“I don’t doubt you can handle it. You’re strong, and always have been. Even then, Eve, even at eight, you had strength or you’d never have survived it.”
“Plenty of cracks. Less of them now.” Eve turned back. “You get credit for some of that.”
“I’ll take it.” Mira rose. “And tell you to remember that if you need to lean, need to talk, just need someone to listen.”
“I do remember it. And if I start to shake, I’ll come to you.”
“Good.” Mira rose, gathered her coat. “I’ve got an early session, but I’m available if needed.”
“Thanks.”
Eve turned back to her board, studied the hard, handsome face of Anthony Strazza, the bloody broken body she’d recorded.
She had a strong instinct that he’d been a mean son of a bitch. But he was her victim.
She wouldn’t shake.
Moments after Mira clicked out of the office, Peabody clomped in.
“I’ve got Neville Patrick, at his office at his studio. I made a push to speak to his wife at the same time, and he balked about speaking to her at all. But given the choice of us going to his house, he’s going to talk to her about coming into the studio this morning.”
“That’s one.”
“Both Ira and Lori Brinkman prefer to address this in their home, want the privacy. They’re juggling their schedules, and one of their admins will get back to me on the best time.”
“Good enough.” Eve grabbed her coat. “Let’s go.”
“Did Mira add anything we can use?”
“She says it looks like the killer has mommy issues.”
“Mommy issues?” Scrambling to keep up, Peabody grabbed her own coat out of the bullpen.
“And daddy.”
“I don’t … Oh.” Peabody’s face scrunched up as she swung on her coat. “Mira thinks the vics are surrogates for the killer’s parents. That’s just beyond the ick.”
“It gives us an angle.” When the elevator doors opened, revealed the logjam of cops, visitors, support staff, Eve simply turned on her heel and headed for a glide. “All the elements are violations, deliberate humiliations, excessive violence. But the rapes are the centerpiece. Mommy may be stepmommy, but the surrogate makes solid sense.”
“Daddy remarries—because marriage plays, too,” Peabody said. “Younger, frosty new wife—probably—and this guy wants her for his own. Or at least wants to do her. Or…”
Peabody hoofed it as Eve switched glides. “What if mommy remarried? Killer’s bent because he wasn’t enough for mommy.”
Eve angled her head. “Good. That’s good. Either way. If Mira’s right, we’re looking for a schmuck with an Edison thing.”
“Edison? Like Thomas?”
“Who’s Edison Thomas?”
“I mean Thomas Edison. The inventor?” Peabody explained. “The lightbulb?”
“No, for Christ’s sake, this isn’t about lightbulbs. Like the sicko guy who married his own mother, then whined about it.”
After a moment’s confusion, Peabody’s own lightbulb went off. “That’s Oedipus. I’m pretty sure that’s Oedipus.”
“Edison, Oedipus, platypus. Whatever.”
Peabody huffed out a laugh, then realized the strange discussion had distracted her from hopping off yet another glide and hoofing it down two flights of stairs into the garage.
Peabody put on her hat, wound on her scarf.
“Plug in the studio address,” Eve ordered, sliding behind the wheel.
Once Peabody programmed the address into the in-dash, Eve glanced at it and bulleted out of the garage. As she fought downtown traffic, she gave Peabody the main thrust of Mira’s profile.
“Same social/financial strata rings for me,” Peabody decided. “Or he could have grown up in that world—say the son of live-in staff.”
“You’ve got your thinking hat on, even if it is pink and purple. That road leads to maybe the employers are surrogates for mommy and daddy, and the vics surrogates for the employers. It’s an angle. In the world, but not of it. Resentment simmers and boils, and to maintain requires a false face. Acting. It’s not bad.”
“The Patricks have to know a lot of actors, a lot of people in the industry. But then that falls apart with the Brinkmans and the Strazzas.”
“Brinkman’s international finance. A lot of people in the entertainment industry are rich. She’s a human rights attorney. A lot of people in the industry get involved in causes. Strazza, hotshot doctor. There’s going to be a cross in there, another common factor. And the first victims are always the launch point.”