“Playback complete.”
“Okay, copy recording to my files. Dallas and Peabody, along with Detective McNab, currently on scene. Dallas and Peabody will transfer to Central to interview Copley, John Jake, now charged with suspicion of murder and related charges.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Dallas, out. Got ya,” she muttered.
“Your suspect’s on his way to Central,” Roarke told her.
“And he’ll stew in it for a while. When we finish up here, we need to go by the hospital, check on Quigley. If she’s awake, we’ll get her statement. You can go home.”
“Why do you want to punish me?”
She shook her head. “Suit yourself.” She walked out with him, joined Peabody.
“I liked her,” Peabody said. “There was something likeable about her.”
“Yeah, there was. Contact the sweepers, the morgue. Let’s get started on getting her justice.”
“I was complaining, sort of, about working on a vic who was an asshole.” Peabody looked back toward Catiana. “And now . . .”
“I know it.” Eve crouched to study the broken ’link. “Looks like it’s been stomped on. She drops it, he comes at her, stomps on it. The vase is right there. It sat on that table. He grabs it, comes at her, stomps the phone, smacks her with it.”
Before she could ask, Roarke handed her an evidence bag. She bagged and sealed the phone.
“He drops the vase, doesn’t give her the second smack like Ziegler. Vase is big and heavy. It cracks, but it didn’t break. Does he think smashing the phone erases the damn nine-one-one? Was he too wrought up, too far gone, to think about it? Just attack, just cover it all up. Then blame it all on a dead woman? He was upstairs, minding his own, heard his wife scream, ran down.”
“But there’s no report, is there, that he called for help, for medicals, for the police.”
She looked at Roarke as she marked the vase. “Nope. None. It took Shelby two minutes to get here, and took him another two to answer. Working on his story, getting himself under control. Not enough time to set up a fake break-in or burglary. He thinks he’s got two dead women, until Shelby checks, gets a pulse. Now he’s got to get to his wife, fix it somehow. Or run. But Shelby handled that, and then backup arrived. He can’t push his way through three cops. He has to be outraged, the worried husband, the victim.”
She stood again. “How it looks is, for some reason—and we’ll need to talk to the sister—Catiana comes here. Copley lets her in. They come in here, argue. Maybe she knew something, maybe he thought she knew something. He loses his temper, pushes her. She falls way wrong, and that’s it. He barely has time to think. Look what she made him do! And in comes his wife. Sees the body. Calls nine-one-one. He couldn’t have been in the room.”
Frowning, she turned a circle. “If he’d been in, he’d never have let her call through. So he ran out, to get something, to hide something, to get a damn drink, but he had to have come back in at that point in the call when she said his name. She’s ruining everything. He has to make her stop. Snaps, or is still snapped, grabs the vase, charges in.”
She turned again, studied the body again, with guilt and regret clawing at her. “What did you know? How do you fit in?”
“Dallas.” McNab came in, passed her a disc. “Got it copied. You can see the vic come to the door. You can’t see who let her in. You’ll see for yourself, but to my eye she looked upset, worried. Rushed in, talking fast.”
“No audio?”
“No, no audio.”
Her eyes on Catiana, Eve slipped the disc into her pocket.
If you knew something, anything why did you come here? Why didn’t you come to me?
But it was too late for that question, she thought.
The burly SUV proved a good choice since McNab and Peabody needed to pile in. Eve ignored McNab as he played with controls and options in the back while she worked on her PPC.
Catiana had parents—divorced, mother remarried, living in Brooklyn. Father also remarried, living in Phoenix, Arizona. One sibling, a sister, married, two children, in New Rochelle.
She’d need to go to Brooklyn, do the notification. But that misery would come after she’d checked on Quigley. She needed to . . . Was that chocolate she smelled?
She shifted around in her seat, narrowed her eyes at Peabody. “What’s that on your upper lip, Detective?”
Hastily Peabody swiped at it. “Ah, um. A little whipped cream. It’s hot chocolate. It’s real hot chocolate. I couldn’t help it. McNab did it.”