“Cagey.” Sitting back, Eve nodded approval. “Not completely untrue, and cagey.”
“I learned from the cagiest. I’ll check on McNab’s progress and let you know when the housekeeper gets here. Oh, and FYI? Jenkinson and his tie are now at his desk. You should avert your eyes.”
“They’re drawn to it. They know better, they suffer for it, but they’re drawn to it.”
She finished her book, then started a dive into Tween’s finances. She’d barely scratched the surface when she got an incoming from Roarke.
You’ll find it interesting, no doubt, that Jorge Tween maintains a small, private account—poorly hidden and in a gray area. Two weeks ago he transferred five hundred thousand euros to a numbered, sheltered account in Andorra. Another five hundred and fifteen thousand euros was transferred last night at twenty-three hundred hours. I’ll have the data on the Andorra account shortly.
“Bet you will,” Eve mumbled.
She added the information to her board and book.
So he hired Cobbe two weeks ago, she decided as she got up for more coffee. Paid the first half of the fee. Cobbe sent proof of death—a ’link vid or shot when he came back into the park, after the cops—the first on scene—arrived. Tween pays up, with the additional fifteen likely covering expenses.
And for a million and change, he gets rid of an unfaithful wife, most probably inherits a really good chunk of her estate. And is the single parent and guardian of her only child, who most likely has a trust fund already in the works. Has loving and wealthy grandparents who would be very generous to the widower.
A fine investment from his point of view.
She walked to her board, studied Tween’s ID shot.
“We’ll have you in a cage by the end of the day, hand to God, you fuck.”
Her interoffice beeped. “Ms. Rinaldi’s here. I’m escorting her to the lounge.”
“Right behind you.”
Eve took the coffee with her. As she passed through the bullpen, her eyes—and they did know better—scanned toward Jenkinson’s desk.
And suffered, oh, they suffered from the blast of viral, virulent orange covered with whales. With grinning purple whales that spouted fountains of a blue that could only be a result of ingesting great amounts of plutonium.
“It doesn’t even make sense,” Eve managed.
When she finally averted her eyes, the afterimage haunted her while she strode to the lounge.
She saw Rinaldi at one of the tables, hands clenched together, and Peabody at Vending. Eve walked over, sat across from Rinaldi.
“You’re the lieutenant,” Rinaldi said before Eve could speak. “I remember from last night. Can it be a mistake?”
“No, it’s not a mistake. Were you close to Ms. Modesto?”
She untwisted her fingers to press one hand to her mouth, then dropped it to her heart. “I’m sick in my heart. I’ve known Galla—I was to call her that because I’ve known her since she was only fifteen and I went to work at the villa for her parents. She’s lovely, do you understand? A lovely young woman. When she came to live in New York, she asked if I would come and work for her here. She wanted someone from home, you see?”
“Yes.”
Peabody set water in front of Rinaldi, sat with a tube of Diet Pepsi.
“Thank you. I am not her mama nor her sister, but in a way a kind of aunt? And she has someone from home, which she misses. Someone to speak with in the language of her birth and heart.”
“Mr. Tween doesn’t speak Italian?”
“He speaks it”—Rinaldi lifted her hand, tilted it side to side—“but insists on English in the household. Angelo, he’s a very sweet boy, smart and mischievous, but sweet. He can speak it better than his papa. Ah, it’s not important.”
She pulled out a little swatch of lace-trimmed white, dabbed her streaming eyes.
“Everything’s important, Ms. Rinaldi. Were you aware she had a relationship outside of her marriage?”
The hand went straight back to her heart, and her eyes filled again. “No, not know it. Wondered if, but it wasn’t my place to ask. I would have listened and kept her counsel if she had told me.”
“Why did you wonder?”
“She was unhappy, then happy, then not. Small things, a look in her eyes. I think she’s in love, but not with Signore Tween. That love began to fade when she carried the baby, and died, I think, after they moved here.”
“You knew her. Do you know why her marriage began to fail?”
“He didn’t want her to work, and that was not the way he said before they married, before the baby. She loved the work, and she was smart and knowledgeable and involved, but he complained, very much, until she—what is it—cut back? Until she worked less. He wanted her to be available to him, for society and for … is it image? This is how she felt, this she did tell me in confidence.”
“Was he ever abusive?”
“With his hands? No, no, I think no. I believe she would not stand for such a thing. But with words, I think yes. Not shouted, not like this, but quiet and … like water against a rock, it eats away over time.”
She lifted her water, sipped, sipped again before she set it down. “He is cold in his heart, you see? He didn’t seem cold before they married, before she had the baby inside her. He brings flowers, he seems happy she is so good at the business, he shows pride and love. But it was false, I think, because he is cold by his nature.
“Today, this morning, before I even begin my duties, and I believe Galla is upstairs with Angelo, he calls me to his office. He tells me Galla is dead. When I’m shocked, when I’m upset, when I don’t understand, he tells me she was murdered, a mugging when she was out in the evening. And as I weep he tells me my services are no longer required.”
“He fired you?” Peabody demanded.
“He says he will see I have references, and he will pay me three weeks, but I must leave by tomorrow morning, only this day to pack and make arrangements. He wants only to be alone with his son, in his grief—but there is no grief in his eyes, you see? He will have a droid take my duties, and the duties of Angelo’s nanny, who must also leave.”
Isolate the boy, Eve thought.
“I beg him to let me stay, to help with the little boy, who’s lost his mother, but he says I must go. And this isn’t right, this isn’t how a loving husband and father is at such a time. I think of you, how you came to the house, and I want to say all this to you.”
“We appreciate that.”
“You may think I’m angry and hopeful to make trouble for Mr. Tween, but this isn’t true. I came to this country for Galla, and I would stay for her son. I would wish nothing more than Signore Tween be a good and loving father. But I fear, the way he spoke this morning, with no love, no grief, no shock, he … he maybe killed her. I fear it and fear for Angelo.”
“Do you think he’d hurt his son?” Peabody asked.
“I never thought this, but I never thought he would hurt Galla. Now I think it. He’s just a little boy. Can you protect him?”
“We’ll do all we can,” Eve assured her. “Ms. Modesto’s family is on their way to New York.”