“It doesn’t seem like it should be so hard to remember going to her room that night, the night of her murder. She must’ve looked pretty memorable with her face all busted up.”
“I didn’t see her. I—”
“Yes, you did.” Eve nudged the folder aside so there was nothing between them. “You went down to her room that night while Bobby was asleep. That’s how you got that sweater you’re wearing, one she bought on the Thursday before her death.”
“She gave me the sweater.” Tears swam, but Eve swore she saw a light of amusement behind them. “She bought it for me, an early Christmas present.”
“That’s a pile of bullshit, and we both know it. She didn’t give you anything. Not the sweater…” She looked over at Peabody who’d brought in another evidence bag. “Not that purse, the perfume, the lip dye, and eye gunk. But you had to figure they wouldn’t do her any good, seeing as she was dead. Why shouldn’t you enjoy them? Why shouldn’t you have it all?”
Eve leaned forward. “She was a stone bitch, you and I both know it. You just seized an opportunity. That’s something you’re good at. Have always been good at, haven’t you? Marnie.”
* * *
Chapter 21
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IT WAS IN HER EYES, JUST FOR AN INSTANT.
Not just shock, Eve thought, but excitement. Then they rounded again, innocent and wholesome as a baby’s.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying. I don’t want to be here anymore.” The lips she’d liked too much to change trembled. “I want Bobby.”
“Did you ever?” Eve wondered. “Or was he just handy? But we’ll get to that. You’re going to want to drop the act now, Marnie. We’ll both be happier, as I can’t imagine you found someone as boring as Zana fun to cart around.”
Marnie sniffled pitifully. “You’re being so mean.”
“Yeah, I get that way when somebody lies to me. You’ve been having some fun with that. But you also got a little sloppy in the room next to Trudy’s, where you cleaned up. Left some blood. Better, left your prints.”
Eve rose, walked around the table to lean over Marnie’s shoulder. She caught the subtle floral scent and wondered if Marnie had dabbed on Trudy’s new perfume that morning. How she’d felt spritzing on a dead woman’s choice.
Probably just fine, Eve decided. Probably giggled while she sprayed.
“You did a good job on the identity switch,” she said quietly. “But it’s never perfect. Then there’s Trudy’s ‘link. Little things, Marnie, it’s always the little things that trip you up. You just couldn’t resist lifting a few things from her. You’ve got sticky fingers, always did.”
She reached over, flipped open the file on the table, exposed the split-screen photos she’d generated, along with Marnie Ralston’s data and criminal record.
“Busy, busy girl. That’s what I saw in you, I think, the first minute, outside Trudy’s room. The busy, busy girl inside the housewife.”
“You didn’t see anything,” Marnie said under her breath.
“Didn’t I? Well, in any case, you shouldn’t have kept the perfume, Marnie, shouldn’t have taken that pretty sweater, or that really nice purse.”
“She gave me those. Mama Tru—”
“That’s crap, and see now you’re lying stupid. Smarter, smarter if you worked up those tears again and told me you took them, just couldn’t help yourself. You’re so ashamed. You and I both know Trudy never gave anybody a damn thing.”
“She loved me.” Marnie covered her face with her hands and wept. “She loved me.”
“More crap,” Eve said easily. “More lying stupid. The problem is you ran into a cop who knew her, who remembers her. You didn’t count on me showing up that morning before you finished setting things up, cleaning things up. You didn’t count on me heading the investigation.”
She gave Marnie a pat on the shoulder, then eased a hip on the table. “What were the odds of that?” Eve glanced over at Peabody. “I mean, really.”
“Nobody could’ve figured that one,” Peabody agreed. “And it’s a really great purse. Shame to let it go to waste. You know what I think, Lieutenant? I think she overplayed it with that faked abduction. She’d‘ve been smarter to stay in the background. But she just couldn’t resist grabbing a little spotlight.”
“I think you’re right. You like being in the shine, don’t you, Marnie? All those years you had to play the game. Cops, Child Protection, Trudy. Busted out awhile, got your own back. Never enough. But you’re smart. Opportunity plants a boot in your ass, you know how to turn around and grab it.”
“You’re just making things up because you don’t know what happened.”
“But I do know. I admire you, Marnie, I have to say. All the planning, all the playacting. You really know how to pull it off. Of course, she walked right into it. Coming here, going after me. Then following her old pattern of messing herself up so she could blame somebody else. It might’ve taken you months more of being the good little wife, the sweet little daughter-in-law, before you could wrap it up. Come on, Marnie.” She leaned forward. “You know you want to tell me. Who’d understand better than somebody who’d been through it? She make you take those cold baths every night? Scrub up after her? How many times did she lock you in the dark, tell you that you were nothing?”
“What do you care what happened to her?” Marnie said softly.
“Who says I do?”
“I don’t think you have anything. Those things?” She gestured to the evidence bag. “Mama Tru gave them to me. She loved me.”
“She never loved a soul on or off planet but herself. But maybe you can swing that with a jury. You think, Peabody?”
Peabody pursed her lips as if considering. “She’s got a shot, especially if she turns on the waterworks. But when you put them with the rest, chances drop sharply. You know, Lieutenant, there’s the case for lying in wait—the big picture. Assuming a false identity—not a big hit, but added up.” Peabody lifted a shoulder. “Assuming it’s for the purposes of murder. Man, you give the jury that, the fact that she married the victim’s son just to get in position to kill her former foster mother. ‘Cause that’s fricking cold. Then factor in the money, murder for gain. She’s looking at life, off-planet facility. Hard time.”
Peabody looked at Marnie. “Maybe you can convince us the actual murder was unpremeditated. Maybe you could make a case of self-defense for yourself. While you’ve got our sympathy.”
“Maybe I should call a lawyer.”
“Fine.” Eve pushed off the table. “No skin off mine, ‘cause I’ve got you. You spring the lawyer, Marnie, that’s your right. Once you do, it cuts deep into my sympathy and admiration. You got a name?” Eve asked easily. “Or do you want court-appointed?”
“Wait. Just wait.” Marnie picked up her fizzy, sipped. When she sat it down again, the guilelessness was replaced by calculation. “What if I tell you she was going to rake you to the bone, you and your man? I stopped her. That’s got to be worth something.”
“Sure it is. We’ll talk about that.” Eve sat back down. “But you’re going to want to lay it out for me. Why don’t we start at the beginning?”
“Why not? God knows I’m sick to death of Zana, you hit on that one. You got my sheet, there. Juvie, the works?”
“Yeah.”
“It doesn’t tell the whole story. You know how that goes. I got kicked around, since I was a kid.”
“I saw your medicals. You had it rough.”
“I learned to kick back. I looked after myself, because nobody else was going to.” In disgust, she shoved the remainder of the fizzy aside. “Can I get some coffee? Black.”
“Sure, I’ll take care of it.” Peabody walked to the door, slipped out.
“The system blows,” Marnie continued. “Beats me to hell and back how you can work for it, after what it did to you.”
Eve kept her gaze level. “I like being in charge.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get that.
Got yourself a badge, that frosty weapon. Kick some ass regular. I can see how that could work for you, how you get some of your own back.”
“Let’s talk about you.”
“My favorite subject. So, they finally get me clear of my bitch of a mother, and what do they do? Dump me with Trudy. First, I figure, Hey, I can work this. Nice house, nice things, do-gooder and her boy. But she’s worse than my mother. You know.”
“I know.”
“She was strong. I was puny back then, and she was strong. Cold baths every night—every fucking night—like it was her religion. Locked up in my room every night afterward. I didn’t mind that, it was quiet. Plenty of time to think.”
Peabody came in with the coffee, set it on the table.
“You know, she put something in my food once to make me sick after I took a pair of her earrings?” Marnie sipped the coffee, made a face. “Been awhile since I’ve been in a cop shop. You guys still can’t come up with decent coffee.”
“We suffer in our fight against crime,” Peabody said dryly, and made Marnie laugh.
“Good one. Back to me. So, the second time the bitch caught me, she cut my hair off. I had nice hair. Wore it shorter back then, but it was nice.”
She lifted a hand to it, shook it back. “She cut it off to the scalp— like, I don’t know, I was some kind of war criminal or something. Then she told the social worker I’d done it to myself. Nobody did a damn thing about it. That’s when I knew there’d be payback. One day, somehow. She cut my damn hair off.”
Eve allowed herself a trickle of sympathy. “You ran away.”
“Yeah. Thought about setting the house on fire, with her inside, but that wouldn’t‘ve been smart. They’d come after me harder if I’d done that.”
And the trickle went dry. “Arson, murder, yeah, they’d‘ve come after you hard.”
“Anyway, I was young. Plenty of time for payback. But they came after me anyway. You cops ever think about just letting somebody be?”
She shook her head, took another sip of coffee.
“You got away from her when you were thirteen. That’s half a lifetime ago for you, Marnie. Long time to hold a grudge.”
Mamie’s voice was as bitter as the coffee. “What good’s a grudge if you don’t hold it? She told me I was a whore. Born a whore, die a whore. That I was ugly, useless. That I was nothing. Every day I was with her, she told me. She wanted new living room furniture, so she busted it up, said I did it. The state wrote her a check and put me on restriction. She made my life hell for damn near a year.”
“You waited a long time to pay her back for it.”
“I had other things to do. Kept my eye on her, though, just in case opportunity knocked. Then it did.”
“The night of the bombing in Miami.”
“Sometimes fate just drops it in your lap, what can I say? I was sick that night, got somebody to cover for me. Nobody gave a shit, joint like that. Had to give her my ID and pass code so she could get in the back, into my locker for costumes. Then I hear about it on-screen. Place is blown up, nearly everybody’s dead, and in pieces. Well, Jesus, lucky break for me, wasn’t it? I’d gone in, I’d be in pieces. Shook me up, let me tell you. Really made me think.”
“And you thought, ‘Why not be someone else?’”
“Well, here’s the thing. I owed a little money here and there. Can’t pay if I’m dead. I took the dead friend’s ID, what money we had between us, and lit out. She had a nice stash.”
“You got a name on her?”
“Who? Oh, shit, what was her name? Rosie, yeah. Rosie O’Hara. Why?”
“She might have next of kin looking for her.”
“Doubt it. She was a street LC with a funk habit.” She dismissed the woman who’d died in her place as callously as she’d dismissed the coffee. “Her ID wasn’t going to hold me long, so I knew I needed to ditch it, get fresh. That’s when I came up with the idea for Zana. It’s not so hard to get fresh ID and data if you know where to go, whose palm to grease. Had some work done, face work. Off the books. Good investment, the way I looked at it. Especially when I checked out Bobby.”
“Nice-looking guy, single, ambitious.”
“All that, and still tight with Mama. I wasn’t figuring on killing her, let’s get that straight.” She lifted both hands, pointed the index fingers across at Eve. “Let’s get that real clear. None of this ‘lying in wait’ crap. I just figured on stealing her boy, then making her life a misery, like she’d done to me. Maybe getting a nice nest egg out of it.”
“Just a long con,” Eve supplied.
“That’s right. Bobby was easy. He’s not a bad guy all in all. Boring, but he’s okay. Plus he’s got some moves in the sheets. And Trudy?”
Marnie sat back, grinning ear-to-ear. “She was a pleasure. Figured she had a new slave, meek little Zana. Oh, Mama Tru, I’d be happy to do that for you. You got dirty work needs doing, I’m your girl. Then I get the big surprise. She’s got money tucked away. Pretty big money, too, so why shouldn’t I get some of it? I’ve got the run of her house, seeing as I’m her little helper. She’s got good stuff in there, stuff that costs. Now where’s this coming from? Just takes a little research, a little detecting. Blackmail. I can turn the tables on her with this. Just need a little time, need to figure it all out.”
Propping an elbow on the table, Marnie set her chin on her fist. “I was looking for the best way to siphon off some of the money, then expose her. They’d lock her up, like she’d locked me up.”
Enjoying this, Eve thought, enjoying every minute of this.
“Then she sees you on that media report, and gets all worked up about going to New York. I was going to wrap this up in shiny paper, drop it right in your lap. Then I’d stand back, big wide eyes, horrified that my husband’s mother turned out to be a blackmailer. I’d be laughing my ass off.”
“A good plan,” Eve acknowledged, “but opportunity jumped out at you again.”
“If you’d fallen in, it would’ve turned out differently. You want to think about that,” Marnie said, and gestured with her drink. “I figured you’d pay her off, or at least take a couple days to think it over. Then I’d come to you, all dewy-eyed and upset, tell you what I’d found out about my darling husband’s mama.”
Marnie nudged the coffee aside. “You and me, we’d both have gotten something out of that. Every kid she ever screwed with would’ve gotten something out of that. But you pissed her off good. Roarke? He shot her through the ozone. She was going to make you pay, and pay big. That’s all she could think about. Somebody screwed with her, she’d do anything to screw them back, and bigger. You saw what she did to herself.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
“Not the first time, like you said. You ask me, that woman had some serious issues. She’d already bunged herself up good when she called me. Not Bobby—he wouldn’t put up with what she wanted to do. He’d have stopped her, or tried. But me? Her sweet, biddable daughter-in-law? She knew she could count on me, she knew she could bully me. It wasn’t much of a stretch to act stunned when I went into her room. Her face was a freaking mess. You know what she told me? You want to know?”
“I’m riveted,” Eve answered.
“She said you’d done it.”
Eve sat back, as if stunned. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah, she put it on thick. Look what she did to me. After I took her in, gave her a home. And she’s a policewoman! So I played the part right back. Oh, my, oh, gosh. We have to get you to the hospital, tell Bobby, call the police! But she lays it out. No, no, no. A cop did this, and she’s married to a powerful man. She’s afraid for her life, see? So she gets me to make the recording. For protection, she says, and I see just how she’s wheeling it. It’s all there, subtle-like. If you don’t do the right thing, she’ll send a copy of the recording to the media, to the mayor, the chief of police. They’ll know everything. I’m supposed to make a copy—so she keeps the original—and hand-carry it to you at Cop Central. N
o telling Bobby. She makes me swear.”
Laughing, Marnie swiped a finger over her heart. “So I make her some soup, and I put a nice tranq in it, add some wine. And she’s out. Could’ve killed her then, you know. You want to think about that, too.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“I searched the room, found the sap she’d made. Found a copy of the file she had on you, too. Interesting stuff. I took all of it. She called me later, but I said I couldn’t talk. Bobby was right there. I’d call her when we got back from dinner, after he was asleep. She didn’t care much for that, let me tell you. Well, you got the ‘link right there, so you’ve heard.”
“She pushed you,” Eve prompted. “Trudy didn’t like being told to wait.”
“Nope. But I’m like, Oh, let me tell Bobby. We won’t go out, we’ll come down and take care of you. I know she won’t go for that, so she takes another pill, and I go out on the town. Long night for me, but God! It was fun. Just bat my eyes, ask Bobby if we can have champagne, and he pulls out all the stops in his middle-class way. I’m so juiced, you know?”
She drew breath in her nose, letting her head fall back, closing her eyes as she relived it. “Lay him just right when we get back, give him a little something extra to make him sleep. Then I go on down the hall to have my talk with Trudy.”
“You took the weapon with you?”
“Sure. Not to use it,” she added quickly. “Get that straight. I’m putting that on record. What I figured was I’d show it to her, stay in character at least awhile. What have you done? You lied to me! I’m going to tell Bobby. I’m going to the police!”
Marnie laid her hands on her belly and laughed. “God! You should’ve seen her face. She never expected it. So, she slapped me. Told me I was hysterical, and slapped me. Said I was going to do just what she told me, and no back talk. If I wanted to keep my cozy nest, I’d shut my mouth and do what she said. Otherwise I’d be out on my ass, she’d see to it.”
Her face was grim now, and full of hate. “She said I was nothing, just like she did when I was a kid. ‘You’re nothing,’ she said, ‘and you’d better remember who’s in charge.’ Then she turned her back on me. I still had the sap in my hand. I didn’t think about it, didn’t even think. It just happened. I let her have it good. And she went down, right down to her knees, and I let her have it again. Nothing in my life ever felt better. Who was nothing now?”