She swung around the back of Mosebly’s chair, leaned in, leaned hard. “But once that job’s threatened, he’d drag you down into the muck with him. You and the school. You’re a strong, healthy woman, Arnette. A strong, healthy swimmer. I bet you could, especially pissed, find the muscle to drown a man.”
“He was alive when I left the pool. He was alive.” She grabbed at her water with a hand that trembled. “Yes, I was angry, but I walked away. He could threaten to tell the board that we’d had sexual intercourse, but how could he prove it? It would be his word against mine. The word of an illegals user who had seduced or attempted to seduce members of the staff. Or the principal whose reputation is unblemished? I had every intention of securing his term
ination.”
“I believe you. And he’s well and truly terminated, isn’t he?”
“I didn’t kill anyone. I was raped. As a rape victim, I’m entitled to privacy, and to counseling. I’m requesting both at this time. If you make my rape a matter of record, using my name, I can and will sue this department. Unless I’m charged with a crime connected to my rape, you’re required to preserve my anonymity. I want to see a rape counselor. I can’t answer any more questions now. I’m too upset.”
“As per subject’s request, interview end. Peabody.”
“I’ll set up the counselor.” Peabody curled her lip as she started for the door. Then she stopped. “Off record, I can say what I want. You’re a disgrace,” she said to Mosebly. “You’re an insult to every woman who’s ever been forced. One way or the other, we’re going to nail your sorry ass.”
Mosebly lifted her chin as Peabody stomped out. “It’s horrifying how the victim is still forced to bear the guilt of sexual abuse.”
Eve thought of the child she’d been, of the nightmares that had dogged her all of her life. “You’re nobody’s victim.”
Bitch. Lying bitch.” Peabody steamed her way down the corridor. “I want to fry her ass.” When Peabody paused in front of a vending machine, Eve waited for her to kick it. Really hoped she would.
But in the end Peabody dug out credits for a tube of Pepsi, and one of the no-cal variety.
“Why is she a lying bitch?”
“Come on!”
“No, I’m asking you.”
Peabody sucked on the tube, then leaned back against the machine. “You jolted her when you pinned her on having sex with Williams. She figured she was in the clear there. Then the wheels start turning. Jeez, you could see them. Clack, clack, clack.
“Bitch,” she repeated, and took another gulp. “She used the fact that Williams got busted for having illegals at his residence. Her reactions were all off, Dallas. There’s no rape victim in her. No misplaced shame or guilt, no anger, no fear, no sign whatsoever of personal violation. Body language, tone of voice, facial expressions. It may pass with her famed board of directors, but it’s crap.”
Peabody paused for breath, then blew a long one out before she chugged Diet Pepsi. “Williams was slime, but she’s just another form of slime. A user, a manipulator, a coward, and a hypocrite. She’s bitch slime.”
“What a proud day this is for me.” Eve laid a hand on Peabody’s shoulder. “Yeah, she’s bitch slime. She went into the synchronized swimming round with Williams of her own volition. Tough to prove otherwise seeing as he’s been eliminated from the competition, but we know what we know. But is the bitch slime a murderer?”
“Probably. She had motive and opportunity on both vics.”
“We’d like her to be the killer,” Eve acknowledged, “as righteous bitches to bitch slime, we’d love to take her down for a couple of murders in the first. But we don’t have enough to lock either one. The next thing we have to do is verify our own infallible instincts and prove Williams was murdered.”
“Oh, yeah.” Peabody hunched her shoulders. “I sort of forgot that little step.”
“It’s the little ones that trip you and send your face into the concrete. Let’s go to the morgue.”
14
SHE SWUNG THROUGH THE BULL PEN, THEN into her office for her coat. Stopped, kicked the desk lightly. She wasn’t answering those messages. She wasn’t a frigging saint. But she could do something about something else.
Pulling on her coat she walked back into the bull pen and straight to Baxter’s desk where he was slugging back cop coffee and reading a sweeper’s report.
“I saw you closed the underground case. Got a Murder Two. Trueheart handle the interview?”
“Yeah. He did good.”
She glanced over to the cube where the undeniably adorable Officer Trueheart was pecking away at paperwork. “Trueheart.”
He swiveled around immediately, blinked at her. “Sir.”
“Nice work on the Syke’s interview.”