Page 42 of Passions in Death
“One fry? Can I have one fry?”
Eve held out the scoop.
“Only one,” Peabody repeated, like a mantra. “He said—and it came off true—knowing she switched teams made him feel better about the breakup. Then he heard about the murder right after he opened the store this morning, and remembered the name. He said he started to text Shauna, then didn’t know what to say.”
“We’ll verify, but if he didn’t know the victim, it’s unlikely she’d bring him in on the big surprise.”
Eve stopped outside the building, a nicely rehabbed white brick, mixed commercial and residential with a Greek place—coulda had a gyro—and an upscale hair and nail salon street level.
Eve walked to the maroon residential door, found Decker, and buzzed.
A male voice answered, “4202.”
“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody.”
“I’ll buzz you in.”
When the buzzer sounded, Eve stepped in, studied the pair of elevators in the tiny entrance. Then pushed open the stairway door.
“I should’ve had more than one fry.”
“You can skip any cardio you planned for later.”
Peabody brightened. “Good trade. And we’ve done some suspect eliminations.”
“First-pass eliminations don’t always stick.”
“True, but these feel like they will.”
“Stairway’s clean,” Eve commented. “And you hear that? The pretty much nothing? Solid soundproofing. Some baby’s probably screaming somewhere in here, but we don’t hear it. Solid building, nice neighborhood. Decker lives alone, she’s still shy of thirty. She models, and also works for her family’s business. They’re plumbers.”
“That explains it.”
“Yeah, if you can fix a toilet on a weekend, you can charge two arms and one leg. One official cohab, male, lasted just over two years, ended last fall. If she’s straight, it’s unlikely she and the victim were involved in that way, but they might’ve been.”
“Are you looking at her?”
“If Albright needed a backup, why not the person she chose to stand up for her at her wedding? Statements indicate she was in the club area at TOD. But it wouldn’t take long to do the deed and get back. You’d need a way to ditch the weapon and the rest, but, if you planned it out, possible. She’s tall enough, looks strong enough.”
Eve paused on the third floor. “Say she and Erin had an on-and-off. Go back to booty buddies. Maybe even kept that on the down-low. Then Erin falls for Shauna. It doesn’t pass or wear out like before. It sticks. Now they’re getting married, and we cut to the classic ‘If I can’t have you, no one will.’”
Eve started up the next flight. “It’s a theory.”
“You wanted to follow up with her as much as Shauna.”
“They were tight. She was trusted. Gotta look.”
“Why didn’t she kill Shauna—get rid of the obstacle?”
“What’s that thing people say? How you always strangle the ones you love.”
“I think it’s ‘hurt.’”
“I bet getting strangled hurts.”
“Either way, I get it.”
“Keep it in mind while we talk to them.”
