took it. On scene now. We’ve got a DB, sir.”

  “Bernstein?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve secured the scene.”

  “Keep it that way. I’ll be there in twenty. Fuck it,” she said, and shoved out of bed.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No, no. I’ll drag Peabody out of bed. How the hell did this happen?”

  “I’d like to know myself.”

  In her closet, she dragged on clothes. “I’ll let you know. If Lane got to her … How would she get to her? How would she know where to get to her?”

  She came out, black jeans and boots, black shirt. With no comment, Roarke handed her a go-cup of coffee.

  “Thanks.” She gulped some, then strapped on her weapon. As she grabbed her ’link and the rest, Roarke came out of her closet with a black vest.

  “You might as well go all the way. The lining’s in.”

  “I have vest linings?”

  “You do.”

  “Huh. Get some sleep,” she said, and kissed him.

  “Take care of my cop.”

  When she rushed out, already talking to Peabody, Roarke looked back at the cat. “And here we are, mate.”

  21

  Eve avoided the endless party around Times Square and sped through mostly empty streets.

  She was pissed.

  Pissed some stupid, smug snot of a bitch in London had tossed her money away on a thieving grifter out of spite, pissed a judge had granted the thieving grifter—with priors!—bail. Pissed she herself hadn’t found some way, somehow, to keep the thieving grifter alive in a cell for one damn night.

  One damn night.

  She breezed past street-level LCs hoping to rack up one more date before calling it a night. Ignored the junkies and dealers who slipped in and out of shadows to make a score.

  A group of three teenage types popped up from subway stairs laughing like loons, and a sidewalk sleeper curled up like a cat in the doorway of a souvenir shop.

  She pulled up in front of the hotel. The lights blared in the excuse for a lobby. Inside, a man in a dingy white tee, cotton shorts, and flip-flops shoved up from behind the counter.

  He headed her way, pushing his hands in the air.

  “No vacancies!”

  She held up her badge. “Funny, I heard you just got one.”

  “Man. Man.” He dragged his hands through orange-streaked black hair, then dragged them down a face sporting a nose ring and an along-the-jawline scruffy beard.

  “I’m just the night man, right? Just the night man. I sleep in the back so somebody’s here if something happens. Jesus, something happened. Water starts flooding through the ceiling of 201, right, and the guy’s ringing the bell and waking me up. Like it’s my fault, right? I go up, bang on 301. I can hear music, right, I can hear it so she’s in there, but she don’t answer.”

  “Being dead and all.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know that, right? So I say how I’m coming in because 201’s breathing down my neck, and now the lady across the hall comes out bitching at me. So I use my passkey and all that, and she’s lying there dead. Just dead. Lying there.”

  He scrubbed his face again. “Now the lady’s screaming in my ear, and the guy, he’s making noises like maybe he’s going to puke. He didn’t, so that’s something. So I shut the door and called the cops, because jeez, she’s lying there dead.”

  He sucked in some air. “And you know what? They were here like pow. I mean pow! And they take one look and say I gotta shut off the water. I gotta tag the boss, right, because how the hell do I know how to shut off the water in this shithole? He tells me how, and he’s pissed, and the cops say I can’t let anybody in but more cops, and I’ve got to move 201 to another room because the ceiling’s leaking.”

  “Rough night,” Eve decided.

  “Fucking A, lady!”

  “Lieutenant.” Eve tapped her badge. “Did anyone visit 301 tonight?”

  “I don’t know. Man. Jesus. I’m asleep in the back.”

  “What time did you come on duty?”

  “I come on at ten. I go back, watch some screen, whatever, turn in. Manager comes on at eight, and I go have some breakfast.”

  “Did you give the officers your name and contact information?”

  “Yeah, sure, but I was asleep in the back, right?”

  “Right. My partner’s on her way. Send her up.”

  “Do I just gotta, like, sit out here?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “This night blows.”

  “I bet 301 agrees.”

  She took the stairs.

  On three an officer stood on the door. Her partner stood down the hall talking to a mostly naked couple.

  “Sir. Officer Fenton. We took over from Officers Carmichael and Shelby.” She opened the door.

  Eve stood in the doorway. And yes, as advertised, Debra Bernstein lay dead on the floor. She lay faceup, wearing a peacock-colored robe, with a lowball glass a few inches from the fingers of her right hand.

  She’d used a thick blue band, one Eve had seen in her traveling case, to bundle up her hair. Red patches marred her face; her fingernails, painted cheerful pink, showed a dark blue undertone.

  Eve pulled a can of Seal-It from her field kit. “Round it up, Officer.”

  “We came on at ten, Lieutenant. As reported by the previous officers, the light was on in this unit. Privacy screen engaged, but it’s old and a little patchy. We could see her moving around if she got close enough to the window. Or standing at it. The nine-one-one came in at zero-one-forty-eight. The night man, Joe E. Clark—that’s Joe, middle initial E—reported the DB, and we responded immediately.

  “We came up, verified. Water had leaked into the unit below, Clark came up to check. The lights were on, music playing on the screen. We could see water leaking from the bottom of the closed bathroom door, so told Clark to shut the water down, secured the scene. My partner contacted you and is now getting statements.”

  “Did anyone come into the building while you were on duty?”

  “Yes, sir. Clark just after twenty-two hundred, a man and woman together, about twenty-three hundred. A woman shortly after midnight; the same woman left about thirty minutes later.”

  And there we go, Eve thought.

  “Describe her.”

  “Caucasian or possibly mixed-race female. About five-five, a buck and a quarter, brunette, shoulder-length with a thick fringe. Dark pants and T-shirt.” Fenton narrowed her eyes a moment. “Sneaks, dark sneaks. Carrying a black or dark gray handbag.”

  Fenton looked back in the room, looked at the body. And said, “Shit.”

  “Yeah, it’s likely. Did you get a look at her face?”

  “No, sir. She was … rummaging around in her bag when she came out, so head down. Walked north. She was easily three inches shorter and at least fifteen, maybe twenty pounds lighter than the subject, so we just noted her going in, then out again.”

  “Not on you, Officer.” On me, Eve thought, on me being a step behind. “Use that description, see if anybody saw the woman.”

  Sealed up, she stepped into the room and stood over the body of Debra Bernstein.

  A bottle of vodka stood on a rickety table. She’d seen the bottle—fuller—when she and Peabody had searched. There’d been two short glasses in the room, she recalled. Now she saw only one.

  A ’link sat beside the bottle. No passcode, Eve noted when she picked it up. Cheap, prepaid job, probably provided by her lawyer for contact. She swiped it open, and the notation app came up.

  I can’t take it. I can’t go to prison.

  I failed. I lost. The bitch won again.

  I’m going to my Rose.

  “Make it look like suicide? Why the flood? What’s the point of that?”

  She crossed the room, felt the sponginess of the cheap carpet. Inside the bathroom, water and a skim of fading bubbles filled the tub. A couple of candles in tins sat on the narrow rim. Two more had fallen to the floor, likely washed off by the overfilled tub. A tube of face gunk—the pricy kind like Trina used—sat on the rim of the sink.

  She’d seen the candles in the room, seen the face gunk in Debra’s kits.

  No second glass in sight.

  “Okay, I see how it played.”

  She went back to the body, knelt, opened her kit again.

  “Victim is identified as Debra Bernstein, age sixty-six.”

  She took out her gauges as she read the salient into the record. “TOD, one hundred hours. Yeah, that fits. Scent of almonds present, red patches on victim’s face, undertone of blue on the fingernails. COD, cyanide poisoning, to be verified by the ME.”

  Bending down, she sniffed at the glass. “Cyanide mixed with vodka. A bottle of Popi’s Vodka on the table, about a quarter full. During the search of the victim’s possessions yesterday, my partner and I found a bottle of the same brand, nearly half-full, in the cooler.

  “But no cyanide then, no second glass now. Should’ve left it alone, Eliza. Should’ve let it ride. No evidence of violence or defensive wounds. A note on a prepaid ’link was left on the table with the vodka.”

  She recorded as well as read the note into the record.

  As she finished her examination of the body, Peabody opened the door.

  “Oh, hell.”

  “Seal up, and tell one of the uniforms to have the night man turn the water back on. It’ll probably take him a few minutes.”

  Eve stood up, scanned the room. Not a big space, but the bed sat opposite the bathroom in that space, and the sitting area—such as it was—beyond that. Closer to the screen, where the music played—not loud, background. And the window where street noises rose up. The climate control hummed and rattled.

  Peabody came in.

  “Apparent suicide note on that ’link by the vodka.”

  Reading it, Peabody scowled. “Where the hell did she get the cyanide? It sure as hell wasn’t in this room, and she couldn’t have had it on her.”

  “There’s question one.”

  “No way she was suicidal, Dallas. No way there. And what’s with the tub full of water?”

  “We’ll get to that. The door to the bathroom was closed when the night man opened the unit door.”

  “Well, I don’t…” She looked around. “Where’s the second glass? There were two glasses before.”

  “This is a proud moment for me.”

  “She’s in a robe, bathtub’s going. Maybe she’s going to take a soak. Yeah, look here, hydrating facial mask—she had this in her kit. Going to hydrate her skin, soak awhile with the candles. De-stress herself. If the door was closed … would you hear the water running with the music on, with the street noises?”

  “A very proud moment. I believe you’ve earned another five minutes of blathering about your house project, at a later date.”

  “Also she didn’t write that suicide note.”

  “Because?”

  “Well, no cyanide in her possession, no second glass, but the note alone? She’d have had a lot more to say. A mother this, my years of sacrifice that. I don’t see her using her last words to give Lane the win, either.”

  “I don’t know if my heart can hold any more pride. I may have to just rip it out of my chest before it explodes.”

  “Do I get ten minutes of blathering?”

  “No, and pull the plug on the tub. No point adding to the flood below when he gets the water on. Make sure you get it on record.”

  “She let the killer in,” Peabody said as she opened the drain.

  “That’s how I see it. She probably had a shot or two of vodka beforehand. No communications on that ’link—likely provided after she got sprung by the lawyer. Nobody to tag. She’s stuck in here, wandering around, maybe checking the media, whatever.”

  “Water’s on. Not full force—if this place runs to full.”

  “Leave it running, close the door.”

  She could hear it, barely, and if she focused on it. But otherwise, no. Just like ambient sound, quieter by far than the annoying hum of the climate control.

  She opened the door. “Switch with me.”

  When Peabody went out, she stood watching the tub.

  “If I didn’t know it was running,” Peabody said when she opened the door again, “I wouldn’t know it was running. You’ve got the music, the AC, the street.”

  “Without the overflow, we wouldn’t have known she was dead until morning. Gives us a jump. Call in the sweepers, then we start going over this place.”