“For four hundred, you don’t get the stupid polish?”
“And you have to use the Adora product made for the kit. I checked with Trina on that when I was setting up the first search. So I’ve plugged in the kit and the color. Even if he paid cash—and probably—they’re going to have a record. This is going to pay off.”
“All because she bit her nails. Let’s pull out some of the vendors, do this face-to-face.”
“I’ll set it up to alert me on any hits,” Peabody began, and Eve’s comp signaled again.
Initial match on search, ninety-eight-point-two probability.
“Display on main screen,” Eve snapped. “Fucking A! That’s her. Changed her name, but that’s her. Violet Blank Fletcher, in the damn system, driver’s license, passport, even a social security. Age listed as thirty-four in 2014. Married Joseph Fletcher, MD—three offspring, two sons, a daughter. But wrong ages there for our guy. Too young, born after she poofed. Poofed to Sylvan, Louisiana. Computer, display map of Louisiana, highlight Sylvan.”
“Oh, oh, look! It’s not far from New Orleans! Are we going to New Orleans?”
“Throttle back, Peabody. Computer, full data on Violet Blank Fletcher on-screen.”
Acknowledged.
“Married the doctor in May of 2004. Doesn’t list her place of birth, her parents, any employment—or any offspring before the three with the doctor.”
“Because Violet Blank Fletcher didn’t have any,” Peabody concluded.
“She sure as hell didn’t. And it also lists her date of death, last September. Accidental overdose of sleeping pills. I’m taking a wild guess here that it wasn’t, given her history, her family history, an accident. And somehow her death was his trigger.”
“He’s not listed, no child from before her marriage is listed.”
Eyes narrowed, the hunt bubbling in her blood, Eve nodded. “Bet that’s a pisser. Marries a doctor, has another family, and he’s not part of that. We’ll find out why and how. She gave him up, changed her name.”
“You were right about the geography, too. She stayed in the South.”
“Look at the other data here, Peabody. Not just a doctor—he ended up a big-shot ER doc, and there’s family money. Gooey piles of old money. She died rich, seriously rich. He predeceased her, the husband, just six months before.”
She ordered a split screen with Joseph Fletcher’s data.
“Okay, a lot of family money,” Peabody noted. “And he’s taken out by a drunk driver.”
“Tell Yancy we’ve got her, and I’ll fill him in later.” Eve called up the data on Violet Fletcher’s children.
“Look here,” she said as Peabody contacted Yancy. “Daughter’s chief of surgery, same hospital where Daddy headed up the ER. Older son’s a writer—looks successful.”
“Chasen Q. Fletcher? Very. I’ve read his books. They’re really good.”
“Younger son went into law and is now the senator from Louisiana. All three are married—once each—have children, and continue to live in the same area of the state—with the writer and his family residing in the house where they grew up.”
She studied the ID shots.
“Peabody, we need to have some conversations.”
“I’ll say. I guess we’re not going to actually have them in New Orleans.”
“No. Keep the search for the nail crap going, and we’ll hit the field after the conversations, but let’s find out what the unsub’s half sibs know. Start with the writer. I’ll start with the daughter. The politician’s bound to be more slippery with anything he knows about his mother’s former life. But we’ll get to him.”
“It’s moving now,” Peabody said as she hurried out. “It’s really moving.”
Damn straight, Eve thought, and contacted Dr. Joella Fletcher’s office.
She got the runaround, as she expected, but wouldn’t relent.
“Dr. Fletcher may be saving lives there,” Eve said to the third person she’d been passed to, “but I’m trying to save one here. Ask the doctor if she wants to be responsible for the murder of Mary Kate Covino, age twenty-five, because she’s too damn busy to come on the ’link.”
The woman on-screen smiled and, in sugary sweet Southern tones, said, “There’s no need for rudeness, ma’am.”
“Tell that to Mary Kate—and it’s Lieutenant, not ma’am. She talks to me now, or I get on a shuttle, come to her. And I’ll charge her with obstruction of justice.”