Memory in Death (29 page)

Laughing, Marnie swiped a finger over her heart. "So I make her some soup, and I put a nice tranq in it, add some wine. And she's out. Could've killed her then, you know. You want to think about that, too."

"I'm thinking about it."

"I searched the room, found the sap she'd made. Found a copy of the file she had on you, too. Interesting stuff. I took all of it. She called me later, but I said I couldn't talk. Bobby was right there. I'd call her when we got back from dinner, after he was asleep. She didn't care much for that, let me tell you. Well, you got the 'link right there, so you've heard."

"She pushed you," Eve prompted. "Trudy didn't like being told to wait."

"Nope. But I'm like, Oh, let me tell Bobby. We won't go out, we'll come down and take care of you. I know she won't go for that, so she takes another pill, and I go out on the town. Long night for me, but God! It was fun. Just bat my eyes, ask Bobby if we can have champagne, and he pulls out all the stops in his middle-class way. I'm so juiced, you know?"

She drew breath in her nose, letting her head fall back, closing her eyes as she relived it. "Lay him just right when we get back, give him a little something extra to make him sleep. Then I go on down the hall to have my talk with Trudy."

"You took the weapon with you?"

"Sure. Not to use it," she added quickly. "Get that straight. I'm putting that on record. What I figured was I'd show it to her, stay in character at least awhile. What have you done? You lied to me! I'm going to tell Bobby. I'm going to the police!"

Marnie laid her hands on her belly and laughed. "God! You should've seen her face. She never expected it. So, she slapped me. Told me I was hysterical, and slapped me. Said I was going to do just what she told me, and no back talk. If I wanted to keep my cozy nest, I'd shut my mouth and do what she said. Otherwise I'd be out on my ass, she'd see to it."

Her face was grim now, and full of hate. "She said I was nothing, just like she did when I was a kid. 'You're nothing,' she said, 'and you'd better remember who's in charge.' Then she turned her back on me. I still had the sap in my hand. I didn't think about it, didn't even think. It just happened. I let her have it good. And she went down, right down to her knees, and I let her have it again. Nothing in my life ever felt better. Who was nothing now?"

She held up her coffee. "Hey, can I get another? It's crap, but it gives you a buzz."

"Sure." Eve signaled to Peabody, then rose herself to get water from the jug kept in the room.

"I didn't plan it," Marnie continued. "But sometimes you can't stick to the plan. You got anybody behind the mirror?"

Eve studied her own reflection. "Does it matter?"

"Just like knowing if I have an audience. I didn't murder her. I just lost my head for a minute. She slapped me, right across the face."

"Open palm," Eve murmured, remembering. "Quick sting, not hard enough to leave a mark. She was good at it."

"She liked pain. Liked to give it, liked to get it." Marnie scooted around in the chair, facing Eve so their eyes met in the mirror in a gesture of intimacy.

Inside Eve, something twisted. She understood what it was to find a weapon in her hand, and to use it. Blindly, ferociously.

"She was one of those S and M types, without the kick of sex," Marnie went on. "That's what I think. She was one sick bitch. But I didn't set out to kill her. I didn't even get a chance to tell her who I was. Watch her face when I did. Too damn bad. I used to dream about doing that."

"That must've been a disappointment." Eve turned back as Peabody came in with fresh coffee, kept her face neutral. "You had to think fast after it was done."

"Thought about just running. But I kept my head. Probably shouldn't have taken the sweater and stuff." Marnie glanced down at the sweater, smiled. "But I couldn't resist. Should've waited, gotten them later. But it was spur of the moment."

"You knew the room next door was empty."

"Yeah. The maid mentioned it. Thought we might want to take that room so we could be next door to each other. No, thank you. The window wasn't locked on it, otherwise I'd have had to clean up on the escape platform, change, and walk around, go in the front. Crappy hotel, crappy security. Didn't figure anyone would look next door. I left a trail leading down the escape. Open window, dead woman, blood trail. I was careful."

"Not half bad," Eve agreed. "You shouldn't have pushed it. You should've let Bobby find her."

"It was more fun the way I did it. You've got to get in a few kicks. You could've knocked me over with a feather when you and Roarke showed, though. Last people I expected to see come knocking on the old bitch's door. Had to improvise."

"You must've sweated some, having to leave the 'link, the weapon, the bloody towels next door while we went over the scene."

"Some, yeah. But I figured if you found them, you still didn't have reason to look at me. The business the next day was a little insurance. I get the stuff, head out, dump everything in different recyclers while I walk around, find the right spot. I used to live in New York. I knew that bar."

"I knew that."

Marnie snorted. "Come on."

"You slipped up with the dogs, made the wrong comment. I had a homer on both of you that day. A little insurance for me."

Marnie's face went blank, then there was a snap of irritation before she shrugged. "Bobby slipped."

"You're in it this far, Marnie, and you're going to get points for cooperating. Don't start bullshitting me now. Trudy's dead, and she's got all that money. Bobby's sitting between you and it. Boring Bobby."

"You think this was about money? Money's a little icing, but it's not the cake. It's payback. She deserved it, you know damn well she deserved it. Bobby's an idiot, but he's okay. If I gave him a little nudge, it was impulse, that's all. Just a little something to keep you looking for the invisible man. And I tried to pull him back. I got witnesses."

She sulked over her coffee. "Tally it up, why don't you? You've got one dead blackmailer. And she hit me first. I destroyed the discs of the recording she had me make. All of them: I destroyed the copies of your file—as a favor. If I was after money, I could've come after you with them. But I didn't, 'cause the way I saw it, she put us in the same boat back then. I could've waited, and screwed with Bobby when we were back in Texas. I've got nothing but time."

"But you aren't going back to Texas. Bali, isn't it?"

A smile glimmered again. "I'm thinking about it. A lot of people she screwed with are going to be glad I took care of her. You ought to thank me. She messed with us, Dallas. Preyed on and played with us.

You know it. You know she got what she deserved. We come from the same place, you and me.

You'd have done the same thing."

Eve thought of the way their eyes had met in the mirror. What she'd seen in Marnie's. What she'd seen in her own. "That's how you figure it."

"That's how it is. I'm not going down for this. Not when it comes out what she was, what she did. Assault, maybe. I do a couple years for that and the ID gambit. But murder? You can't make that stick."

"Watch me." Eve pushed to her feet. "Marnie Ralston, you're under arrest for the murder of Trudy Lombard. Further charges are attempted murder of Bobby Lombard. We'll toss in the ID fraud, giving false statements to the police. You'll do more than a couple years, Marnie. You've got my word on it."

"Oh, cut the crap," Marnie insisted. "Turn off the record, shove your partner out so it's just you and me. Then tell me how you really feel."

"I can tell you how I feel, Marnie, on or off record."

"You're glad she's dead."

"You're wrong." What had clutched inside of her loosened. Because Marnie was wrong. Completely.

"If it was up to me, she'd be in a cage, the same as you'll be. She'd be in a cage for what she did to me, to you, to every kid she ever abused, to every woman she ever exploited. That's justice."

"That's bullshit."

"No, that's the job," Eve corrected. "But you didn't leave it up to me. You picked up that sap, and you cracked her skull open."

"I didn't plan it—"

"Maybe you didn't," Eve interrupted. "But you didn't stop there. While she was lying there, bleeding, you stole from her. To get to that point, the point where you could exact your revenge, you used an innocent man. You left the bed where you'd made love with him, and killed his mother. Then you watched him grieve. You put him in the hospital, for kicks, for a little insurance. You did to him what she tried to do to us. You made him nothing. If I could, I'd send you over for that alone."

She braced her hands on the table, leaned over so their faces were close. "I'm not like you, Marnie. You're pathetic, taking and ruining lives for something that's over."

There were tears now, real ones, angry ones, glimmering in Mamie's eyes. "It's never over."

"Well, you'll have a long time to think about that. Twenty-five to life, I'd say. I'm nothing like you," Eve repeated. "I'm the cop. And I'm going to give myself the pleasure of taking you down to booking personally."

"You're a hypocrite. You're a liar and a hypocrite."

"You can think that, but I'll be sleeping in my own bed tonight. And I'm going to sleep really well."

She took Marnie's arm, pulled her to her feet. Pulling out her restraints, she snapped them on Marnie's wrists. "Peabody, finish up here, will you?"

"I'll be out in six months," Marnie said when Eve escorted her into the hall.

"Keep dreaming."

"And Bobby'll pay for my lawyers. She deserved it. Say it! She deserved it. You hated her, just as much as I did."

"You just piss me off," Eve said wearily. "You robbed me of the chance to face her down, to do my job and see she paid for everything she'd done."

"I want a lawyer. I want a psych eval."

"You'll get both." Eve nudged her into an elevator, headed down to booking.

When she was back in her office, Mira came in, closed the door. "You did a good job in Interview."

"I got lucky. Her ego was on my side."

"And you recognized that. She didn't recognize you."

"She wasn't off by much. I've killed, and I know I've got the violence in me that makes me capable of it. Then. Now. But murder's got a different face. I don't see that in my mirror.

"Thing is," she added, "she won't see it in hers, either."

"But you'll see the truth. She won't. I know it wasn't easy for you, to do what you did. To do it from the start of this. How do you feel?"

"I've got to go to the hospital and tell that poor son of a bitch what she did, and why. I've got to go there and break his heart, leave that scar on him. I could feel a hell of a lot better."

"Do you want me to go with you?"

"He's going to need something, somebody, after. It'll be up to him. But I think I have to do this, just the two of us. I think I owe him that. What do you think if I contacted the partner, they seem to be tight. Tell him to get his ass up here."

"I think Bobby's lucky to have you looking out for him."

"Friends give you a cushion for the fall, even when you think you don't need or want one. I appreciate you stopping by here, to see if I needed one. I'm okay."

"Then I'll let you finish."

*  *  *

An hour later Eve was sitting beside Bobby's hospital bed, helpless and miserable as tears tracked down his cheeks.

"There has to be a mistake. You've made a mistake."

"There's not. I haven't. And I'm sorry, but I don't know how else to tell you but straight out. She used you. She planned it. Parts of it maybe since she was thirteen. She claims she didn't plan to kill your mother, and that may be true. It was of the moment. It always looked that way, so it could be that way. But beyond that, Bobby, and I know it's a punch in the face, she planned, she covered up, she used. She wasn't the woman she pretended to be. That woman never existed."

"She—she just isn't capable..."

"Zana Kline Lombard wasn't capable. Marnie Ralston was and is. She confessed, Bobby, she walked me through it."

"But we were married, all these months. We lived together. I know her."

"You know what she wanted you to know. She's a pro, a manipulator with a sheet as long as my arm. Bobby. Look at me, Bobby. You were raised by a manipulative woman, primed to be taken by another."

"What does that make me?" His hand fisted, punched lightly on the bed. "What the hell does all that make me?"

"A target. But you don't have to keep being one. She's going to try to play you. She's going to cry and apologize and tell you things like she started all this before she really knew you, that she fell for you on the way. She'll say that part was never a lie. She'll say things like she did this for you. She'll have all the right words. Don't be a target for her again."

"I love her."

"You love smoke. That's all she is." Impatient, a cinder of anger burning in her belly, Eve got to her feet. "You'll do what you do. I can't stop you. But I'm saying that you deserve better. I figure it took guts for a twelve-year-old kid to sneak me food, to try to make things a little easier for me. It's going to take guts for you to face what you're going to have to face. I'll make it easier for you if I can."

"My mother's dead. My wife's in prison, charged with her murder. With maybe trying to kill me. For God's sake, how can you make it easier?"

I guess I can't.

"I need to talk to Zana. I want to see her."

Eve nodded. "Yeah, fine. You're free to go down for visitation once they spring you."

"There'll be an explanation. You'll see."

You won't, she decided. Maybe you can't. "Good luck, Bobby."

*  *  *

She went home, hating that she'd closed a case and still carried a sense of discouragement, of failure.

The man would be manipulated. Maybe the system would as well.

She'd closed the case, but it wasn't over. Sometimes, she thought, they never were.

She walked in, glanced at Summerset. "Let's just keep this moratorium going another few hours. I'm too damn tired to screw around with you."