“Then how about that dinner?”

“Pizza and you’re buying.”

“That could be arranged.”

“Speaking of arranged, the M.E. is set to release the senator’s body to the funeral home in the morning.”

Nick immediately sobered, and Sam was sorry she’d dropped it on him that way. “Okay. Once the funeral home is done, the Virginia State Police will accompany him to the state capitol in Richmond,” he said. “I was going to ask you if I could get into his place to get some clothes. The funeral director needs them.”

“After dinner. I’d like to go back there anyway. Poke around some more.”

“It’s a date.”

She turned off her computer and the lamp on her desk. “It’s not a date.”

“Semantics,” he said as he followed her from the office.

“It’s not a date.”

Over thick-crust veggie pizza and beer at a place where everyone seemed to know Nick, Sam asked him about Patricia Donaldson.

“Who?”

“According to his parents, she was a high school friend of John’s who lives in Chicago.”

His eyebrows knit with confusion. “I’ve never heard of her.”

“He sent her three thousand dollars a month, has for years, called her several times a week and talked for as much as an hour.”

Nick shook his head. “I don’t know anything about her.” He seemed puzzled, distressed even. “How’s that possible?”

“Did you know he was into porn? Big time into it?”

Pausing mid-bite, he returned the pizza to his plate and wiped his mouth. “No. How do you know?”

“It was on his home computer.”

His expression shifted from startled to disgusted. His breathing slowed as he fixated on a spot behind her. He was quiet for a long time. “I wish I could say I’m totally surprised, but I’m not. He took such chances with his reputation and his career.”

“What else besides this?”

“Women. Lots of them. It was like he was looking for something he just couldn’t seem to find. He’d be all hot over someone and a week later she’d be history.”

“Did they have anything in common?”

“They were all blonde and well endowed. Every one of them. One Barbie doll after another. It got so I didn’t even bother to make the effort to remember their names.”

Sam swallowed the last of her beer in one long sip and had to admit she felt recharged after the meal. “Christina Billings sent over a list of the women he’d dated during the last six months. We’re working through it now. I bet we’ll find his killer among the Barbies.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You said it was a crime of passion, right?”

She nodded.