Free Moment of Truth by Lisa Scottoline Page B

people don’t eat hummus. Hummus is a substitute for meat. You eat either hummus or meat.”
    “I understand. One or the other. So, you think Newlin eats hummus?”
    “No. No man eats hummus. Not unless he wants to save his marriage.” Brinkley wasn’t joking. “People who eat meat don’t eat hummus. Don’t work that way.”
    “How the hell do you know that, Mick?”
    “I just know.” He didn’t want to get into it. Sheree’s conversion. The white keemar she took to wearing, covering up her fine body. All the time reading the Koran. It was the beginning of the end for them. “The hummus is for somebody else. Whoever else was at dinner tonight.”
    “
What?
” Kovich pushed up his glasses, leaving red marks on his nose.
    “You heard me. Let’s check the rest of the house.”
    Brinkley and Kovich went through the kitchen, where a large dinner salad sat waiting in pink Saran, and then went through the bathroom, noting the bloodstained towels and the toilet where Newlin had vomited. There was no mistaking the smell, and the detectives took notes, made sketches, and went upstairs. The master bedroom was sterile, the closets neat and well stocked, with a wedding picture on the white vanity, the wife in a flowing white gown that trailed like a cloud. The his-and-her bathrooms were in order, and Brinkley took notes and ordered everything bagged.
    Everything looked perfect, even the library, and the wife’s home office, which contained a slew of photographs of herself, her husband, horses, and a boat, but only a single photo of the daughter. It was a posed publicity shot, and though the girl looked gorgeous, it wasn’t personal in the least. Brinkley tagged the files to be boxed and seized, and listened to the messages on the office answering machine, all routine. Nothing he bagged was remotely as intriguing as the earring back.
    He located the daughter’s room, which looked like a room for the kid who had everything. Big canopy bed, school desk with books, and three shelves of pretty white dolls. He scanned the shelves but the dolls stared back at him blankly, and nothing was out of order. He had that earring back on the brain. He went over to the dresser and eyeballed it for a jewelry box. Bottles of perfume, hair things, and a box of burled wood sat against the mirror, and he probed its lid with a pen. It was locked. The key must be somewhere. Brinkley searched the drawers with his pen. Silk undies, T-shirts, sweaters, all folded in a rainbow of colors. No key to the box, no nothing. He’d get it after it was seized.
    He left the dressers, searched under the bed, between the mattress and box spring, and then moved on to the bathroom. It was well stocked but nothing looked unusual, except he found a pink plastic wheel of birth control pills. Brinkley had never seen them before; Sheree didn’t need them. He turned away at the memory and left the room to find Kovich.
    “I keep thinking about that earring back,” Brinkley said, as they walked down the grand, carpeted staircase. “Something that falls off easy, by the body. Makes sense it belonged to the killer. Got knocked off during the struggle.”
    “Give it up, Mick. Like I said, that earring coulda been dropped a long time ago.”
    “True, or maybe it was dropped by whoever Newlin’s lying to protect. Whoever eats hummus and puts their feet up.” They reached the bottom of the staircase where the techs were working on their final tasks. A low steel gurney rolled in on wheels that squeaked as they negotiated the thick, costly rugs. One of the coroner’s assistants gave Brinkley the high sign, and the detective nodded absently. “Earrings, a vegetarian, and dirty feet on the table? I’m no expert, but it says teenager to me.”
    “You’re serious?”
    “Dead serious. I want to talk to the daughter.”
    “Christ, Mick.” Kovich’s eyes widened behind the big window of his glasses. “She’s Kelley’s age.”
    “Kelley loses her earring backs,