Page 119 of Passions in Death
“Okay. Some of it’s personality. She’s got a hard edge to her, and she gets what she wants. She works for it, but she gets it. She’s used to getting it, and being the one who says yes or no. Erin said no to her. And if she has—or had—real feelings for Erin, say more than just sex, but feelings, how would she handle that?”
“All right, decent question, decent point.”
“When it’s just sex, it’s easier to move on, right?”
“How good is the sex?” one of the cops who’d shuffled on wanted to know.
“Also a decent question, decent point. I’m going to surmise, pretty damn good.”
“Not a snap to move on from pretty damn good sex. And you start thinking it was better than maybe it was anyway. Ask me about my ex-wife.”
“That’s okay,” Eve told him. “You can keep that one to yourself.”
“I still say it’s easier to move on from just sex than sex with an emotional element mixed in,” Peabody insisted. “Especially if you don’t usually feel, maybe never feel, that emotional element.”
“I had that element.” The cop, a grizzled detective with tired eyes, shook his head. “Started out one way, then hit the other end of that scale at the end. You get pushed to move on, it pisses you off.”
“That.” Peabody pointed at him. “That’s what I’m saying. Erin forced Lopez to move on, and those feelings took that dive. So she killed her, and set it up to screw over Shauna’s big dream.”
“A reasonable scenario,” Eve agreed, and when the doors opened to let their elevator companion off, she asked, “You didn’t kill your ex-wife, did you?”
“Nah. Had a kid who’d’ve been pretty pissed off at me if I had. Me, I just imagine her miserable, and that keeps a spring in my step.”
“Just because he didn’t,” Peabody began, and Eve waved her off.
“I get it, Peabody, and it’s a solid rundown. I think you’re right about the feelings. Genuine or not, who knows, but definitely feelings there.”
“But you still lean toward Barney?”
Eve stepped out into the garage.
“He’s one of the Mr. All-Americans. Straight, white, male. Closing in on thirty, good-looking, solid job, sharp dresser. He’s also pretty much gotten what he wants. The popular boy in high school and part of the shining couple. Quarterback—calls the plays. Team captain, and all that. Two siblings, younger sisters. So he’s—potentially—the prince growing up.”
She got in the car. “Like Lopez, he works, and like Lopez, works at a career of his choosing. His parents remain married to each other, live in a house in the burbs—the same house where he grew up. The same district where he, Shauna, Becca—and his younger siblings—all went to school.”
“I don’t understand how that applies.”
“First, he’s a big brother. Maybe he takes that role too seriously. Second, he’s a big brother in what reads like a very traditional family. He had—they call it a career, right?—an upscale sort of high school career. He was a kind of star—Becca said royalty. She said Shauna—and think Shaunbar—was high school royalty.
“And he did just fine in college—not royalty, but he did fine.”
As she drove, she visualized it.
“Moves back—home first—works at a men’s shop in a local, upscale again, shopping area. Then he moved into the city. But when I took a look at both, guess who moved to the city first?”
“Oh.” Peabody pursed her lips. “Shauna?”
“Yeah, like about three months before him. And he not only moves to the city, gets a job in the men’s shop where he manages now, but moves into the same building as Shauna.”
“The same building?”
“At that time, yeah.”
“I missed that. It’s a pisser to have missed that.”
“I don’t know if either of us missed it before, or just didn’t look at that timing. Becca was already in the city—zipped straight into her job after college. She was around the corner at the time, and she and Shauna reconnected. Then the three of them reconnected. Shauna’s dating someone else—and Barney hooks up with Becca.”
“But you think he moved to the city, and where in the city, because of Shauna.”
