Page 27 of Passions in Death
“But… no. She and Shauna, they’re getting married in a few days. This can’t be happening.” She staggered back to the lump of couch in the center of the room. “Not Erin. This can’t be happening to Erin.”
“Would you like me to get you some water, Ms. Fleschner?”
Donna lifted shocked and swimming eyes to Peabody. “Please. We got a cooler back there. Please.”
She covered her face with her hands, then dropped them.
“How?” she asked Eve. “Why? Oh fuck, just fuck. Where’s Shauna? Oh Jesus, poor Shauna. They loved each other. You’ve got to know they loved each other. Shauna would never, ever hurt Erin.”
“She’s not a suspect. Why weren’t you at the party last night?”
“I was in Baltimore. My sister had a baby, so I took a shuttle down when she was in labor the day before, with my mom. Quentin James MacAbee took his time arriving, like twenty hours or something.”
Swiping at tears, she took the tube of water Peabody offered. She cracked it, drank, struggled to continue.
“Our mom’s staying down there for like a week, but I was going to try and take the nine o’clock shuttle back last night. I missed it, then there were all these damn storms up and down the East Coast, and I didn’t land in New York until around midnight.”
She sniffled, drank some more.
“After all that, I just didn’t have the juice to glamour up and hit the party. I just didn’t have it in the tank. Maybe if I’d been there—”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Peabody said, and sat beside her.
Strong, ropey muscled arms, Eve thought. Tall enough. With an alibi easy to check.
“Can you give us the hospital or birthing center, and do you have your shuttle ticket receipt?”
“Yes. Lady Madonna Birthing Center in Baltimore. My sister’s Alyce—with a y—Fleschner. I’ve got the receipts, going and coming, on my ’link.”
She pulled it out of her pocket, swiped up the receipts before offering the ’link to Eve.
“I know you have to ask. You’re mag cops, and you have to ask. I swear I’d cut off my fingers before I’d hurt Erin. I transitioned five years ago, and she was with me all the way. It hurt my mother, and I love my mother. She thought I was gay, and she accepted that without hesitation. But facing the reality that the son, Don, she loved was a woman inside? That hurt her. Erin was there for me, and for my mom, too. She helped me in so many ways I’ll never be able to pay back.”
Eve handed her the ’link. “She trusted you.”
“Yes, of course. We trusted each other.”
“So you knew about the trip?”
“The trip? What trip?”
“To Maui?”
“Maui? Sure, down the road. They needed to save…” She trailed off. “Wait. The paintings. She sold those paintings. Man, she worked so hard on those paintings. I’m telling her to take it easy, how she had a wedding coming, but she pushed on them. And damn, they were so good. She sold them, but she asked me to keep the sale on the down-low.”
“She didn’t tell you why?”
Swimming blue eyes met Eve’s. “She didn’t have to tell me anything. She asked, that’s all. Was she going to surprise Shauna with the big dream? At the party?”
“It appears so.”
Tears rolled. “That’s so like her. Just so Erin. She must’ve had something in her overnight. Leis or a pineapple or…” Donna covered her face again. “God. Erin.”
“How do you know about the overnight case?”
“I was supposed to bring it. She brought it here a few days ago. When?” Now she pressed her hand to the side of her head as if to shove the memory through. “A week or two after the big sale. I don’t know, last week? I think last week. She stowed it back in her supply area, and asked me to bring it in, to the party.”
“But you didn’t know what was in it?”
