Loyalty In Death Part 38

"How do people live in places like this?" she asked Peabody. "It's like somebody cut it all out of a travel disc, took a few thousand copies, and pasted it down outside of every G.o.dd.a.m.n city in the country. They're all the same."

"Some people like all the same. It's comforting. We took a trip to Maine when I was a kid. Mount Desert Island, the national park?" Eve shuddered.

"National parks are full of trees and hikers and weird little bugs."

"Yeah, no bugs in New York."

"I'll take a good honest c.o.c.kroach any day."

"Come over to my place. Sometimes we have parties." "Complain to your super." "Oh yeah, that'll work."

Eve took a right, slowed as the street narrowed. The duplexes and triplexes here were old and shoved unhappily together. Lawns were quietly miserable, showing gra.s.s the bitter yellow of winter where snow had melted.

She pulled up at a curb by a cracked sidewalk, shut off the engine.

Trip complete. Time elapsed nine minutes, forty-eight seconds. Please remember to code your door.

"You'd have cut another two minutes off easy if you'd gone air over that traffic," Peabody told her when they climbed out.

"Stop grinning and put on your cop face. Monica's peeking out the window."

Eve headed up the b.u.mpy, unshoveled walk and rapped on the middle door of the triplex.

It was a long wait, though she judged Monica had about three steps to take to get from the window to the door. She didn't expect a warm welcome. And didn't get one.

The door opened a crack and one hard gray eye peered out. "What do you want?"

"Lieutenant Dallas, New York Police and Security, and aide. We have a few questions we'd like to ask you, Ms. Rowan. Can we come in?" "This isn't New York. You've got no authority here, no business here."

"We have some questions," Eve repeated. "And we've been cleared to request an interview. It would be easier for you, Ms. Rowan, if we conducted it here rather than arranging for you to be transported to New York."

"You can't make me go to New York."

Eve didn't bother to sigh, and pocketed the badge she flipped out for Monica's study. "Yes, we can. But we'd rather not inconvenience you. We won't take up much of your time."

"I don't like the police in my house." But she opened the door. "I don't want you touching anything."

Eve stepped into what she supposed the architect had amused himself by calling a foyer. It was no more than four square feet of faded linoleum, ruthlessly scrubbed.

"You wipe your feet. You wipe your dirty cop feet before you come in my house."

Dutifully, Eve stepped back, wiped her boots on a mat. It gave her another moment to study Monica Rowan.

The image on file had been a true one. The woman was hard-faced, grim- eyed, and gray. Eyes, skin, hair were all nearly the same dull color. She was wearing flannel from top to toe, and the heat pumping through the house was already making Eve uncomfortably warm in her jacket and jeans.

"Close the door! You're costing me money letting the heat out. You know what it costs to heat this place? Utility company is run by government drones."

Peabody wiped her feet, stepped in, closed the door, and was rammed up tight against Eve. Monica stood glowering, her arms folded across her chest.

"You ask what you got to ask, then get out." So much, Eve mused, for Yankee hospitality. "It's a little crowded here, Ms.

Rowan. Maybe we can go in the living room and sit down."

"You make it fast. I've got things to do." She turned and led the way into a doll-sized living area.

It was painfully clean, the single chair and small sofa slicked with clear plastic. Two matching lamps still wore their plastic s.h.i.+elds on the shades.

Eve decided she didn't want to sit down after all.

The window drapes were drawn together, leaving a thin c.h.i.n.k. The inch-wide slit brought in the only light.

There were dust catchers, but no dust. Eve imagined if a mote wandered in, it soon ran screaming in horror. A dozen little happy-faced figurines, gleaming clean, danced over tabletops. A cheap model cat droid rose creakily from the rug, gave one rusty meow, and settled again.

"Ask your questions and go. I've got housework to finish."

Eve recited the revised Miranda when Peabody went on record. "Do you understand your rights and obligations, Mrs. Rowan?"

"I understand you've come in my house unwanted, and you're interrupting my work. I don't need any bleeding-heart liberal lawyer. They're all government puppets preying on honest people. Get on with it."

"You were married to James Rowan."

"Until the government killed him and my children." "You weren't living with him at the time of his death." "Doesn't make me less of his wife, does it?"

"No, ma'am, it doesn't. Can you tell me why you were separated from him, and your children?"

"That's my private marital business." Monica's arms tightened on her chest.

"Jamie had a lot on his mind. He was a great man. It's a wife's duty to give way to her husband's needs and wishes."

Eve only lifted a brow at that. "And your children? Did you take their needs and wishes into account?" "He needed the children with him. Jamie adored them."

But he didn't think so much of you, did he? Eve mused. "And you, Ms. Rowan, did you adore your children?" It wasn't a question she needed to ask, and Eve was annoyed with herself the moment it was out.

"I gave birth to them, didn't I?" Monica stretched her head forward aggressively on her scrawny neck. "I carried each one of them inside me for nine months, gave birth to them in pain and blood. I did my duty by them, kept them clean, kept them fed, and the government gave me a pittance for my trouble. A d.a.m.n cop made more than a professional mother back then. Who do you think got up in the middle of the night with them when they were squalling? Who cleaned up after them? Nothing dirtier than children. You work your hands to the bone to keep a clean house when there's children in it."

So much for mother love, Eve thought, and reminded herself that wasn't the issue.

"You were aware of your husband's activities. His a.s.sociation with the terrorist group Apollo?"

"Propaganda and lies. Government lies." She all but spat it out. "Jamie was a great man. A hero. If he'd been president, this country wouldn't be in the mess it's in with wh.o.r.es and filth in the streets."

"Did you work with him?"

"A woman's place is to keep a clean house, to provide decent meals, and to bear children." She folded her lips into a sneer. "The two of you might want to be men, but I knew what G.o.d had put women on Earth to do."

"Did he talk to you about his work?" "No."

"Did you meet any of his a.s.sociates?"

"I was his wife. I provided a clean home for him and for the people who believed in him." "William Henson believed in him."

"William Henson was a loyal and brilliant man."

"Do you know where I might find this loyal and brilliant man?"

Monica smiled, thin and sly. "The government dogs hunted him down and killed him, just the way they killed all the loyal." "Really? I have no data that confirms his death."

"A plot. Conspiracy. Cover-ups." Thin beads of spittie flew out of her mouth.

"They dragged honest people out of their homes, locked them in cages, starved and tortured them. Executions."

"Were you dragged out of your home, Mrs. Rowan? Locked up, tortured?"

Monica's eyes slitted. "I had nothing they wanted."

"Can you give me names of people who believed in him who are still alive?"

"It was thirty years ago and more. They came and they went."

"What about their wives? Their children? You must have met their families.

Socialized." "I had a house to run. I didn't have time to socialize."