Page 24 of Passions in Death
Peabody opened the closet. “Shoes! Glorious shoes! Hunnicut would get a discount. Man, they’ve got some beauties. Two sizes—six and a half, seven and a half. So they both stored shoes in here.”
“Fascinating.” Eve opened a cabinet painted black, with a skyline of New York under a full white moon.
“Painting supplies. We’ll leave the e’s for McNab, for now. Let’s see the main bedroom.”
The more generous space held a bed with a white duvet, deep blue shams, a bunch of fancy pillows. The wall behind the bed had a rainbow arching in a dreamy blue sky. The theme continued with a long dresser painted a pale, quiet green, the frame of the long oval mirror showing a blue a couple of notes up from the wall color.
Rather than curtains, the trim around the privacy-screened window had vining flowers trailing along the white.
“They wanted peaceful in here.” Peabody sighed a little. “The whole place… they put a lot of time and thought and work into the whole place. It’s really, really pretty.”
Just two people, Eve thought, making their nest, living their life, looking toward a future that would never happen.
“Take the nightstands. I’ve got the closet.”
Inside she found clothes organized in two sections—hers and hers. Below, a handmade pair of side-by-side drawers. Painted, of course, the frame the pale green, the drawers the dreamy blue.
They held carefully folded sweaters, sweatshirts, rolled belts, winter-weight socks and tights. Hers and hers again, she thought as she searched through.
On the side walls, handbags hung. She went through each.
No hidden cash, no secret messages.
Eve turned, faced the clothes. On each side, under clear protective wrap, hung their wedding dresses. No way to mistake that, she thought. One, strapless, had a short skirt, the kind that would flare out when you twirled. Albright’s. The other had thin straps with a hint of sparkle, a longer, fuller skirt that fell from a nipped-in waist.
They’d both chosen white.
“Their wedding dresses,” Peabody said from behind her. “That’s so sad. Some sex toys in the nightstands, and each had a tablet. I tried the wedding date as passcode, and bang on both. And they both have folders on there for wedding plans, starting like three months ago. They were having it at Hunnicut’s parents’ place in Brooklyn—they have a yard. I’ve got the guest list—about seventy people. The caterer, photographer, the band, the florist, all of it. Each bride’s parents were paying a third, and the brides a third. I’d say that shows family support.”
“Money talks—but you can’t always be sure it’s telling you the truth. I’ve got the dresser. Take the bathroom.
“That’ll be McNab,” Eve said when she heard the knock. “Have him come back, give me a rundown, then he can take the e’s.”
She walked to the dresser with its perfume bottles, two little catchall bowls, currently catching hairpins in one, a broken earring in the other.
Another framed picture of both of them, ass to ass this time, in party dresses she’d seen in the closet.
She opened the first drawer as McNab bounced in.
“No case on the twenty-four hours of feed, LT. I’ve got the vic and her partner leaving together—wearing what they wore at the club—at about twenty-one-fifteen. The victim arrived home, alone, around two and a half hours before that. Hunnicut nearly an hour before that, also alone.”
He looked around the room as he spoke. “This is nice. Anyway, one couple came in the building after TOD. The super ID’d them as tenants, a couple on the second floor. I stopped by on my way up here. Dinner, a show, then drinks with another couple. They’ve got the receipts.”
“Okay. You can start on the e’s in the second bedroom.”
“On it. This is a really nice place,” he said again as he went out.
The first drawer, a jewelry drawer with a sectioned insert. From the looks of it, they hadn’t separated their own, but mixed them together in sections for bracelets, earrings, rings, necklaces.
But even she recognized two distinct styles. The bolder and the more conservative.
She took out two jeweler’s boxes, opened the first. A white-gold band with beaded edges. The ring in the second box matched.
Yeah, Eve thought as she replaced them. It was fucking sad.
She replaced them, went drawer by drawer.
No secrets spilled out. And clearly each had her own side—two distinct styles again, which had her confirming her thought that the bold equaled the victim, the more conservative the fiancée.
