Page 144 of Passions in Death
“Couple of rooks hauled him into the elevator, which means I’m getting off because piss-soaked, and they let him slip. He rammed right into me. Jesus, the smell. I’m lucky it didn’t have time to transfer.”
“You meet such interesting people in the course of your day. And the memorial?”
It would take his mind off the brutal, Eve decided.
“I guess the highlight would be when Hunnicut’s up there talking about Albright—heartfelt, touching—and Lopez comes in. Not altogether drunk, but definitely lit.”
She ran it through—rant, slap, punch.
“I suppose that livened things up, so to speak.”
“Shock, horror, fascination.”
“And gave you a chance to take on Lopez in the box, I assume.”
“Oh yeah.”
She ran it through for him as they ate, and yes, she could see it took his mind off his own day.
“You don’t think she killed Erin Albright.”
“No. Do you?”
“She’s impulsive, careless of others, hotheaded. And no. A moment’s heat, an angry strike, then yes. But not the way this was done. It’s far too cool and calculating.”
“See, a good judge.” She pulled her ’link out of her pocket. “Judge this. Greg Barney between slap and punch.”
Roarke took the ’link, studied the screen. He looked at Eve and said, “Ah.”
“Yeah, ah.” After pocketing the ’link again, she ate more chips. “That’s not the expression of a man, Mr. Nice Guy, watching his good friend and former sweetheart get clocked at her fiancée’s memorial.”
“So he’s your man.”
“Oh, he is. With any luck, I’ll have him in the box tomorrow, and then in a cage.”
“What else do you have?”
That single question, she had to admit, centered the problem.
“My gut, mostly, and personality. A kind of profile of an asshole.”
She ran her day through for him as that day waned with softening light and quiet breezes.
“The last one I talked to, just before I left Central, worked under him at the shop. A woman, early forties, married, two kids. She worked there part-time, and said he made a habit of saying how she’d make more as a professional mother, and how much better off her kids would be if she stayed home.”
“There’s another ah from me.”
“She’d say how she liked working, being out in the world, and her kids were fine. It irritated her some, but she didn’t think much of it. He also wondered, out loud, why she wanted to work in a men’s shop. Wouldn’t she be more comfortable, if she insisted on working, putting in her time at a woman’s boutique—shit like that.”
She took the bread, slathered with butter, that Roarke offered, bit in.
“After a while, he started cutting her hours. Hired another part-timer—a man, naturally. She took off for a school function, with advance notice—but he wrote her up for it. Just continued to undermine her in little ways, claimed some customers complained about her attitude, her service, which she said was bullshit. And I believe her on that.
“Eventually, she quit—decided it wasn’t worth the annoyance of dealing with him. And get this, he told her she was making the right choice for her family.”
“More than a bit of a prick, isn’t he then? And calculating.”
“Exactly. He takes his time, maneuvers and manipulates. No problem lying to get his way, or using his position as a supervisor to bully staff. Because in his world, he’s right, he knows best.”
