Down the Rabbit Hole

She shook her head. “There wasn’t enough time for them to have a serious argument. Five, six minutes after she went in, he’s bleeding. Then she went straight out to the terrace and off. She was dosed, that’s my read on this. Who wanted her dead? Her and her brother.”

“She can’t tell me that.”

Eve let out a half laugh. “She believed she could. She was seeing psychics, mediums, all that crapola. Parents killed in an accident last June, and she’s got a secret stash of business cards and info on talking to dead people.”

Now Morris smiled. “I talk to them all the time. So do you.”

“Ever have them talk back?”

“In their way.” He touched a hand, gently, to Darlene’s shattered shoulder. “I talk to Ammarylis often.”

Eve slid her hands in her pockets. Morris had lost the love of his life the previous spring. “I’m sorry, Morris.”

“No, it’s a comfort. I hear her voice quite clearly at times. She picked out this tie, just this morning.”

Not sure how to respond, Eve said, “Okay,” and made him laugh.

“I reached for a gray one, as it matched my morning mood. I heard her tell me to wear the blue—the bold blue. So I did, and it lifted away the gray. Young Darlene was looking for answers, and comfort, I suspect. There are those who can give both—and those who exploit grief and naivety.”

“I’m going for door number two on that one, as the one she walked into led her to that long fall.”

CHAPTER SIX

Eve was halfway through the tunnel heading out when Peabody came in.

“I’m not late!” Automatically quickening her steps in her pink, fussy-topped boots, Peabody checked her wrist unit. “I’m not late.”

“No, I was early. No sign in the female vic of habitual drug use. But she had valerian, peyote, and some as yet undetermined substances in her system—mixed, it appears, with tea and cookies.”

“You think somebody drugged her? But murder/suicide takes—” Peabody’s eyes popped. “Shit! Red Horse.”

“Not according to Morris. Not the same.” And they could all be grateful for it. “Ingested, he believes,” she added as they walked out to the car. “He’s going to crack the whip at the lab so I don’t have to. We wait on that. Where did she get the scissors—shears, Morris called them?”

“Dressmaker shears.” Peabody climbed into the passenger seat, belted up.

“Dressmaker?”

“Broad term, I guess. I have a pair I use when I’m doing some sewing, or a craft project.”

“I went through her residence. I sure didn’t see any signs she did the crafty. No sign in the brother’s place he’d have use for that sort of tool. And if it didn’t belong to either of them, where did she get it?”

“Is it it or them? Shears, scissors—it’s like plural, probably because of the two blades, but it’s still just one tool, so . . . never mind,” Peabody finished when she caught Eve’s cool stare.

“We’re going by to talk to Louise and the fiancé. I want to know if she owned those shears. She had to have an assistant, an admin at work. Dig it up, check with whoever that is if she had something like that, or access to it, in the office.”

“How about the psychics?”

“On the slate.”

“A pair of mine are in the wind. Bench warrants out on them—co-habs, partners. Fraud and theft. He’d rifle through purses and wallets, help himself, while she held a séance. They’ve been running that scam or others for about five years. They pack up and move off fast, pick another spot, try another variation with new names.”

“Darlene ran backgrounds—not a complete idiot—so that should’ve popped. We’re going to factor in the drugs, look for somebody who hypes the use of herbs to help open the portal.”

“The portal?”

“A couple of the brochures used that one. Bridge, portal, channeling. They’ve got a patter, and there’s a sucker born every second.”

“Minute. Born every minute.”

“In my world they pop out every second, and Darlene Fitzwilliams reads like one. She stabbed her brother three times in the heart, didn’t waste a minute, then didn’t waste a minute jumping off the terrace.”

“It looks like that’s what she went there to do.”

“Yeah. What if she thought she was doing something else? It’s not Red Horse, it’s not Jess Barrow’s version of mind-control VR, but we’ve dealt with fatal delusions before. She was smiling,” Eve added. “That ‘I’m sorry, and I know you’ll forgive me’ smile. She wasn’t pissed or afraid, she wasn’t nervous. A woman who’s never committed a criminal act, who’s lived a responsible life, goes to her brother’s door intending to kill him and herself? I should be able to see some nerves. Or at the very least, resolve.”

“Not if someone put the whammy on her. I know what you’re going to say,” Peabody continued in a rush. “There is no whammy. But there sort of is, or could be, when you factor in the drugs.”

“Drugs are drugs, and not a whammy.”

“They assist the whammy, that’s what I’m saying. Make her more susceptible. Then?” Peabody lifted her hands, flicked her fingers out. “Whammy.”

Eve disliked the idea of the whammy, but had to acknowledge it fit. “And what form would this whammy take?”