She started to take another deep breath, then blinked. "You're smiling."

"You're going to want to get to her when he's not around. You'll want to question her when she's alone. With him and the kid, she's got defenses built up. She can tell herself she's protecting them. Get her into Interview. Make it formal. She won't want to. but the uniform will intimidate her into it. It's not likely she'll yell lawyer straight off, because she'll worry it'll make her look guilty. Let me know when you're ready to set it up, and I'll try to observe."

Peabody felt her heart beating again. "You think I'm right? You think she did it?" "Oh yeah, she did it."

"You knew it. The minute she walked into the apartment, you knew." "Doesn't matter what I knew or what I know. It's your case, so what matters is what you know and getting her to tell you."

"If you did the interview-"

"I'm not doing the interview, you are. Your case. Work out your approach, your tone, then bring her in and break her down." Eve pulled into a driveway, and Peabody looked around blankly. Somehow they'd gotten from city to suburb.

"Now put it away," Eve ordered. "Pettibone's front and center now."

She sat a moment, studying the rosy redbrick house. It was modest enough, even simple until you added the gardens. Floods, rivers, pools of flowers flowed out from the base of the house, streaming all the way to the sidewalk. There was no lawn to speak of, though there were tall clumps of some sort of ornamental grasses creatively worked in to the sea of color.

A stone walkway ribboned its way through to the base of a covered porch where flowering vines, thick with deep purple blooms, wound their way up round posts.

There were chairs with white cushions on the porch, glass-topped tables, and yet more flowers in pots that had artistically faded to verdigris. Obviously Shelly Pettibone liked to sit and contemplate her flowers.

Even as Eve thought it, a woman stepped out of the front door carrying a tray.

She was deeply tanned, her arms long and leanly muscled against the short sleeves of a baggy blue T-shirt. Her jeans were worn and cropped off at midcalf.

She set down the tray, watched Eve get out of the car. The mild breeze stirred her sun-streaked brown hair worn short and unstyled around the weathered, appealing face of a woman who lived a great deal of her life outdoors.

As Eve drew closer, she saw that the woman's eyes were brown and showed the ravages of weeping. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"Mrs. Pettibone? Shelly Pettibone?"

"Yes." Her gaze shifted to Peabody. "This is about Walter."

"I'm Lieutenant Dallas." Eve offered her badge. "My aide, Officer Peabody. I'm sorry to disturb you at this difficult time."

"You need to ask me questions. I just got off the 'link with my daughter. I don't seem to be able to do anything to help her. I can't think of the right words. I don't think there are any. I'm sorry, sit down please. I was going to have some coffee. I'll just get more cups."

"You needn't bother."

"It gives me something to do, and just now I don't have nearly enough to do. I'll just be a minute. It's all right if we talk out here, isn't it? I'd like to be outside for a while."

"Sure, this is fine."

She went back in, left the door open.

"A guy dumps you for a younger model after thirty years or so," Eve began. "How do you feel about it when it kicks off?"

"Hard to say. I can't imagine living with anyone for three years much less thirty. You're the married one here. How would you feel?"

Eve opened her mouth to make some withering comment, then stopped. She'd hurt, she realized. She'd grieve. Whatever he'd done, she'd suffer for the loss.

Instead of answering, she stepped over, glanced in the door. "Nice place, if you go for this sort of thing."

"I've never seen anything like this yard. It's seriously mag, and it must take a ton of work. It looks natural, but it's really well-planned.

She's got it all planted for maximum effect-seasonally, fragrance- wise, colors, and textures. I smell sweet peas." She took a deeper sniff of the air. "My grandmother always has sweet peas outside the bedroom window."

"Do you enjoy flowers, Officer?" Shelly stepped back out, cups in hands. "Yes, ma'am. Your garden's beautiful."

"Thank you. It's what I do. Landscape design. I was studying horticulture and design when I met Walter. A million years ago," she said softly. "I can't quite believe he's gone. I can't believe I'll never see him again."

"Did you see him often?" Eve asked.

"Oh, every week or two. We weren't married any longer, but we had a great deal in common." She poured coffee with hands that wore no rings. "He'd often recommend me to clients, as I would him.

Flowers were one of the bonds between us." "Yet you were divorced, and he remarried."

"Yes. And yes, he was the one who wanted to end the marriage." She folded her legs under her, lifted her cup. "I was content, and contentment was enough for me. Walter needed more. He needed to be happy, to be excited and involved. We'd lost some essential spark along the way. With the kids grown and away from home, with it being back to the two of us... Well, we couldn't revive that spark.

He needed it more than I did. Though it was difficult for him, he told me he wanted a change."

"You must have been angry."

"I was. Angry and hurt and baffled. No one likes to be discarded, even gently. And he was gentle. There isn't, wasn't a mean bone in his body."

Her eyes welled again, but she blinked the tears back, took a deep sip of coffee. "If I had insisted, if I had pushed him back into the corner our marriage had become for him, he would have stayed."

"But you didn't."

"I loved him." She smiled when she said it, heart-breakingly. "Was it his fault, my fault, that our love for each other had mellowed into something too comfortable, too bland to be interesting any longer? I won't say it wasn't hard to let him go, to face life on my own. We'd been married more than half my life. But to keep him with me out of obligation? I've too much pride for that, and too much respect for both of us."

"How did you feel when he married a woman younger than your daughter?"

"Amused." The first glint of humor crept over Shelly's face, and made it pretty and mischievous. "I know it's petty, it's small, but I mink I was entitled to a moment or two of amusement. How could I be otherwise? She's a bit of foolish fluff, and frankly, I don't think they'd have stayed together. He was dazzled with her, and proud the way men are when they're able to hang something stupendously decorative on their arm."

"A lot of women would've felt embarrassed, angry."

"Yes, and how foolish is that to measure yourself against a silly ornament? My reaction was the opposite. In fact, his relationship with her went a long way to helping me resolve what had happened between us. If his happiness, even temporarily, depended on a beautiful set of breasts and a giggling young girl, well, he wasn't going to get that from me, was he?"

She sighed, set her cup down. "She did make him happy, and in her way loved him. You couldn't help but love Walt." "So I've heard.

Someone didn't love him, Mrs. Pettibone."

"I've thought about it." All humor fell away from her face. "Thought and thought. It makes no sense, Lieutenant. None at all. Bambi?

God, what a name. She's foolish and flighty, but she's not evil. It takes evil to kill, doesn't it?"

"Sometimes it just takes a reason."

"If I thought, for one instant, that she had done this, I'd do everything I could to help you prove it. To see her pay for it. But, oh God, she's a harmless idiot who, if she manages to have two thoughts at once must hear them rattling together in that empty head of hers."

She couldn't, Eve thought, have said it better herself.

"And what reason could she have to do this?" Shelly demanded. "She had everything she could want. He was incredibly generous with her." "He was a very rich man."

"Yes, and not one to horde his wealth. The divorce settlement was more than fair. I'd never have to work again if I didn't love my work.

I know- because he told me-that he'd gifted Bambi with a substantial trust when they married. Our children were generously provided for and each has a large share of World of Flowers. The inheritance each of us, and yes, I'm also a beneficiary, will receive upon his death is considerable. But we have considerable already."

"What about business associates? Competitors?"

"I don't know anyone who'd wish Walt harm. As for business, killing him won't effect WOF. The company's well-established, well- organized, with both our children taking on more and more of the administration. Killing him makes no sense."

It had made sense to Julianna, Eve mused. The woman did nothing unless it made sense. "Since you've maintained a good relationship, why didn't you attend his party?"

"It just seemed awkward. He urged me to come, though not very hard. It was supposed to be a surprise, but of course he knew about it weeks ago. He was very excited. He always was like a little boy when it came to parties."

Eve reached into her bag, drew out Julianna Dunne's two photographs. "Do you know this woman?"