“Where’s the excitement if we don’t find it?”
“I get that—and he likes the rush, no question. But his story sounds solid, especially if the killer has read his stuff.”
“He can’t prove where it came from, and we have to waste time trying to trace it. And Breen’s juiced by it.”
“I guess it’s the sort of thing that’d juice him. His job’s on the sick side.”
“So’s ours.”
Surprised, Peabody hiked with Eve to the car. “You liked him?”
“I haven’t made up my mind. If he’s no more than he claims to be, I’ve got no problem with him. People like murder, Peabody. They jive on it when it’s got at least one of those degrees of separation. Reading about it, watching vids about it, turning on the evening news to hear about it. As long as it isn’t too close. We don’t pay to watch a couple of guys hack each other to death in an arena anymore, but we’ve still got the blood lust. We still get off on it. In the abstract. Because it’s reassuring. Somebody’s dead, but we’re not.”
She remembered, as she climbed into the car out of the vicious heat, how that thought raced through her head, again and again, when she’d huddled in the corner of that frigid room in Dallas and looked at the bloody waste of the thing that had been her father.
“You can’t feel that way when you see it all the time. When you do what we do.”
“You can’t,” Eve said as she started the car. “Some can. Not all cops are heroes just because they’re supposed to be. And not all fathers are good guys just because they give their little boys a ride on their shoulders. Whether I like him or not, his lack of alibi, his line of work, and his possession of the notepaper put him on the list. We’re going to do a very careful check on Thomas A. Breen. Let’s run the wife, too. What didn’t we hear from him in today’s conversation, Peabody?”
“I’m not following you.”
“He told us she came home from a late meeting. She went to bed. He worked. He slept in. She took the kid to the park. But I never heard anything about we. My wife and I, Jule and I. Me and my wife and Jed. That’s what I didn’t hear. And what impression do you suppose I get from that?”
“You’re thinking the marriage isn’t good, that there’s friction or disinterest between Breen and his wife. Yeah, I can see that, but I can see how with two careers and a kid a couple could get into a routine that revolves around work and pass the toddler.”
“Maybe. Doesn’t seem much point in being together if you never are though, does there? Good-looking guy like that might start getting resentful and frustrated with that sort of routine. Especially if he sees it as a repeat of his own childhood. A guy doesn’t want to look in the mirror at thirty-something and see his father looking back at him. We’ll take a good close look at Thomas A. Breen,” she repeated. “And see what we see.”
Eve decided her next stop would be Fortney. But it was time to play it, and him, a different way. “I want to nudge Fortney on the second murder, revisit the first. His alibi’s bullshit. And since I tend to get cranky when people lie to me, I’m not going to be particularly friendly.”
“As you are the epitome of cheer and goodwill by nature, sir, this will be somewhat of a stretch.”
“I smell the distinct aroma of lame-ass sarcasm in this vehicle.”
“We’ll have it fumigated.”
“But fortunately I’m the epitome of cheer and goodwill and will not rub your nose in it at this time. A few minutes into my unfriendly conversation with Fortney, I’m going to get a tag on my pocket ’link.”
“As I’m in awe of you in all ways, I’m unsurprised by this sudden psychic ability.”
“I’ll be annoyed, but will have to take the communication, thereby passing the interview to you.”
“Do you also know who’ll be tagging . . . What? To me?”
That, Eve thought, had wiped the sassy little smirk off her aide’s face. “You’ll pick it up as good cop. The long-suffering, somewhat inexperienced, and apologetic underling. Play that up, fumble around.”
“Sir. Dallas. I am the long-suffering, somewhat inexperienced, and apologetic underling. I don’t have to play it up or pretend to fumble around.”
“Use it,” Eve said simply. “Make it work for you. Let him think he’s leading you. He’ll see a girl cop in uniform, who takes orders from me. Second-string. He won’t see past that to what you’re made of.”
I don’t know what I’m made of, Peabody thought, but drew a deep breath. “I can see how it could work.”
“Make it work,” Eve said again, and parked outside the office building to set the timer on her ’link.
Eve bullied her way into Leo Fortney’s office and set the mood. Enjoyed setting it, she admitted. She put a little swagger in her step as she broke in on his holo-conference with a video producer.
“You’re going to want to reschedule your little confab, Leo,” she told him. “Or let Hollywood here in on our conversation.”
“You have no right pushing your way in here, throwing your weight around.”