A/N: For anybody that's read Loyalty in Death, this is where I'm probably going to be making the most changes around this saga as we begin to get into the meat and potatoes of this story. There's going to be a lot of text lifted from the original book but it's mostly just to display the role reversals between Eve Dallas and David Baxter, just read and you'll get it.
Standard Disclaimers apply.
*****
Even though a friend was gone from a job and moved on to a new one, murder still happened everywhere. A beggar died unnoticed, his throat slashed three feet from his front door for the twelve credits in his pocket. A woman choked out one last scream as she crumpled under her lover's pounding fists.
And for Detective David Baxter and his aide Officer Delia Peabody, death circled its bony finger, then jabbed it gleefully between the eyes of one J. Clarence Branson, the fifty-year-old co-owner of Branson Tools and Toys.
He'd been rich, single, and successful, a jolly man with reason to be as co-owner of a major interplanetary corporation. A second son and the third generation of Bransons to provide the world and its satellites with implements and amusements, he'd lived lavishly.
And had died the same way.
J. Clarence's heart had been skewered with one of his own multi-power porta drills by his steely-eyed mistress, who'd bolted him to the wall with it, reported the incident to the police, then had calmly sat sipping claret until the first officers arrived on the scene.
She continuously sipped her drink, while cozily sitting in a high-backed chair watching a computer generated fire while Detective Baxter examined the body.
"He's absolutely dead," she coolly informed Baxter. They did an ID check on her and she was identified as Lisbeth Cooke, an advertising executive. Age forty, sleekly attractive and very good at her job. "The Branson 8000 is an excellent product-designed to satisfy both the professional and the hobbyist. It's very powerful and accurate."
"Yeah." Baxter scanned the victim's face. Pampered and handsome, even though death had etched a look of stunned and sorrowful surprise on his face. Blood soaked through the breast of his blue velvet dressing gown and puddled glossily on the floor. "Sure as hell did the job here. Read Ms. Cooke her rights, Peabody."
Peabody obediently followed orders while Baxter verified time and cause of death for the record. Even with the voluntary confession, the business of murder would follow routine. The weapon would be taken into evidence, the body transported and autopsied, the scene secured.
Baxter gestured the crime scene team to take over and crossed the royal red carper to sit across from Lisbeth in front of the chirpy fire that blew out lush heat and light. Nothing was said for the moment as several beats passed by to see what reaction he might get from the fashionable brunette with fresh blood splattered somehow gaily on her yellow silk jumpsuit.
"He was cheating on me," Lisbeth said flatly. "I killed him."
"Did you argue?" Baxter studied the steady green eyes, saw anger but no shock or remorse.
"We had a few words." Lisbeth lifted her claret to full lips painted the same rich tone as the wine. "Most of them mine. J. C. was weak-minded." She shrugged her shoulders and silk rustled. "I accepted that, even found it endearing in many ways. But we had an arrangement. I gave him three years of my life."
Now she leaned forward, eyes snapping with the temper behind the chill. "Three years, during which time I could have pursued other interests, other arrangements, other relationships. But I was faithful. He was not."
She drew in a breath, leaned back again, very nearly smiled. "Now he's dead."
"Did you own the drill at the time you killed Branson?" Baxter asked in between hearing the team's ugly suck and scrape as the team struggled to remove the long steel spike from flesh and bone.
"No, it's J.C.'s. He putters occasionally, which is what he must've been doing when I picked it up." Lisbeth mused with a casual glance toward the body the crime scene team was now removing from the wall in a ghastly ballet of movements. "I saw it there, on the table, and thought, well, that's just perfect, isn't it? So I picked it up, flicked it on. And used it."
For a first day on the job with an aide, it didn't get much simpler than this, Baxter mused and rose. "Ms. Cooke, these officers will take you down to Cop Central. I'll have some more questions for you."
Obligingly, Lisbeth swallowed the last of the claret, then set the glass aside. "I'll just get my coat."
Peabody shook her head as Lisbeth tossed a full-length black mink over her bloody silks and swept out between two uniforms with all the panache of a woman heading out to the next heady social engagement.
"Man, it takes all kinds. She drills the guy, then hands us the case on a platter."
Baxter shrugged as he used some solvent to clean the blood and Seal-It from his hands, "She's not going to get murder one. That's just what it was, but I'll lay odds it's pleaded down to manslaughter within forty-eight hours."
"Manslaughter?" Peabody gaped at Baxter with genuine shock. "Even Lt. Dallas wouldn't have accepted that."
"You haven't been around the block like we have, kid." Baxter looked into Peabody's dark, earnest eyes, studied her square, no-nonsense face under its bowl-cut hair and police-issue hat. It was bad enough that Peabody was still reeling from the grief of Lieutenant Eve Dallas still being absent one month after being cleared of being a murder suspect. "If the drill proves to be the victim's, she didn't bring a weapon with her. That cuts down on premeditation. Pride's got her now, and a good dose of mad, but after a few hours in a cell, if not before, survival instinct will kick in, and she'll lawyer up. She's smart, so she'll lawyer smart."
"Yeah, but we've got intent. We've got malice. She just made a statement for the record."
"And she doesn't have to renege on it, just embellish it. They argued. She was devastated, upset. Maybe he threatened her. In a moment of passion-or possibly fear-she grabbed the drill."
Baxter and Peabody stepped off the elevator and crossed the wide lobby with its pink marble columns and glossy ornamental trees. "Temporary diminished capacity, possibly an argument for self-defense. Bullshit yes, but Branson was about six-two, two-twenty, and she's five-four, maybe one-fifteen. They could make that work. Then, in shock, she contacts the police immediately. She doesn't attempt to run or to deny what she did. She takes responsibility, which would earn points with a jury if it comes down to it. The PA knows that, so he'll plead it down."
"That really bites."
"Best case scenario," Baxter said as they stepped outside into a cold as bitter February. "She'll lose her job, spend a hefty chunk of credits on her lawyer. You take what you can get."
