by J. D. Robb
“I know you want to see, but first, who’d you buy this property from?”
“Actually, there were two sellers, since I wanted all of it and part had been sold off about thirty years back, maybe more, then again about a dozen years ago, before I had enough to finance it myself. The far west section I bought from Nolan and Sons, which had overestimated their scope, you could say, particularly since they overpaid for the air rights, and this section I wrangled from Singer Family Developers two years ago.”
“Singer. Is that right?”
“It is. Would I have it right your first call was to their project?”
“You would. I can’t see a connection between the bashing of a homeless woman early this morning and the murder of a pregnant woman nearly four decades ago. But you never know, do you?”
“You will.” He kissed her forehead before she could stop him.
“On duty.”
“Aren’t we both?” Then he walked over to the rope.
“Hell of a thing, boss.”
“It is, yes. Garnet. Christ, what people will do. Did she fall, do you think?”
“Dallas found what she believes is damage from bullet wounds, upper left ribs, and the spent bullets.”
“What people will do,” he repeated. “Well then, Mackie, the NYPSD is about to shut us down for a bit.”
“The lieutenant here said we could put up a security fence and close off this area. We can keep Building One on schedule.”
“See to that then, won’t you? And see that the steps up to this area are locked down. I’ll see the cops have codes for entry if needed.”
“I’ll get it going. If you need anything, Lieutenant, Detective, ma’am, just send somebody for Mackie.”
As Mackie jogged off, Roarke turned to Eve. “Is there anything you need from me?”
“A lot of information, and any data or plans you have or can access from when this building went up. I’m going to have a talk with Singer.”
“It’s Bolton Singer now,” Roarke told her. “Fourth generation. He and I made the deal on the property.”
“I need their records. They would’ve had a Mackie back then, maybe still have him or her. I need to know who worked or had access to this area when she went in. It’s not impossible somebody didn’t bust up the concrete more recently, then cover it up again.”
“I suppose it’s not. There would have been several buildings along here being built about the time she died.”
“So somebody decides to kill her, has access to the building over the pad, jacks it up, dumps her, does a quick cover-up. Possible.”
And a lot of work, Eve thought.
“More likely they dumped her in before, then covered her up. Either way, I need what building was over that section, and who had access.”
“I’ll have all that for you by this evening.”
“Good. Get me how long she’s been there, DeWinter. That’s a factor into finding who put her there.”
“It’ll take longer than this evening, but you’ll have it. Here’s my recovery crew.”
“And the sweepers. Earring, bullets,” she reminded DeWinter. “And she’s still wearing a necklace and a watch. I need those and anything else your team or the sweepers find.”
She looked at her wrist unit. “Peabody and I have to get back to the first scene.”
“Do you want what they find sent to you at Central or straight to the lab?”
“Lab. We’ll get by there at some point today, or tomorrow.”
“I’ll be here for a while yet,” Roarke told her.
“I’ll be in touch.”
With Peabody, Eve clanged down the metal steps.
“It’s a stretch,” Peabody commented, “to connect a murder from potentially thirty-seven years ago here with the murder of a sidewalk sleeper last night a block and a half south.”
“The Singer organization owns and is developing the first scene, owned and did develop the second scene at the probable time of the unidentified victim’s murder. But, yeah, still a stretch. And they have a partner. I did some looking when you were examining the remains. Singer partners with Bardov Construction for areas within what they’re now calling the River View development.”
“Bardov?” That was a name she knew. “Did you get any specifics?”
“Not yet, but I can dig.”
“Yeah, do that, and we’ll look at the partner, seeing as that company’s owned by a Russian gangster.”
“Really?”
“Feels like kind of sloppy for the mob,” Eve considered, “but then again, it was effective. She could have been part of the company, worked for any of those companies—if they had access to that site, that building under construction. There’s a reason you cover up, hide, basically bury a body. They walled her in there, Peabody.”
“I saw the interior brick wall. No other reason for it. Mackie said the same thing.”
“You don’t just want her dead, you want her to vanish—want to cut off any connection between you. Otherwise? You’d dump her in the river, hell, toss her in a dumpster.”
“She had a wedding ring?”
“Right type of ring, right finger for it, so high probability. And, yeah, if we ID her, we look at the spouse first.”
“Gotta do it. The baby … The way the remains looked, it had to be close to full term, Dallas, or a newborn.”
“That’s DeWinter’s area.” But she’d thought the same. “Post-Urbans—again, high probability—and this area settled down and into rehab, renewal, rebuilding. It’s unlikely somebody got shot a couple of times on an active construction site in broad daylight. So what was she doing there after hours, after dark?”
“That’s our area.”
“Yeah, it is. We pin down when that particular building went up, then when the wine cellar section went in. Following probability—unless and until DeWinter tells us otherwise—we search for records of missing persons reports with that time frame. Pregnant female, which again, with DeWinter, we can narrow down to an age span, a race, and we’ll eventually get an image reconstruction.
“Until we do,” Eve continued as they climbed up to the initial crime scene, “we gather as many names as possible. Who had access, who among those had a pregnant spouse, sister, daughter, ex, mother, and so on. Who, among those, can we confirm is alive, or was alive beyond our time frame.”
“That’s all going to take time.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think she’s in a hurry.”
She moved over the debris and back to the platform. “Now, Alva Quirk. She came from somewhere, had connections to someone at some time.”
Eve spotted the head sweeper still in her white protective gear and headed that way. “And we go back to access. Who had reason to be up here last night? CSI Yee.”
“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody.”
“Any prints or trace on the dumpster or the sheet?”
“No.” Yee, an Asian woman who barely hit five-two, shook her head. “Workers tossing things in the dumpster are going to be wearing work gloves, and whoever wrapped the body sealed up or wiped down. We got what might be a shoe or boot print on the plastic, but it’s going to be too smeared to give us anything. Blood, hair, fiber on the inside of the plastic, but at on-site exam, it looks like the victim’s. We’ll turn it over to Harvo.”
If there was a speck of hair or fiber not the victim’s, Eve knew Harvo would find it.
“Any good news?”
“We found the kill site.”
“Thought you would. Toward the southwest, near the security fence.”
Yee smiled, nodded. “You must be a trained investigator.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“Me, too.” Yee turned to lead the way. “Blood trail starts here, due to crappy wrapping job. So the plastic loosened enough for her to drip out after he/she/they carted her along the fence line, through the gate, and into the dumpster. It’s just over twelve feet.”
Near the southwest co
rner of the security fence, beyond its gate, its cams, Eve studied where Alva Quirk died.
Blood soaked into the ground, spattered over the fence, through it to where a sweeper took samples of the spatter on the side of a large backhoe.
“Some overgrowth on this side,” Eve observed. “She’d be out of the lights, the cams, be able to snuggle in pretty good. Is this area cleared?”
“On this side, yeah.”
Eve moved over to the fence, crouched down, scanned. “Good view from here. She could see the city, and she’d see anybody who, say, walked in or out of the gate. Can’t see the access from the street from here, but if anybody walked to or toward the gate, she saw them. Unlikely the killer arrived armed with a roll of plastic sheeting or a crowbar. I bet they’d find both in that equipment shed over there.
“Peabody.”
“I’ll go find out.”
“I assumed you’d already looked. I’m sending sweepers in there next.”
Eve shook her head at Yee. “We got called to another murder just south. Another construction site.”
“I heard something about it. What gives?”
“Human remains closed off in a portion of what was supposed to be a wine cellar of a post-Urban-built restaurant. DeWinter’s on it.”
Interest bloomed on Yee’s face. “Do you want me and my team to take that one? We’re about finished here, and can send a runner to take what we’ve got to the lab.”
Save time, potentially, and she knew Yee’s work was top-notch and thorough. “Yeah, tag your dispatch and clear it. You’re going to need to rappel down about ten feet from where they broke through the top of the basement—cellar. Ask for Mackie.”
“Got it. Give me a second.”
Yee turned away as Peabody came back through the gate.
“Storage shed, tools, small equipment. Organized,” Peabody added. “I saw rolls of plastic sheeting. Crowbars, sledgehammers, wedges, shovels, picks, nail cartridges, cutters.”
“Yee will get some of her people to process it. The victim sees you, or hears you—or both. You’re doing something you shouldn’t be, saying something you shouldn’t say. Quirk gets out her book. Has to write down the infraction or crime, describe the perpetrator or perpetrators. Let’s have EDD check out the security on the gate, see if it’s been compromised. If not, they had a way in, they had access. They see her or she makes her presence known. ‘Sorry, but I have to report this.’”
She circled the kill spot.
“What do you do? Maybe you try to intimidate, charm, threaten, maybe you offer her a bribe. Maybe, but it comes down to she’s a witness to something you can’t afford a witness to. So you’ve got to know you can get a weapon and the sheeting in the shed there. You’ve got to have a way through the gate.”
Closing her eyes, Eve ran it through in her head.
“Got to be two of them. At least two. One has to keep her engaged, keep her right here, keep her talking while the other goes for the weapon. She wasn’t a big woman, why not just beat her down or strangle her? Takes time maybe. But a couple bashes is pretty quick. Cut some plastic off the roll, wrap her up—but you gotta get gone, so you rush it. Dump her in. Maybe it buys you a day or so. Crew tosses shit in. Why would they look in there? Another day or so before she starts to smell, right? Or maybe before that, they haul the dumpster off to the recycling center.”
Eve gauged the ground again. “You can’t see the blood unless you look straight over here from the gate. You don’t see it from the work area inside the fence until you move the heavy equipment. You take her backpack, whatever she had—especially that book. Do you take time to clean the murder weapon and replace it? Smarter if you take it with you, shove it into the backpack, get rid of all that somewhere else. We’re not talking big smarts here, but maybe smart enough for that.”
“We’ll check any tools for blood traces,” Yee told her. “I’m going to leave a couple of my team here to finish, and the rest will start on the second site.”
“Appreciate it. You’ll be able to tell which roll they cut from. They hadn’t started any work this morning, so it would be the freshest.”
“Yeah, we can, and when we do, we’ll take the roll for full analysis.”
“Over to you then, Yee. Peabody, let’s go have a conversation with the job boss.”
“Good hunting, Dallas,” Yee called out.
“Same to you.”
“Geraldi, Paulie,” Peabody began. “Officer Urly tagged me and said with the shutdown order, he was going to Singer HQ to talk to his boss.”
“Two for one. We’ll have a conversation with Bolton Singer, too.”
“His office is walkable. Just a couple blocks east, another couple north.”
“You looking for loose pants again?”
“That could be a side benefit. It’s just a really nice morning.”
Eve couldn’t, and wouldn’t, deny the appeal of New York in the spring.
“Maybe so, but we need the car. After the conversations—unless they lead to immediate arrests or further conversations—we’ll go by the morgue, see what we’ve got on Quirk. Then we’re at Central, doing a full run on the vic—again, she came from somewhere. Her ID has gaps, so we need to fill them.”
She reached the stairs, started down with Peabody clanging along with her.
“And digging back into the missing persons on our other vic. We need more background on the partners, on the sales of the second site. We don’t have time for strolling.”
“When you put it that way.”
When they reached Eve’s DLE, Peabody slid in. “Can I get a diet fizzy? It got warm up there.”
“Go.”
“Coffee?”
Eve started to say yes before she pulled out because coffee was always a yes. But it had gotten warm up there. “Tube of Pepsi.”
While Peabody programmed the drinks from the in-dash AutoChef, Eve ordered a run on Geraldi.
Geraldi, Paul Tomas, age sixty-two, her computer began. Caucasian, male. Married Theresa Angela Basset, age sixty, June 2032. Three offspring, Paul, male, age twenty-eight; Carla, female, age twenty-six; Anthony, male, age twenty-five. Employed by Singer Developers 2023 to present. Demolition expert, supervisory position.
Eve listened to the employment record, the financial data, education data, the criminal—small change in Geraldi’s early twenties.
“He’d’ve been with the company in 2024,” she commented. “Puts him on that list if those dates line up. Let’s see about the big boss. Computer, run Bolton Kincade Singer of New York City.”
Acknowledged. Working. Singer, Bolton Kincade, age fifty-nine. Caucasian, male. Married Lilith Anne Conroy, age fifty-five, December 2033. Three offspring, Harmony, female, age twenty-seven; Layla, female, age twenty-four; Kincade, male, age twenty-two. President and CEO of Singer Family Developers, based in New York City. Employed by Singer Family Developers 2026 to present.
“Pause,” Eve ordered. “Where was subject employed and/or residing prior to 2026?”
Subject attended Irving Allen Conservatory from 2020 to 2024 as full-time student. He resided in Savannah, Georgia, from August 2020 to February 2026.
To save time, Eve zipped into a loading zone a half block from Singer HQ. “Degrees and employment during that period.”
Subject earned degrees, with honors, in music composition, instrumental arts, and vocal arts. He was self-employed as a musician/performer during this period.
“Hold the rest. An odd education for the head of an urban development company.”
“My guess would be he had other plans for his future. Singer wanted to be a singer.”
Eve nodded, then realized she hadn’t cracked the tube of Pepsi. She let it sit where it was as she flipped up the On Duty light. “That’s my take. Guess he changed his mind, or his finances ran thin.”
“He gave it a decent shot,” Peabody said as they got out of the car. “Either way, it lowers the likelihood he was here when our unidentified wom
an was murdered.”
“Or he was here on a college break, hoping to butter up his wealthy parents so they’d fork over more dough. They gave him his shot. A year or so after college to make it or break it. You don’t make it, it’s time to face the real world, earn your keep.”
“I looked up the conservatory. They don’t take just anybody. You have to take written tests, and audition, then they have a panel that votes on your admission. It’s pricey, and it’s exclusive.”
“And it would’ve been away from the hot spots still flaring up during the Urbans. You could pull some strings to get your one and only son in, I bet.”
“Cops are cynics, because I can see that.” Peabody paused outside the entrance of the Singer Building to take stock.
“It’s impressive,” Peabody decided, “and it’s got that old-timey New York and dignified look to it. But it’s not as big or impressive as Roarke’s Midtown HQ.”
“What is?”
Eve swung in, crossed the marble-tiled and, yes, old-timey New York and dignified lobby to the security desk.
She held up her badge. “Paulie Geraldi and Bolton Singer.”
“Are either expecting you, Lieutenant?”
“I don’t think they’ll be surprised.”
“One moment.” Security turned away to consult with someone on his earbud.
While she waited, Eve scanned the lobby. Activity coming off or going on elevators. No shops or cafés, but a large screen displaying various Singer projects—completed, projected, under construction.
“Mr. Geraldi is in Mr. Singer’s office at this time. You’re cleared to go up. Elevator bank A, fiftieth floor. Someone will meet you. Please sign in.”
Eve scrawled her signature with her finger on the pad, then moved to the A bank of elevators.
“That was easy,” Peabody commented.
“Let’s see how easy the rest is.”
Eve waited for a trio of suits to hustle off an elevator, then stepped inside. “Bolton Singer, floor fifty.”
Enjoy your visit to the Singer Building, the computer told her. Singer Family Developers is dedicated to building a vital and vibrant New York.
“A couple people might disagree.” Eve slid her hands in her pockets as the elevator headed up.