In Death 15 - Purity in Death

took a long sip. "You were still in the office. Dedicated civil servant that you are. His assistant saw you go in a couple minutes after he left. You were the only one who could have contacted Dukes from that unit at that time."
    Franco hitched down the jacket of her slate gray suit. "That's nonsense."
    "No, that's just niggling details. The kind that usually trip up the bad guy. You probably didn't think we could trace the source, But why chance it? You'd been using the mayor all along, using him as a front. Politics is a weird area for me, but here's how I see it."
    Eve walked over, sat on the edge of her desk. "You want his job. Probably more than that, but Mayor of New York's a good place to start. He's fairly popular. Maybe he'll get another term, and it's a pisser to wait, to play deputy when you can be chief."
    "Is that what you think?"
    "I think you saw an opportunity to remove an obstacle, even to use that obstacle to further your own ambitions - especially when he makes it easy for you by getting tangled with Nick Greene."
    "Mayor Peachtree's sexual leanings should be a private matter."
    "Should be. Let's go back a while before that. You keep up with current events. You keep up with community news, polls, opinions. Kids are being exploited out there - future voters, those kids. Their parents, other parents, other citizens, voters are upset, disillusioned and just plain pissed off. Something should be done, and you're just the gal to do it. A lot of control. A lot of power. You've got a law degree. You know some of that scum is never going to pay. You found a way to make them pay. That's a hell of an accomplishment."
    A smile ghosted around Franco's mouth. Her eyes were alive with it - and, Eve noted, with arrogance. "Do you really believe you can make any of this play?"
    "I've got Dukes." Eve shrugged a shoulder. "I've got Purity in pieces. You slipping by me isn't so hard to take with more than forty other arrests and a closed case on my record."
    "So, this little scenario you're writing here is between us."
    "Just you and me. Girl talk. Post-game chatter."
    "Then by all means." Franco gestured a go-ahead. "Continue."
    "It fell apart on you, Franco, but you still had a button to push. Leak the story. Shove the mayor into the muck. Defend him, but carefully. If he's convicted, you mourn the loss of a man who was corrupted by his own power, his own skewed sense of duty. If he's acquitted, you praise the system for exonerating an innocent man. But either way, you step into his shoes and run the city. Maybe, maybe some of it was about your twisted sense of justice. But under it all, it was just politics."
    "You're wrong." Franco wandered over, picked up the second cup of coffee Eve had programmed. "Since it's just the two of us here, since I respect you, I won't say you're wrong about all of it. Purity was a solution. An extermination of a plague. It could be again."
    She angled her head. "We could have used someone like you. Pushing to have you as a media symbol wasn't an accident. You have impact, Dallas. With your passion, your skills, your presence, you'd keep the story hot as long as I needed. I think I knew when we met in Tibble's office you'd find a way to break it apart. I had to accept that, deal with that. I always pick my battles."
    "Why this one?"
    "Every politician needs a platform. This is mine. Dukes wanted to infect you," she added. "But that wasn't the agenda. That wasn't the program. How many innocent children did we save, Dallas?"
    "Is that your spin?"
    "If I needed one it would be. And it's the truth. Peachtree has good intentions, but he's soft, and he's cautious, politically. And sooner or later he was going to be exposed for his sexuality. Why should I go down with him?"
    "So you nominated and pushed on Greene as a twofer. You eliminate another predator, and you see that Peachtree's sexual conduct is exposed, and that he's under suspicion at the same time for multiple murder. It bothered me that no attempt was made to get to the blackmail vids. Didn't make sense, unless you turned it around that the idea was for them to be recovered and used."
    "The people on those vids deserve to be exposed. For their weaknesses. For their foolishness, and for their dealings with a man like Greene."
    "And you're the judge of all of that, of all of them."
    "I am. Or part of a group of people who believe it's time for judgment. You and I, Dallas, we're neither soft nor cautious. We act. We make things