Strangers in Death (10 page)

She pressed her lips together. “In short, I wasn’t able to provide him with what he wanted, and he wasn’t satisfied with what I wanted in that one area of our marriage. It began to erode our relationship, to peck away at our foundation. We both felt it. Why should we allow that to destroy the rest?” she demanded. “We decided that we would take that off the table, so to speak. That sex wasn’t as important as we were, what we were to each other. We would simply obtain that aspect elsewhere. Discreetly. We would use professionals, and would never engage those professionals in any of our homes.”

“Did you both adhere to those terms?”

Ava looked away. “I did. Over the last few months I suspected…I thought Tommy might have been bringing women into the house while I was away. I found some lingerie in my drawer, another woman’s lingerie Greta must have laundered and put away believing it was mine. Some of my perfume went missing. Little things.”

“Did you confront him?”

“No. I was hurt, I admit it. Hurt and disappointed. Angry, too. I’d decided to take the time during this trip with my friends to decide how to handle it. He let someone into our home, and now he’s dead.” Her hand fisted in her lap. “I’m so angry with him, so angry with him for leaving me over this.”

“Do you know the names or the agencies of the professionals he used?”

“No. We’d agreed not to bring that up. It was outside. It wasn’t us. It was outside of us.”

“But your payments to Charles Monroe came out of your debit account where your husband could see them.”

She let out a half laugh. “Tommy never looked at my personal accounts.”

“Did you look at his?”

Color rose into her face again. “Yes, I did. I did when I suspected he was bringing women home. I couldn’t find anything there. I’m not sure what I’d have done if I had.”

“How did you select Charles Monroe?”

“My friend Sasha recommended him. She knows. Unlike Brigit, Sasha’s very open. Even a little wild, by some standards. She told me he was very smooth, very skilled, and very discreet. I was a nervous wreck the first time I went to him. He put me very much at ease.”

“Is he the only LC you’ve engaged?”

“Yes. I liked him, trusted him. I could think of our appointments as going to a therapist.”

“Are you willing to give consent for Mr. Monroe to speak to us about your relationship?”

“Oh God.” Ava pressed a hand to her face. “I suppose there’s no place for pride or privacy any longer. Yes, I’ll consent to that. In return, I need your word you’ll keep as much of this private business out of the media.”

“You can have my word on that.”

“I’ll have to tell Bridge,” Ava murmured. “I’m going to disappoint her.”

“Mrs. Plowder strikes me as a woman who sticks,” Peabody said, and Ava smiled a little.

“Yes, you’re right. She is. She does. Am I to blame for this? Am I responsible? If I’d been more open, more flexible about what he wanted, Tommy would still be alive, wouldn’t he? I keep asking myself that.”

“The killer’s responsible, Mrs. Anders. That’s your answer.” Eve rose. “Thank you for your time and cooperation.”

W
hen they stood inside the hammered steel of the elevator, Peabody shook her head. “Tough spot for her, the guilt on top of the grief. She can’t help but ask herself is this because she has sexual hang-ups, or because he went over-the-top. Since he’s the one who’s dead, she’s probably going to settle on door number one.”

Eve only said, “Hmm.” When they hit the lobby, she dug out a card. “Thanks again, Detective.” She offered her hand, then the card to Frank. “You can reach me at any of those contacts, should something strike you.”

“Can do.” He tucked it into a pocket. “Luck, Lieutenant. Detective.”

“Yeah,” Eve muttered, striding to the car, “we’re going to need it.” She got behind the wheel. “Sounds like the vic took a hell of a turn after, what, more than a dozen years of marriage.”

“Happens, doesn’t it? Divorce litters the land, so does adultery. And LCs do good business for a reason.”

“All true.” Eve danced her fingers along the steering wheel. “Marriage is mostly a sucker bet.”

“Spoken by the woman with Dream Husband.”

“You just said Dream Husband might take a turn down the road and decide he wants to do threesomes or—”

“Me! Me!” Peabody shot up a hand. “Pick me!”

“Yeah, I’m dying to get you between the sheets, Peabody. Keeps me up at night. The point is, you’ve got a dozen years in, and one night the guy comes home and says: ‘Look, honey, I picked up this ball gag and anal probe on the way home. Let’s go try them out.’”

“That would be a shocker, but I bet it was more subtle than that. Maybe he tries out a few new moves, testing the waters, and she’s not receptive, and it goes from there. It’s like, okay, here’s a man who’s got it pretty damn good. He’s healthy, he doesn’t have a face that scares small children. He’s running a successful business, he’s rich, got the good-looking, spiffed-up wife who loves him. Big house, friends, a nephew who stands in as son and heir. Then he has this mid-life deal—a lot of people do—and he starts thinking yeah, he’s got all this, all this is good, but what’s he missing? And he’s not as young or as potent as he used to be so he compensates. Instead of buying a flashy phallic-symbol vehicle, he wants to get some wild on in bed. But the wife’s like: ‘You want to put your what
where?
’”

“And she’s more in the habit of him putting his this there.” Eve nodded. “I get that. So she’s just, well, okay then, you put your what where into whoever, I’ll have somebody else put his this there, and we’re jake?”

“There’s a whole separate schism of the Free-Agers who believe in open relationships. Everybody puts their what and their this where and there. But looking at it from your POV—which I have to admit I am, too, as I’m of the opinion if he puts his what anywhere but here?” Peabody jerked a thumb at the car window. “There’s the door, asshole. It didn’t work for them, either. He went over the line. He couldn’t keep the deal they’d made when they got married, and he couldn’t keep this deal either.”

“That’s the pivot point,” Eve agreed. “Contact Charles. Tell him we’ve got client consent, and we’re on our way.”

L
ouise answered the door, and put a little hitch in Eve’s stride. Her blonde hair was tousled, her gray eyes sleepy. She wore winter white lounging pants with a long-sleeved tee.

“Come on in. Charles is putting some breakfast together. I slept in—long night.”

“How was it out there?” Eve asked her.

“Cold. Have a seat. I’ll see if I can hunt up the coffee.”

“It’s okay. We just had some.”

“Like that would stop you. Charles told me this is about the Anders murder.”

“That’s right.”

“And that Anders’s wife is one of Charles’s clients.”

“Yeah.”

“Which, of course, neither of you nor Charles can discuss with me.” Louise cocked up her eyebrows. “Why don’t I make myself scarce?”

“We can take this somewhere else.”

“That’s okay, no problem. I’ll have myself some breakfast in bed. That’s a treat.”

She walked off to the kitchen, and Peabody sent Eve a worried look. “Oh-oh.”

“Yeah, something’s off with them. I caught the buzz from Charles last night.”

Louise came back with a pretty place setting on a pretty silver tray. “Hi to Roarke and McNab,” she said, then disappeared into the bedroom.

Charles stepped out of the kitchen looking as tired and stressed as his lover. “Dallas. Peabody.” He crossed over to buss cheeks. “You got consent.”

“On record.” Eve took out her recorder, played back the statement.

“That’ll work. So.” He gestured to seats, took one of his own. “What do you want to know?”

“How did Ava Anders contact you?”

“By ’link. I have a business-only line.”

“How did she strike you?”

“Nervous, and trying hard not to show it. Which is how she struck me on our first appointment.”

“Where was the first appointment?”

“I looked that up after you left last night. The Blackmore Hotel, downtown. It’s a busy place, which is what she wanted. She checked in, contacted me to give me the room number. This way, I could go straight up, but no one would see us together.”

“Okay, this is weird, but what did she want?”

“Initially, to talk. She’d ordered lunch, and wine, which we had in the parlor of the suite. We talked—if I remember—about literature, plays, art. For some, this first interlude with a professional is very much like a first date, where you do the surface getting-to-know-you routine.”

He glanced toward the bedroom where Louise, presumably, ate her breakfast in bed. “As we got to know each other over the course of time, I understood that her husband wasn’t as interested in literature and so forth as he was in sports. So I could offer her that.”

“Did she talk about her husband?”

“Not a great deal. It…spoils the mood. She might mention, usually afterward, when we were talking over a drink or coffee, that they were going on a trip, or having a dinner party, that sort of thing.”

“How did she feel about him, Charles? You’d know.”

“When she spoke of him, she spoke warmly, or casually, the way you do when someone’s an intricate part of your life. I remember she’d been shopping once before an appointment and showed me a shirt she’d picked up for him. She said how handsome he’d look in it.”

“Sexually, what was she after?”

“She liked to be tended to. She liked the lights off—a few candles were fine, but if we met during the day, which was most usual, the drapes had to be closed.”

“You’d classify her as inhibited?”

“Traditional. Very. And maybe a bit self-involved. As I said, she wanted to be tended to. She wasn’t as interested in touching as much as being touched. I can say that I noticed in the last few appointments something was off. She was distracted, edgy. She asked me if I ever went to clients’ homes—married clients. And if I knew other LCs who did, was it unusual to pay in cash. And she asked if I had a name and address of a client, if I could find the LC hired to go there.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I only accepted home appointments from married clients if both spouses agreed, but that others have different policies in that area. Cash always works,” he added with a smile. “And that it would be difficult with only a name and address to locate the LC booked. Considering the number of agencies, freelancers, levels, it wouldn’t be an easy task.”

“Had she tried to contact you since her husband’s death?”

“No.”

“When’s your next appointment?”

“A week from Wednesday. She canceled our last appointment as she was getting ready for her trip. Two o’clock, at the Blackmore again.”

“Okay. If she doesn’t contact to cancel, I’d like you to keep it.”

He let out a sigh that had Eve’s brows drawing together.

“All right.”

“Problem with that?”

“No. No, no problem. I’m sorry, but if there’s more, can we do it later? I actually have an appointment shortly.”

“That’s fine. That’s it for now anyway.”

“Charles,” Peabody said as they got to their feet. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing. Just a lot on my mind. We should all have dinner soon. The six of us.”

“That’d be great. You know you could tag me anytime, if you need to talk about anything.”

This time when he smiled, it hit his eyes, too. “I know.” He cupped Peabody’s chin, lowered his lips to hers. “You tell McNab I said he’s a lucky man.”

Rather than climb right into the car, Peabody paced the sidewalk outside Charles’s building. “Why does he seem so worried? Like something’s balled up in his belly?”

“I don’t know, but that’s a good description.”

“It can’t be about the case, Dallas. It’s not about Anders. If Charles knew something—”

“No, it’s not about the case. I caught it from him last night before I brought up Anders.”

“Maybe he’s sick.” Worry and distress hitched through the words. “I know how carefully LCs are screened, especially top-levels like Charles, but what if—”

“Peabody, there’s nothing we can do about this. And if he was sick, Louise would know.”

“You’re right. You’re right. It’s just…I love him, you know? Not like
love
—McNab love, but—”

“I get it. I’ve got a soft spot, too. You can’t know everything there is to know about a friend, or fix every problem. It’s tough knowing they’ve got one, but…”

She trailed off, narrowed eyes staring at a middle distance.

“What?”

“Just thinking of friends. We’ve got time to drop in on the last of the mimosas-for-breakfast trio before I meet with Mira. Let’s see what Sasha has to say.”

S
asha Bride-West wasn’t inclined to say much. She was too busy groaning through crunches under the command of the hunk of beef-cake she introduced as Sven, her personal trainer.

“Ava and Tommy were going through a patch. Have you ever seen a marriage that didn’t? Sven, you’re killing me.”

“Ten more, my warrior. You’ll have abs to slay.”

“I can
buy
frigging abs.” When he made tsking sounds, she gritted her teeth and kept going. “Anyway, I’ve had three marriages. Not much smooth sailing, plenty of rough road. Seemed to work the opposite for Ava. But when she asked me to recommend a love machine, and to keep it to myself, I gave her a name—guy’s a genius in bed, and damn good company out of it—and kept it to myself.”

She collapsed, panting. “Water, Sven, I’m begging you.”

He offered her a towel first, to mop her face. She dabbed sweat off skin the color of rich caramel cream.

“Did you follow up?”

“You mean did I ask her for the deets after?” Sasha gulped down water, paused, gulped again. “Of course I did. She wouldn’t spill. And I wheedled pretty good.”

Sven took the nearly empty water bottle. “It’s time for your cardio.”

“I hate cardio. Let’s skip it and go straight to the massage.”

“Sasha,” said Sven, severely, and tsked again.

“All right, you sexy sadist.” She pulled herself up off the floor of her home gym to climb on the cross trainer. “Give me Paris, Sven. If I’m going to hike and sprint and step, it might as well be Paris. I was going to go over and see her this afternoon,” Sasha continued as the Arc de Triomphe flashed on her view screen. “But Bridge has it under control, and she’s better with this kind of thing than I am. When Ava’s ready for a distraction—for a trip or good drunk or retail therapy—I’m her girl. Brigit’s the soft shoulder.”