by J. D. Robb
The gold skin went hot as he showed his teeth. “You’re no better than the IAB rats.”
“Consider me worse. Whereabouts, Detective, or yeah, we will continue this at Central, in a box.”
“I was home, with a woman I’m seeing.” Sneering, he sat back, deliberately rubbed his crotch. “Want to know what we were doing, and how many times we did it?”
“Peabody?” she said with her eyes on Clifton’s. “Are either of us interested in what this asshole did or didn’t do with his cock between the hours of twenty-two and twenty-four hundred last night?”
“We couldn’t be less.”
“Name the woman, Clifton, and consider yourself lucky I have more important things to do right now than write you up.”
“Kiss my ass.”
“I’m no more interested in your ass than I am your dick. Name, Clifton, or I’ll find the time to write you up, and you’ll take a thirty-day rip for it. You’ll start the rip sweating in a box in my house if you don’t stop screwing with me. Name.”
“Sherri Loper. She’s upstairs in Communications.”
“Tell me about your relationship with Detective Coltraine.”
“We worked together.”
“I’m aware of that. Were you friendly, unfriendly?”
“We got along fine.”
“And occasionally worked cases together?”
He shrugged, stared up at the ceiling. “Some of us actually do the job.”
Eve sat back. “If you keep trying to bust my balls here, Clifton, I’m going to bust yours. Believe me, I’m better at it. I’m rank, and don’t you forget it. Now show some respect for the rank and for your dead squadmate.”
“I said we got along fine, and we did. Hell, Ammy got along fine with everybody. She had that way. She was good with people. You think I don’t want to know who took her down? We all want to know. It doesn’t make any sense.” Some of the bravado cracked as he dragged his fingers through his hair. “Why the hell aren’t you hammering at the people in her building? It had to be somebody in there. She lived in a secure building, and she was careful.”
“Have you been to her building, her apartment?”
He closed up again. “Sure, a couple of times. Picked her up, dropped her off when we worked a case together. I have a ride, she doesn’t. So what?”
“Did you and Detective Coltraine have a personal relationship?”
“You mean did I screw her. Look, bitch—”
Eve leaned in again. “I am a ranking officer. If you call me a bitch, you’d better damn well put Lieutenant in front of it. Answer the question.”
“No. Not like you mean. We had a drink now and then, like everybody else in the squad. Maybe we grabbed a meal. She was tied up with the death doctor. You ought to be talking to him. He had access to her building, her apartment, he’d know how to take her out fast, leave a clean scene.”
“Do you have any knowledge that there was any friction between her and Dr. Morris?”
He shrugged, scowled off toward the window. “People have sex, they have friction. First person you eyeball with murder is the spouse or lover. But you’re here, grinding us through it.”
“So noted. You’re done, Detective.”
Eve sat, watched as he strode out, gave the door a slam behind him. “He made a play for her, that’s my take. Too much heat there. He made a play and she brushed him back, and then she goes for Morris. He’s the type used to having women go for him, not somebody else.”
“He’d be stupid to give us an alibi we can break,” Peabody said.
“Yeah, but we’ll check it anyway. In fact, you do that now. I’ll go thank Delong.”
“If there was something between him and Coltraine—or tension between them because she didn’t let there be—wouldn’t the rest of the squad know?”
“Cops are good at keeping secrets.”
They met outside, where, at Peabody’s insistence, they grabbed a quick to-go lunch from the deli. Eve wasn’t sure what was inside the roll she ate while they leaned against her vehicle, but it was pretty damn good.
“So, Clifton’s alibi checks out.” Peabody chomped into her own sandwich with obvious enjoyment. “But she was pretty pissy about it. ‘Yeah, we spent the night together, so what.’ Snarly, defensive. She and Clifton deserve each other.”
Eve ate, watched cops come and go. Busy little house, she thought. And little meant more interaction, more internal relationships. Cops tended to stand for each other, it was part of the code. She’d taken down wrong cops before, and it was a hard and ugly process.
She hoped she wouldn’t have to take one down for this.
“Clifton’s had a lot of disciplinary slaps, and a few marks for using undue force. He’s got a temper. This murder doesn’t feel like heat. But we need to dig into him, and his alibi, a little deeper.”
“I hate that. I hate looking at us for this.”
“Then we hope it’s a straight bad guy, one without a badge. But we look. We’ll take the weasel next, then I want to go back to the scene, go through it again.” She walked around to get in the car, leaving Peabody no choice but to hop in.
They found the pawnshop and its proprietor easily enough. The guy looked a little like a weasel, Eve thought—or what she figured a weasel looked like. He sat in back of his security glass, making a deal with a guy sweating for his next fix.
Bollimer’s long, sharp nose twitched in the center of his long, thin face. Scenting cop, Eve decided, as the man’s bright, black eyes darted over toward her and Peabody.
“You got fifty.”
“Come on, man.” The junkie’s body twitched, his voice piped with desperation. “I need the hundred. It’s worth more’n that. Worth two-fifty easy. Have a heart, man. I need the one.”
Bollimer sniffed through his nose, pretended to examine the wrist unit more carefully. “Seventy-five. That’s the best I can do.”
“How about ninety, maybe? How about ninety? It’s a nice piece.”
“Seventy-five’s the limit.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll take it.”
Bollimer tapped some keys on his minicomp, and it spat out a form. He slid it through the chute. “You know the drill.”
The junkie scrawled his name on both parts, tore off his tab, slid the other end back to Bollimer. After keying in another code, Bollimer sent the seventy-five jingling down a tube. “You got thirty days to reclaim,” he said, and only shook his head as the man rushed out of the shop.
“He’ll be back, but not to claim this.” Bollimer tagged the wrist unit, set it aside. Then he ran a hand over the near-mirror gloss of his slicked-back hair. “What can I do for you officers today?”
“Regular customer?” Eve asked.
“Binks? Sure. This is his property.” Bollinger tapped the wrist unit. “I’ve seen him wearing it before.”
“Sooner or later, he’s going to get a jones on without anything to hock. Then he’s going to start stealing, end up mugging somebody.”
Bollimer nodded sagely. “It’s the way of this sad, sad world. I run a straight place. Licensed. I check the hot sheet for stolen merchandise every day, and cooperate with the authorities. You looking for something hot maybe hasn’t hit the sheets, you can take a look around.”
“We’re Homicide.” Eve pulled out her badge, held it up to the security screen. “We’re investigating the murder of Detective Coltraine.”
His mouth dropped open while his black weasely eyes popped wide. “What did you say? Ammy? You’re telling me Ammy got killed?”
“The media’s reported it. Her name was released to them a couple hours ago. Don’t you listen to the screen, Stu?”
“What the fuck I want to hear that shit for? Hold on. Just hold on.”
He pushed a button, had the screen coming down on his front door. Eve heard the lock click. Though his shock and distress rang true, she set a hand on her hip closer to her weapon when he pushed back on his rolling stool, got up, and hurried to unlock hi
s cage door.
When he came out, she saw the gleam of tears in his eyes. “What happened? What happened to that girl?”
“Somebody killed her last night. Her body was discovered in the basement of her apartment building this morning.” That much the media had.
“That’s not right. That’s just not right.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes for a moment. “You got she used me as a confidential informant?”
“Yeah. Did you feed her anything recently that might’ve pissed someone off enough to take her out?”
“No. No. Petty shit, just petty shit. I used to be higher level. Got busted. Did time. You know all that, too. Since then, I’ve kept it straight, mostly. I didn’t like the slam, and don’t want to go back. Ammy came in one day, with the blond cop. They’re looking for some jewelry got taken in a mugging. Turns out I had one of the pieces—a ring. I did the transaction like an hour before. Son of a bitch. I usually got a nose for the hot.”
He tapped his finger to the side of his bladelike beak. “The blonde, she comes down hard—but the thing is, it wasn’t on the hot sheet yet. What am I, I says, a fucking mind reader? I give them the ring, the ticket, the ID copy. Full cooperation. Me, I’m out the two hundred I paid, but that’s the way of it.”
“They get the guy?”
“Yeah. Ammy, she comes back alone the next day, to thank me. How about that?” he added with a slow, sappy smile. “She comes in to thank me, and to tell me the guy who rolled the couple for the jewelry and shit gave the ring to his girlfriend. And she turned right around and comes in here to hock it. So they got her to flip on the boyfriend, recovered all the shit. Hardly ever happens that way. We got to talking, ’cause we’re both from Georgia. I haven’t been south of Jersey for about twenty years, but still. She’d come back in, by herself, bring me coffee. How about that? And I sort of fell into passing her information if I had any. She was a sweetheart. A goddamn sweetheart.” Those tears gleamed again. “They hurt her?”
“Not as much as they could have.” Eve took a chance. “They took her piece. Do you have a weapons business on the side, Stu?”
“I won’t even take knives, much less stunners or blasters. But I know people who know people who maybe do. I’ll check around.” He cleared his throat. “Is there going to be a service for her, anything like that? I’d want to come. I’d want to pay my respects. She was a sweetheart.”
“I’ll make sure you know when I have the details of that.” She drew out a card, passed it to him. “If you find out anything, hear anything, think of anything, contact me.”
“You got that.”
Eve started out, turned. “You said she came back, alone. Did she always come in here or meet you solo?”
“Almost always. You know how it is when you’re courting a weasel. It’s one on one.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it is. Thanks.”
Peabody sniffled when they stepped outside. “God, he nearly had me dripping. I think he loved her—sincerely. Not like I want to roll with you in chocolate sauce, but like a daughter or something.”
“She’s coming across as having that effect on people. Maybe she was going out to meet another weasel. One she was courting.”
“I like that better than thinking somebody in her own squad did her.”
“There has to be something in her notes, or on her comps. Something, somewhere, if she was working with another informant—or working on cultivating one.” Eve got in the car, sat, considered. “She could have stepped into something bigger than she knew. Or courted somebody who strung her along for a while. She said the wrong thing, asked the wrong question. The weasel, or somebody higher up the chain, has to take her out.”
“She worked a lot of robberies, burglaries. Whoever it was got into her building, slick and smooth. So, somebody who’s into more than petty stuff.”
Still considering, Eve pulled out to head back to the scene. “We’ll get Feeney, nobody does a search and cross faster. Well, except maybe Roarke. Feeney can check with Robbery, Robbery Homicide, Major Case. Whatever might link up. Cross with her case files. Maybe something will pop.”
“Even with Feeney, and McNab—and maybe the magic of Roarke—that’s going to take a lot of man-hours. Feeney would spring Callendar into it, if you asked. She’s fast.”
Before she could respond, Eve spotted the Chinese restaurant. Less than two blocks from Coltraine’s apartment, she thought as she pulled over. “Did you get that list of restaurants?”
“Yeah.” Peabody pulled out her PPC. “This one has to be on it as we’re nearly to her place. China Garden. It’s the closest coming from this direction. There’s another, the other side of her building, that’s a little closer. Plenty of others in a five-block radius.”
“She took the stairs. I bet she walked to work when she could. It’s close to a mile, but she needed to learn the streets, and she used the stairs. She’d walk right by here. Even if she took the subway, she’d get off a block down, and still walk by here. Let’s check it out.”
The narrow dining room sparkled red and gold. Despite the recent consumption of sandwiches, Eve realized it was past the usual lunch hour, still too early for dinner. Still, several tables were occupied by people drinking from small cups or nibbling on mini eggrolls. When they entered, a woman with a short, spiky crown of hair slid out from a corner booth to come forward.
“Good afternoon. Would you like a table?”
“No, thanks.” Eve palmed her badge, held it down at her side.
“Ah.” The woman glanced down, then up again. Her eyes, a sea green in her exotic face, showed both understanding and sadness. “You’re here about Detective Coltraine. Please, come sit. You’ll have tea.”
She turned, called out a quiet order in musical Chinese as she walked back to the booth. The young woman who’d been sitting with her rose quickly and hurried into the back. “I’m Mary Hon.” She gestured Eve and Peabody to sit. “My family and I were very sorry, very sad, to hear about what happened.”
“You knew Detective Coltraine.”
“She was a good customer, a lovely lady. We’re all praying for her safe passage, and praying that her killer is brought to justice.”
“Did she come in yesterday?”
“I served her myself.” Mary nodded as the fresh pot of tea, the cups arrived. She poured from the squat white pot. “I thought back after we heard, in case it was important. It was early, before six. Maybe close to six. She told me she’d window-shopped on her way home, and tried on shoes she couldn’t afford. We joked a little about shoes. She didn’t know what she wanted to eat, and asked me to surprise her. Sometimes she did that. I gave her the moo-shu chicken—it was very good last night—and two spring rolls, because I knew she was fond of them.”
“She came in alone?”
“Yes. She said she wanted takeout as she’d be eating at home, alone, and doing some work. It was early, as I said, and we weren’t very busy yet. So we talked while the kitchen put her food together. I asked why she didn’t have a date. She told me she had to work, and her boyfriend was also working. Putting in extra time because they were going on a long weekend together soon. She seemed very happy. She took the order and paid, without even looking at what we’d given her. She said good-bye, and she would see me soon. I think she was only here for fifteen minutes. Not long. Not very long.”
“Did she usually come in alone?”
“Most always.” Mary lifted her teacup with her elegant hands. She wore a wide gold ring, and her nails were long, painted a glossy rich red. “Once or twice she came with the man she was seeing. She called him Li. They had love all around them. I hope you won’t tell me he’s the one who hurt her.”
“No, he’s not the one who hurt her. Thank you, Mrs. Hon. You’ve been very helpful.”
“I’ll miss seeing her.”
“Sadder and sadder,” Peabody said when they were back on the sidewalk. “I guess you don’t think of how many people you brush up against, or how they might reme
mber you. The guy at your corner deli, or the owner of your favorite take-out spot. The clerk where you usually shop for clothes. Not to sound too Free-Agey, but it matters. It all matters, what we leave behind with the people we brush up against.”
“Someone she brushed up against wanted her dead. Let’s walk from here. Follow her steps.”
Somewhere around six, Eve calculated, Amaryllis Coltraine walked this way, carrying take-out Chinese for one. Nice day, nicer than today when the sky couldn’t make up its mind if it wanted to rain or just stay gloomy. Had she strolled, or had she picked up the New York pace and clipped right along?