In Death 16 - Portrait in Death

hands in his pockets. "Crying. Just walking up and down and crying. A group came out, gathered him up, into a car. I got the make and tag if you want me to run and pick them up."
     
     
"No." She shook her head. "No, not tonight. Pack it in. Get Peabody, and tell her she's off the clock."
     
     
"Don't have to tell me twice. I want to go somewhere people are talking about something stupid and eating lousy food. Always do after a memorial. You want to come along?"
     
     
"I'll pass. We'll pick this up again in the morning."
     
     
As the crowd thinned out, she made her way over to Feeney. "Would he come, Feeney? Would he need to see her again, like this? Or are his images enough for him?"
     
     
"I don't know. You look at it from his perspective, he got what he wanted from her, so he's done."
     
     
"Maybe, but it's like a circle, and this closes it. Something tells me he'd want to see her like this. Still, if he was here, I couldn't make him."
     
     
"Fucking average white guy." He puffed out his cheeks. She looked beat, he thought. Beat and worried and under the gun. He patted her shoulder. "What do you say we go get a beer?"
     
     
"I say, that's a damn fine idea."
     
     
***
     
     
"Been a while since we did this," Feeney commented.
     
     
"Guess it has." Eve sampled her beer.
     
     
By tacit agreement, they'd avoided the known cop bars. Kicking back in one of them meant somebody would stop by to shoot the shit or talk shop. Instead, they'd caught a booth in a place called The Leprechaun, a dim little bar with aspirations of simulating an Irish pub.
     
     
There was piped in music with someone singing about drinking and war, and a lot of signs written in Gaelic, and framed pictures of what Eve assumed were famous Irish people. The waitstaff all talked with Irish accents, though their server's accent had a definite Brooklyn edge to it.
     
     
Since she'd had occasion to spend some time in an actual Irish pub, she could tell the owner-who she imagined was somebody named Greenburg-wasn't even close to being Irish.
     
     
And thinking it made her think of the Penny Pig. And Roarke.
     
     
"Why don't you tell me what's on your mind, kid?"
     
     
"I think he's going to move within the next forty-eight hours, so-"
     
     
"No, not about the case." There was a bowl of peanuts in the shell between them, but he shoved it aside, got out his bag of candied almonds. "You got trouble at home?"
     
     
"Shit, Feeney." Because it was there, she dug into the bag. "I've got Summerset at home. Isn't that enough?"
     
     
"And Roarke off somewhere while his man's at home with a busted pin. Must've been important to pull him away just now."
     
     
"It was. It is. God." She braced her elbows on the table, then dropped her head into her hands. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know if I should tell you. I don't know if he'd want me to tell you."
     
     
"He doesn't have to know you did. It doesn't go beyond here."
     
     
"I know that." He'd trained her, Eve thought. Taken her green from the Academy. And she'd trusted him. He'd partnered with her, gone through every door. And she'd trusted him.
     
     
"I'll have to tell him I told you. I think that's one of those marriage rules. There are too fricking many of them."
     
     
Feeney didn't interrupt her, and when he'd finished his beer, ordered another.
     
     
"It's got to mess him up, you know? You go your whole life thinking one thing, dealing with what you believe is truth, then you get slammed in the gut, and it all changes around on you." She sipped her beer. "He doesn't get drunk. He'll dance up to the line, should the occasion call for it. But even when it's just the two of us off somewhere, he doesn't go over the line. He's going to stay aware, in control. That's core Roarke."
     
     
"You shouldn't worry because a man ties one on."
     
     
"I wouldn't, if the man wasn't Roarke. He did it because he's hurting and needed to get away from the pain. Feeney, he can take a hell of a lot of pain."
     
     
So can you, Feeney thought. "Where is he now?"
     
     
"In Clare. He left me a message-damn time difference. He said I shouldn't worry, he was fine. He was probably going to stay there, another day at least, and he'd be in touch."
     
     
"Did you tag him back?"
     
     
She shook her head. "I started to, then I started second-guessing myself. Is it like nagging? I don't know. He said he wanted to handle this himself. He's made it pretty clear he doesn't