In Death 26 - Strangers in Death

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