In Death 17 - Imitation in Death

the bio for now."
     
     
"Spoilsport."
     
     
"He has the paper, and that's enough. He has it, and he let me see it. That's interesting enough for now."
     
     
"If he's your man, wouldn't the wife knowT'.,
     
     
"Seems to me, unless she's an idiot. Her bio doesn't read idiot to me. Julietta Gates, same age, Mother.NYU- grad. Bet they met in college. Fashion and public relations, double major. She had her path mapped out, and she's moved right along it. Minimal break for birthing, then back to work. Made double what he did up until two years ago, and still pulls in about the same annually, and more regularly. Wonder' how their financials are set up?".
     
     
"What are you looking for?
     
     
"Who runs the show? Money's power, right? I bet she calls the shots in that household."
     
     
"If that's the criterion, I feel-, I'm not as fully in charge as I should be around here."
     
     
"Too bad for you. I don't give a damn about your money. I bet Tom cares about hers." She brought-him, the-house, the child, the feeling of the home back into her mind; "Needs her share to run that nice house, raise the kid the way he wants, until he rises up another level in his own line. Good clothes, good toys, -good child-care droid as backup, while he works at his own pace, so he can take time off to play horsey with his son, take him to the park.".
     
     
"And those marks of a good father make him a murder suspect. As I'm following you, I'm afraid that makes us a very cynical pair." - She glanced over her. shoulder just to look at him. Cynical or, not, she reflected, they were a pair. "He never talked about her as a partner, or as one of the points of the family triangle.. You saw his stuff and the boy's lying, around. Toys, shoes, and so on, but nothing of hers. Interesting, that's all. Interesting that they're not a unit. Bring up, the parental data.
     
     
She scanned it, filling in the blanks from the bare essentials she'd studied earlier. "See, the mother's the alpha dog here, too. Important career, the main wage earner. Father retired from his job to take over as professional parent. And look here, Mom served as an officer, including president, of the International Women's Coalition, and is a contributing editor to Tile Feminist Voice. An NYU alum, while Dad went to Kent State. Yeah, that's interesting."
     
     
"Scenario being, Breen grew up in a female-dominant household, controlled by a woman with strong ideas and a political; bent while his father changed the nappies and so foci. The mother pushed him to study at her alma mater, or he did; so to gain her approval. And when choosing a mate, he selected another strong personality who would control his world while he took the more historically typical female role of nurturer."
     
     
"Yeah, which doesn't make him a whacked-out psychopath, but it's something to consider. Copy and file the data here and to my unit at Central."
     
     
He smiled as he did so. "It appears I've selected a strong personality as well. What does that say about me, I wonder?"
     
     
"Please," she added, and. remembering the cookies walked over to take one. "I'll have a face-to-face with Julietta Gates tomorrow. Meanwhile, let's move on to Fortney, Leo."
     
     
Fortney was thirty-eight, and had two marriages, two divorces, no offspring. With Roarke's quick work, and his understanding of what she wanted, she read that his first wife had been a minor vid star, in the porn category. The marriage had lasted just over a year. The second was a successful theatrical agent.
     
     
"There's some buzz here," Roarke added. "The juicy gossip sort from media reports. You want them up, or do you want the highlights?"
     
     
"Start with the highlights."
     
     
"It appears Leo was a very bad boy." Roarke sipped coffee as he read from his own screen. "Got caught with his pants down, literally, in a hotel suite in New L.A., entertaining a pair of well-endowed starlets. Besides the two naked nubile starlets-that's a quote, by the way-there were rumors that considerable, chemical enhancements and appliances of a sexual nature were also -involved. Obviously,_ suspecting something' of the sort, his wife had a P.I. on.him. He was skinned to the bone in the divorce, and endured considerable snickering publicity as several other women were happy to talk to the media about their experiences.with: the hapless Leo. One is quoted as saying: `He's a walking hardon, always coming on and usually petering out at the