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would be up and running. He was an old hand at media
manipulation and public relations and he knew how to work it out for his
benefit.
    So fortune has smiled, Fiona thought. She could see his
reasoning. Throw them a nice tasty bone to keep them all occupied in another
direction. Made sense. She'd go along up to a point. Could she honestly search
her intelligence and her gut and still find room for doubt about a suicide?
Stay with maybe, she decided. Murder would be a lot sexier. No doubt about
that.
    With a look of satisfaction, the Eggplant lit his panatela,
inhaled and puffed smoke out of his nostrils. He nodded and his mouth formed a
broad sunny smile. She hadn't seen him do that for months. He started toward
the door.
    "I don't think it was murder, Captain," Charleen
Evans said quickly, before he was out of earshot.
    The Eggplant stopped, cocked his head, but did not turn.
    "It's a clear case of suicide, Captain," Evans
said. "Any objective analysis will tell you that hanging is the weapon of
choice for a certain pattern of suicides. It is quite common. This is a
textbook case. We check hard enough we'll find the place where she bought the
rope and where she stored it in this apartment. Hanging is the rarest form of
modus operandi for a murder. There actually hasn't been a murder by hanging in this
city for nearly three decades."
    She paused for a moment and the Eggplant turned and glared
at her.
    "Also," she continued, her chin jutting out,
throwing Fiona a glance of clear contempt. "There probably is a
note."
    "You found one?" Fiona asked, on the verge of a
blowup. This was a real lethal lady, she thought. A hard case.
    "No, but I think I can and I know where and how to
look for one."
    Smug bitch, Fiona thought, exchanging glances with the
Eggplant, whose complexion had turned to the grey tone displayed at the morning
meeting.
    "Do you now?" the Eggplant asked, offering his
familiar grimace of intimidation.
    "In the computer, Captain. If it's anywhere it's
there."
    The veins reddened in his eyes. Fiona saw the great effort
he was making to repress his anger, knowing that his perception of her as a
castrating female was far more menacing than her own.
    "Would you like to hear my theory?" Evans asked.
    A nerve twitched in his jaw as he studied her.
    "You got two hours, Mama," he said.
    With a man in his command, he would have exploded in rage.
In this case, he turned quickly, bottling up his agitation as he stormed out of
the apartment.

4
    "YOU'VE GOT A problem, Evans," Fiona said after
the Eggplant had left. Any remote hope of allegiance on gender grounds had totally
evaporated.
    "So it seems," Evans responded. "He would
have been better served to hear me out."
    "It's not that, lady. You've got a piece missing in
your character." It was, Fiona decided, a fully justified frontal assault.
    "Do I?"
    Evans was unfazed, her features a mask of indifference.
    "It's called insight," Fiona pressed. "Plus
a screw loose on timing."
    The woman's eyes studied her, betraying nothing that was
going on behind them.
    "You want my theory or not?"
    Fiona shrugged.
    "How can I avoid it?"
    Evans nodded, then crooked a finger, as if coaxing a
recalcitrant child to follow. Assuming that her gesture was enough of a summons
to Fiona, she moved into the bedroom. Capping her exasperation, Fiona followed,
more curious than obedient.
    Evans stood facing the computer on the desk in the bedroom
alcove, her back to Fiona. Fiona looked at the computer screen perfectly
centered on the desk. Behind it was a long shelf of programming handbooks.
Beside the screen was a laser printer and on the shelf below a fax machine.
    "You know computers, FitzGerald?" Evans asked
without turning to face her. Fiona caught the insult in the condescending
words, tone and position.
    "Apparently you do."
    She bridled at her own childish response, feeling
inadequate to the occasion, knowing that the woman was about to flaunt her
superior knowledge. Fiona's experience with