by J. D. Robb
She shifted her gaze to one of the other women and got a smirk of understanding.
“So I’m trying to deal with him, and I’m juggling the stuff I can’t stow in the stroller, and this girl—she’s the one—she calls out to me and comes scooting up. She had Mister Boos.”
“Who?”
“Mister Boos, Sterling’s bear. See.” She gestured to the boy in the second seat of the tandem stroller. He sat casting looks of suspicion at Eve and clutching a bright blue teddy bear with mangled ears and a shocked expression on its face.
“Mine!” Sterling shouted, and bared his teeth in challenge.
The woman rolled her eyes. “If he can’t get to Mister Boos, life isn’t worth living. He’d dropped it, or maybe tossed it, and I hadn’t noticed. So she picked it up and brought it over, and about that time Max started wailing because Sterling was. She asked if she could give me a hand, and I said I only needed about six more or something like that. I made Sterling thank her for saving Mister Boos, and told her I only had about another block to go. And she said she was going that way, and she’d carry the market bag if I wanted. It was really nice of her.”
“She walked with you.”
“Yeah, she—” The woman, who must have had kid radar, whipped her head around and jabbed a warning finger at Sterling seconds before he could follow through and clobber his little brother with Mister Boos.
He subsided, with an angelic smile and a satanic look in his eye. Eve wondered if she’d be hunting him down in about twenty years.
“Sorry, he’s getting bored. Where was I? Oh yeah, this girl? She helped me with the bags, walked me right to the building. She was awfully nice, and really polite. A lot of kids that age, they don’t even see you, if you know what I mean. She got Sterling to laugh, said how she liked kids. Babysat for a couple of twin boys, I remember she said, so she knew they could take a lot of work.”
“When was this?”
“I know exactly because the next day was my birthday. April fifth.”
“She was alone?”
“That’s right. Walking home from school, she said. She had a backpack, I think. I’m not sure about that, really. But I saw her a few weeks later. Maybe a month, or six weeks. I don’t know. It was raining—sky just opened up, and I was rushing to get the kids home. That was over on Second, somewhere between Fiftieth and Fifty-fifth. Because I’d taken the kids to the Children’s Museum over there for a program. They had a magic show.”
“You spoke to her?”
“No, see I was rushing to get to the bus stop, because the maxi will take the tandem stroller, and it was raining buckets. I didn’t want to walk all that way across town in the rain with the kids. But I saw her, and I waved and tried to get her attention. But she and the boy just hopped on an airboard and zipped.”
“The boy,” Eve repeated and felt the tingle.
“She was with a boy, and they were laughing. She looked really happy. Wet, but happy.”
“Did you get a look at him, the boy?”
“Ah . . . Sort of. It was only for a minute.”
“Basics. Height, weight, coloring.”
“Well, gee, I’m not sure.” She pushed at her hair, bit her lip. “Taller than her. I guess we’re about the same height, and he was taller. Sure, she was about to his shoulder when they hopped on the board, because she hooked her arms around him like you do, boosted up to put her chin on his shoulder. I thought it was sweet. So, I don’t know, about six feet, I guess. Slim. I mean he didn’t have any bulk on him. Like I said it was raining so his shirt’s all plastered. A white kid. He looked white. Oh yeah, he took off his ball cap and stuck it on her head. That was sweet, too. He had brown hair. Brownish, in a shaggy, to about . . . I don’t know.” She tapped her hand a couple inches below her ears.
“How about eye color, features?”
“It was really just for a minute. Not even. Oh, he had on shades. Kids do, even when it’s raining, for the frosty look. He was cute. I thought, it’s nice she’s got a cute boyfriend because she really helped me out that day.”
“Anything else? His clothes, the airboard? Was he wearing any jewelry?”
“I don’t know. It was a minute.”
“Would you work with a police artist? You might remember more.”
Alarm flashed on her face, and the women around them began to murmur. “I didn’t hardly see him, and my boss . . . Plus, I don’t want to get her in any trouble. She really helped me out. She’s a nice girl.”
Eve weighed the options. The media would have the story by the afternoon, if they didn’t already. Lid would come off anyway. “You’d be helping her out. She was murdered early Sunday morning.”
“Oh come on. No, don’t tell me that.” As her voice pitched, the kids in the tandem went into dueling wails. “Oh my God.”
Immediately the other women closed in, touching her, gathering their children or charges just a little closer.
“The man you saw her with may have information. It’s important I find him.”
“I hardly saw him, and it was raining. I don’t know. She was a nice girl. She was just a kid.”
“What’s your name?”
“Marta. Marta Delroy.”
“Marta, her name is Deena. Deena helped you out. Now you can help her. I’ll fix it with your employer.”
“Okay.” She pulled a tissue out of one of a dozen pockets. “What do I have to do?”
After Eve made the arrangements, took Marta’s employer’s information, one of the other women spoke up.
“You said she jogged here in the mornings, about this time? You might want to talk to Lola Merrill. She jogs almost every day now that her daughter started preschool. She usually comes over to talk after she finishes. Tall blonde, great build. She’s probably already on her run this morning.”
“Thanks.”
She left the women, pulled out her ’link to make arrangements for her favored artist to take Marta, then switched to tag Peabody.
“I was about to tag you,” Peabody told her. “I think I have something. A woman who thinks she saw the initial meet.”
“Tall blonde, great build?”
“Jesus, do you have super-vision?”
“No, but I got a confirmation and one wit of my own. Get Lola’s statement, then I want her to work with Yancy asap. I’ll arrange with Yancy. Hold her there a few minutes. I’m heading your way.”
She contacted Central, added a second witness for Yancy as she walked toward Peabody’s zone. She spotted the blonde, and had to agree the build inside the black running suit with bright blue piping was exceptional.
“Lola Merrill?”
“That’s right.”
“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody’s partner. We appreciate your help. Tell me what you saw, and when you saw it.”
“Some weeks ago, the middle of April, I think, because it was still pretty brisk this time of the morning, and the daffs were just popping. I’d see the girl a couple times a week. She had good form, good stamina. We’d wave or nod, the way you do.”
Lola bent into a hamstring stretch. “I never talked to her. That day I saw her with this boy. Nice-looking boy. Off the path, sitting on the grass. He had his shoe off, rubbing his ankle. I didn’t stop because it looked like she had it, and they were laughing.”
She straightened up, pulled her leg up behind her to stretch the quads. “I kept going, and they were gone when I finished up. First time I’d seen him around, and haven’t seen him since. I was telling your partner I haven’t seen her around lately either.”
“Did you get a good look at him?”
Lola shrugged. “I wasn’t paying that much attention. I was just hitting my endorphins. Brown, shaggy hair. Nice looking. Good shoes. I noticed the shoes. It’s something I do.”
“What kind of shoes.”
“Anders Cheetahs—that’s top line. White with the navy logo.”
“Eye color?”
“Shades. Lots of joggers wear goggl
es or shades. And a cap. A ball cap. I noticed that. Oh, and he had on a Columbia sweatshirt. I went there myself, so I recognized it.”
Eve’s gaze shifted to Peabody, saw the same sense of satisfaction there she felt. “Ms. Merrill’s happy to work with the police artist,” Peabody said.
“It’s kind of exciting, but I don’t know how much help I’m going to be. I barely glanced at him.”
Enough, Eve thought as they finished their circuit of the park, enough to notice his hair, his shoes, his cap, his shirt. Yancy would get the rest, whatever else was buried in the subconscious.
We got lucky,” Eve said as they drove away. “Fucking lucky.”
“Seriously fucking lucky. Two wits with one sweep, and both willing to work with Yancy.”
“Cap, shades—harder to get a solid on his face. He’s smart there, but not smart to go with up-end shoes. Probably tried to impress her there. The sweatshirt’s his opening, his connection. He can’t expect somebody to spot them over on the East Side, like my wit did. And the meet’s more than two months before the murder. He’s going to figure we’d never put one with the other.
“Sure maybe she’ll mention meeting this guy in the park, and helping him out. But after he goes to work on her, it’s all secret. He doesn’t know girls her age, how she’d have to talk about it with her friend. Now we’ve got a shadow instead of a ghost.”
“About six feet, slim build, brown hair, white, young. Not much of a shadow yet, but more than we had an hour ago.”
“Once Yancy’s worked them, we’ll have more.”
She turned in the gates of home. “While I’m talking to MacMasters, start on the shoes. Tap someone in the division to help on that. Whoever’s not buried on an active. I’m betting they were pretty new, bought just for that meet. And we’ll start canvassing the area where Marta spotted them. See if you can find out what day the East Side Children’s Museum had a magic show, and we had a rainstorm. We can pinpoint the day the wit spotted them. Put someone on that, focus on music venues, vids, gaming parlors, places where teenagers might hang.”
“On it.”
“Tell Summerset to set you up somewhere.” She parked, pushed out of the car. “It’s not going to be his neighborhood either. He wouldn’t want someone to see him, stop, speak. Not when he was with her. Just the two of them.”
She walked in, simply jerked her thumb at Peabody when Summerset appeared.
“Captain MacMasters is waiting in your office. Commander Whitney is with him.”
She said nothing, but started up.
“Your gown is ready, and will be delivered today.”
“My what?”
“Your gown for Dr. Dimatto’s wedding. Leonardo would like to see it on you, in the event it requires any further fitting.”
Eve opened her mouth, closed it, and made some growling sound. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine. Just put it wherever you put those things when it gets here.”
Gowns, fittings, weddings. For God’s sake. Was she supposed to call Louise, report on the gown?
For God’s sake, she thought again.
It would have to wait. Right now she was about to talk to a grieving father about the investigation into his child’s murder.
Everything else had to wait.
9
WHEN SHE STEPPED TO THE DOORWAY EVE SAW MacMasters standing by the windows. Did he see the green, the color, the bloom, the blue? She doubted it.
He looked diminished, she decided. Worn and lessened by the burden of grief. Could he be a cop now? Think like one, stand like one?
She wasn’t sure.
She glanced at the commander, standing beside him. The stance was support, friendship, shared loss.
She would need them both to step back from that loss, to erect a distance of objectivity to give her what she needed.
Or to step away completely.
She walked in. “Commander. Captain.”
They both turned. On MacMasters’s face she saw that quick spark that was hope. Survivors, she knew, needed answers.
“Is there any progress, Lieutenant?”
“We’re pursuing some lines,” she told MacMasters. She moved toward her desk, around the murder board she’d deliberately left up. He had to face it, and she’d remembered what Roarke had said when she’d allowed Morris to see the board on Coltraine’s investigation.
That he would see she was the center of it. She was the focus.
“I brought the captain up-to-date, from this morning’s briefing,” Whitney said, his gaze latched onto her face. “It saves you time.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll go over some of that, but you should know we found two wits this morning who believe they saw Deena with the suspect. Both are willing to work with a police artist. I’ve arranged for Detective Yancy to meet with them.”
“Two?” MacMasters’s voice jumped. “Two people saw him?”
“Two independent witnesses believe they saw Deena with a young male. They both gave basic descriptions that match on coloring. Have a seat, Captain.”
“I—”
“Please.” He wasn’t a cop now, she decided. He was a father. She could only try to find the way to speak to both. “I’ll tell you what I know, and what we’re doing.”
She ran through the interviews with the two women from the park. “The timing on Merrill’s sighting corresponds to what we believe was the first meet. The timing on Delroy’s indicates they continued to meet, and outside what we’ve established—through your statements, your wife’s, Deena’s friends—was her usual area. Do you know if she often traveled to the East Side?”
“Not in general. She had her favorite shops and hangouts closer to home. And the locations I gave you near Columbia.”
“We can speculate that they met outside those areas to keep their relationship secret. We’re working to pinpoint the day Delroy saw them, and I’m sending officers to the location she sighted them. They’ll show Deena’s photo to merchants, shop clerks, waiters.”
She saw the struggle on MacMasters’s face, a battle between hope and despair.
“We may find other witnesses to help us identify the suspect. If someone recognizes her,” Eve continued, “they may remember him. Merrill, who jogs regularly in that sector of the park, stated she hadn’t seen Deena for some time. You and your wife indicated Deena ran in the park regularly.”
“Yes. She . . . several mornings a week. She . . .”
“She may have moved to another sector, in order to meet with the suspect.”
“Why didn’t I notice a change?” MacMasters murmured. “Carol did. But I never . . . If she’d told us. If she’d just . . .”
“Captain, my belief is this man was very persuasive, and very deliberate.” Was that comfort? Eve wondered. “He’d studied her, he had a plan, and he played on her youth, her trust. He used the Columbia connection to lower her guard. I feel that’s a key. Her friend goes there. She planned to attend. She knew, casually, several other students who are friends of Jamie’s.”
“Yes. Using Jamie, even a nebulous connection to him, would have engaged her trust. And being in need,” MacMasters continued. “Pretending to be hurt or in trouble. She’d instinctively offer help.”
“We can see what he did, how he did it, and I’ll be meeting with Dr. Mira later today to discuss profile and pathology. But we don’t yet know why. We believe she was target specific for a reason. And that you, the work you do, is that reason.”
“If you have evidence Deena’s murder is connected to one of my cases—”
“I have reason to believe Deena’s murder is connected. I don’t, at this time, have any specific case or circumstance.”
“What reason?” Pain vibrated in his voice, radiated from his eyes. “If this was payback, if this was due to my work, how do you expect me to live with that? How do you expect me to settle for speculation instead of answers?”
Here was the line she had to walk, so she kept her voice flat and brisk. “I expect you to trust
the primary investigator you specifically requested, and the team she’s handpicked, to do everything and anything necessary to find those answers. Inside twenty-four hours, we have two potential witnesses who may help identify this man. We have a solid connection to Columbia University, and potentially more witnesses there who may have seen this man. We have a time line of events, and the lack of trace and DNA on scene tell us this was well-planned, not a crime of the moment, of passion or opportunity. Every officer assigned to this case is working vigilantly.”
“I don’t question that.”
Shaky ground, Eve thought. How could the man stand on anything else at this point? “I need to know if you’re capable of working through your cases, your memory, your impressions, your gut to help this investigation find a connection. I’ve been through your case files for the last three years,” she continued. “I have a short list, but I don’t get a buzz from any of them. You may.”
“Give me the names.”
“I will. He’s not going to be in your threat file.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“We’ll check out every name in there, believe me,” Eve assured him. “But I’m telling you we won’t find him there. Anyone who made a threat brings attention. He’s been very careful to stay off the chart. How many men between eighteen and twenty-six have threatened you in the last three years?”
“I can weed those out for you quickly. Gang members, illegals dealers, chemi-heads—”
“He’s not any of those. She’d have recognized the signs.”
She waited, giving him time to deny or confirm.
“Yes.” He rubbed the center of his forehead. “Yes. You’re right. She knew what to look for. She was careful. She was . . .”
“He’s clean,” Eve continued, interrupting to give him time to compose himself. “He’s smart, and he can be charming. Both wits referred to him as a good-looking boy. Boy, Captain. He’s not in your threat file. Someone connected to him, possibly. You didn’t bust this kid. But you may have busted his father, his brother, his best friend, mother, sister. And for this kind of retribution, we’re talking serious bust, termination or long-term stretch.”