by J. D. Robb
She tracked him down in the break room.
He stood, leaning against the short counter, munching on dried fruit from a bag, eyes closed, headset on.
His mop of hair curled appealingly around his striking face. He wore his sleeves rolled up, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, and a pair of well-worn jeans.
It occurred to her he probably looked more like a college kid than a police detective.
Could pass for twenty-two or -three, she thought. Younger if he worked at it.
Then his eyes opened, and she added on another five years. The eyes knew too much for barely two decades.
“How old are you?”
His brows lifted. “Twenty-eight. Why?”
“Just figuring something.”
He munched another handful of fruit. “You’re thinking of the suspect. He skews young, but may be older.”
“Something like that.” She glanced at the bag he offered. “No, thanks. Why do you eat that?”
“I wish I knew. I finished with Marta.”
“Delroy, nanny from the park. What do you have?”
He shook his head. “She didn’t get a good look. She was game, and she worked at it, but it comes down to a quick glimpse, and in the rain. She’s pretty solid on height and build, coloring, hair length. I walked her through it, and it’s coming out that she saw his profile. I got what feels like real on what he was wearing, and a pretty good idea of the style airboard. But his face is mostly impression. Young, good-looking.”
“Why don’t you show me?”
He puffed out a breath. “You’re not going to be happy.”
But he led her out, wound around to his workstation. Standing, he called up the sketch on the computer, then laid out the drawing he’d done.
“Shit. It could be anybody. It could be female.”
Yancy lifted a finger as a point. “Yeah, and the second part might be an advantage. It was a male, she’s sure of that, but she used terms like cute, and once, pretty. It may be he’s got androgenous features. Young girls feel safe, and are often attracted to boys with androgenous features. They’re not as threatening.”
“So, we may or may not have a pretty boy who may or may not be nineteen.”
“I’ve got your second wit coming in. She’s due in about a half hour. I did a quick ’link warm-up with her. She’s more decisive than Marta, brisker, comes off more confident. I may do better with her. And what I get from her I can use with what I’ve got here. I’ll show the finished to both wits, and see if it rings.”
“Tell me about the airboard.”
“Black, silver racing stripes. Metallic silver, she thinks, because it glinted, and it was raining so no sun. That’s pretty simple for an airboard design. So I did a search. Two manufacturers make one that basic design. Go-Scoot and Anders Street Sport.”
“Anders.”
“Yeah, how about that? Wasn’t that long ago you were investigating his murder.”
“Small world, even for the dead, I guess. But it’s interesting as the second wit ID’d his shoes as an Anders brand. Could be brand loyalty. Get me what you can get me as soon as you get it.”
“You got it,” he said and grinned.
Back in her office she did a run on Nattie Simpson, the husband, the kid. As MacMasters had told her, Nattie was doing her time at Rikers. The husband—now ex—had relocated to East Washington, with the kid. He was thirty-five, and couldn’t pass for a teenager. The kid was ten, and couldn’t pass either.
Still, she followed through with a call to Rikers for an overview of Nattie before she crossed that angle off her list.
No connection, no pop, she thought when she’d finished.
Dead end.
She checked the search results on like crimes, and found nothing to connect to MacMasters in the last five years.
She considered adding in victims and witnesses, then decided her office unit would probably implode from that much activity. She’d do it at home.
Earmarking that for later, she began cross-referencing Deena’s box of souvenirs with the list from Lapkoff.
There, she hit fast.
“Spring musical, Shake It Up, May 15-18.”
She skimmed through it, scanning photographs, play summary, the cast and crew lists, the ads, in case Deena had made any notations.
Though she found none, she logged the playbill into evidence, bagged it.
She continued through, making ordered piles—plays, concerts, dance theater, performance art. And frowned when she came on a second playbill for Shake It Up, same dates.
“Did you take his, too, Deena? Shit, shit.” She grabbed Seal-It from her desk, coated her hands. She paged through the second book, and found a small notation inside a heart above the summary.
D&D
5/16/60
“One’s his, one’s got to be.” She logged and bagged the second playbill, then placed a ’link call to Jo Jennings.
Her mother answered. Not frazzled this time, Eve thought. Weary.
“Ms. Jennings, I need to speak with Jo.”
“Lieutenant, my girl’s wrecked. Just . . . devastated. Do you know she’s blaming herself? Blaming herself for not telling anyone Deena was seeing a boy? All she did was keep her word to her best friend, but she’s crushed with guilt for it now.”
“It may help her if she can do something to help. I just want confirmation on something, if she can give it to me. And it could be extremely important to the investigation.”
“All right. All right.” Ms. Jennings rubbed her forehead. “She’s in her room. She’s barely come out since you came and . . . She may be sleeping. I’m not going to wake her if she’s sleeping.”
The ’link cut to holding blue. Eve used her comp to e-mail a priority message to Berenski at the lab.
Have a possibility for prints re the MacMasters homicide. Will hand-deliver asap. This is priority. Don’t give me any shit.
“Lieutenant. Jo’s here. I’m going to stay with her.”
“That’s fine. Jo, I need to know if Deena went with the boy she was seeing secretly to a musical production at Columbia University. On May sixteenth.”
“I dunno.”
“Would she have told you? I know she enjoyed theater, got excited about theater. She saved playbills. She had a large collection of them.”
“He was supposed to take her that night and he killed her.” Tears sprang and spilled.
“But it wasn’t the first time they were supposed to go see a play together, was it?”
“She said he really liked theater, too. He’s just a liar.”
She said it fiercely, bitterly. “Just a liar.”
“Lieutenant, that’s enough.”
“Hold on. May sixteenth, Jo. They’d been seeing each other for about four weeks then. It was a musical about college students performed by college students. I bet she enjoyed it.”
“Shake It Up.”
“That’s right. Did she go with him?”
“It was like an anniversary. A month. She met him for dinner, then they went to the play. He gave her a little stuffed dog.”
Eve remembered the collection of animals. “What kind of dog?”
“A little brown and white one. If you rub its ears it says I love you. Mom.”
“Okay, baby, okay. That’s all, Lieutenant.”
“Jo, you helped me a lot. You helped Deena by talking to me, by remembering.”
“I did?”
“Yes, you did. Thank you.”
Jo turned her face into her mother’s breast. Ms. Jennings nodded at Eve, then clicked off.
Eve grabbed the evidence bag, strode out, swung by Peabody’s desk. “I may have something. Two playbills for a Columbia performance, one the best friend confirms Deena attended with the UNSUB, on May sixteen.”
“Two? She kept his.”
“Seems logical. I’m taking them to the lab now, personally. I’ve got more I want to input in the searches, but this unit won’t deal with it. I’m workin
g from home after the lab.”
“Roarke’s up in EDD.”
“Shit. Well, I’ll see him at home later. I also need to go by the scene. He gave Deena one of the stuffed toys. Could get lucky there, too. I’ll run it, get that to the lab first thing in the morning.”
“If I hit anything in the meantime, you’ll be the first.”
“Right, do a secondary, adding in an Anders airboard. Black with silver racing stripes. Street Sport. He may have purchased that along with the shoes.”
“Got it.”
Eve dragged out her ’link as she headed down to the garage.
“Lieutenant,” Roarke said.
“I’ve got some field work, then I’m going to work from home. I’m heading out now. Just, ah, fyi.”
His eyebrow raised. “Then I suppose I’ll have to get myself home.”
“Sorry. When you do . . . we’ll talk about that then.”
“If you say so. I’ll be there . . . eventually. Eat something, and don’t wait for me,” he ordered and broke transmission.
She frowned at the blank screen. She knew annoyed when she heard it. He shouldn’t have poked into the cop work if he was going to get annoyed she couldn’t hang around to give him a damn ride home.
She stewed about it all the way to the lab, and was primed to chew out Dickhead’s heart if he gave her any grief.
“What is it?” he barked at her. “It’s frigging end of shift for me since you got me in here . . .” He trailed off, paling a little as he scooted to a safe distance on his rolly stool. “Jesus, Dallas, did you just growl?”
“I’ll do more than growl. I’ll rip out your liver with my bare hands and eat it.” She slapped the two sealed playbills down. “One of these is going to have his prints. I want his goddamn prints and fuck your end of shift.”
“Hey, hey, hey. You used to at least offer me a decent bribe. Not that I’d take one, under the circumstances,” he added hurriedly. “Just saying.”
Shoulders hunched, he drew one of the playbills out with tongs, set it on a sterile pad. He ran a scanner over the front, keyed in something on his comp. Blew out a long-suffering breath.
“Got smears, and lots of them, some partials, a couple of decents—and that’s just the cover of one. Do you know how many people handle this kind of thing? You got the people who put them together, pack ’em, ship ’em, unpack ’em, divvy them up, pass them out.”
“I want every print, and smudge, on both of them—inside and out—analyzed and ID’d.”
“It’s not a fucking snap. We’ll do it, we’ll get it done, but it’s not a fucking snap with this many hands on them.”
“Just get me the prints. I’ll do the eliminating.”
“Damn right you will.” He pointed at her, stood—or sat—his ground. “We got you what you needed this morning. I worked this myself, and put two of my best on it. We did our job, and we’ll do this one, too. So don’t jump down my throat.”
Because she respected his annoyance and pride a lot more than his whining and bullshit, she nodded. “The bastard who killed Deena MacMasters handled one of these. Had to. I don’t have a face, I don’t have a name. I’ve got lines and avenues and angles, but I don’t have a single viable suspect. We’re going to hit the end of the first forty-eight, and I’ve got no suspect.”
“We’ll get you what you need.”
She stepped back, hands in her pockets. “Two boxed seats, third base side, Yankees, first home game in July.”
He bared his teeth in a smile. “That’s more like it.”
What the hell, she thought as she trudged back to her car. He’d have earned it.
She started to head back uptown, toward home, then realized she wasn’t all that far, not really, from Louise’s new place in the West Village. A quick detour, and she could do her duty.
Probably Louise wasn’t even home. Probably. And if Charles was, she could just make noises about stopping in on the way home to see if there was anything she could do for Saturday.
She’d be off the hook, and it wouldn’t take more than thirty minutes.
Excellent plan. She called up the address, which she couldn’t remember, on her in-dash, and began weaving and dodging her way toward the more trendy sector.
Shady trees, old brownstone and brick, tidy little front courtyards gave this slice of the West Village a neighborhood appeal. Flowers bloomed, little dogs pranced on the ends of leashes held by people who could afford to stroll on a weekday afternoon. Vehicles, of the smart and shiny variety, lined the curbs. She snagged a spot two blocks from her destination and used the walking time to run probabilities.
Mira’s profile said he worked, and since he had better-than-average e-skills, maybe he worked in that field. The computer gave the idea some merit with a seventy-two-point-one probability.
Going with that, she thought, if he’d attended Columbia, he’d have taken e-courses. More, certainly, than were required for any degree. Possibly, he majored in some e-field.
Tap the source there, she thought, and refined her search request to Peach Lapkoff to include students from Southern states who’d majored in or had a strong focus in e-degrees.
Immersed, she might have walked by if Louise hadn’t hailed her.
“Dallas! You have to be the last person I expected to see walking by.”
Distracted, Eve stopped, glanced over. And there was the bride-to-be, with her sunny hair under a pink ball cap, wearing a dirt-smeared T-shirt and a pair of baggy cotton pants. The doctor held some sort of little shovel in her hand while flowers burst into bloom at her feet.
“I was in the neighborhood. Sort of. Did you actually do that?” Eve gestured to the flowers spreading and climbing behind a pretty iron gate.
“I did. Who knew?” Laughing, Louise pulled off gloves the same color as her cap. “I was going to get someone to do it, then I thought, for God’s sake, I can dig into someone’s abdomen, I ought to be able to dig in some dirt. It’s fun!”
“Okay.” She wasn’t sure about that part, but the results were fairly mag. “It looks great.”
“I wanted to get it all in before the wedding. Some of the out-of-town guests are coming for dinner tomorrow night. I have to be insane adding a dinner party to the list, but I can’t stop myself. Come in! You have to see the house.”
“I’m just swinging by,” Eve said when Louise opened the gate. “On my way home. To work. But I thought I’d see if there’s anything you need, or that I should—could do to help you out before the deal.”
“I think everything’s right on schedule, which is helped by the fact I’m ridiculously hyper and out of my mind. I had no idea I’d be such a lunatic about every tiny detail.” She led the way up the path through the flowers to the main front door. “I have lists of lists. And I’m enjoying every minute of it.”
“It shows. You look stupid happy. In a good way.”
“I am, exactly. We are. Charles is down in his office with clients. He’ll be another hour at least.”
“How’s that going for him?”
“It’s going great, and it’s so much what he wants now. This is all so much what we want.” She opened the door, gestured Eve into the foyer.
Smooth, Eve would have said, with walls in warm, subtle color accented with streamlined mirrors and bold art. A sleek table held slim, sinuous bottles in various sizes and sharp colors.
The theme continued with that mix of bold and quiet when Louise grabbed her hand to pull her into a living area with more sleek in the lines of the sofa, a hint of curve in the shape of chairs.
The impression was what she supposed would be upscale urban chic, with the personal touches of photos, flowers, and bits and pieces she remembered seeing in their individual apartments.
“This place was empty when you bought it, right?”
“Yes.” Pleasure sparkled Louise’s eyes to silver. “We’ve had the best time furnishing and decorating it. We still need the finishing touches, but—”
“I
t looks finished.”
“Oh, not yet, but it’s evolving. Let me show you the rest.”
Impossible to say no, so Eve trailed through the house, and tried to make appropriate comments or noises when Louise rhapsodized about how she’d fallen in love with a particular lamp or chair. Throughout, the ambience was style, slick, and somehow calm.
“Charles isn’t allowed in here yet.” Louise opened a door. “This is bridal mania.”
Eve wouldn’t have called it mania, but more organized chaos. In what she assumed would serve as a guest room, Louise had set up her wedding HQ. Two open, partially packed suitcases sat on a bed while gift and shipping boxes were tidily stacked or arranged in a corner. Wedding gifts, Eve supposed, that hadn’t yet found their place. On a desk beside a mini D and C sat a stack of discs, with a pile of notecards.
In the center of the room sat a large, two-sided board covered with bits of material, photographs of flowers, outfits, hairstyles, food, charts and time lines.
Eyes narrowed, Eve circled it, only mildly surprised to see a comp-generated image of herself in the yellow gown.
“It’s like a murder board,” she murmured, then winced. “Sorry, bad comparison.”
“Not entirely. It’s the same principle. Everything that applies is on there, right down to the olive picks for the reception. I’m obsessed.”
She laughed a little desperately as she pressed her hands to her heart. “I’ve got charts and spreadsheets on the computer to keep track of gifts, responses, seating, wardrobe, including the honeymoon. It’s like a drug.”
“You don’t need me.”
“Not for the details, but boy, otherwise.” Louise grabbed Eve’s hand again, then released it to wrap her arms around herself. The quick, jerky movements were completely out of character.
“Maybe you need a drug,” Eve suggested.
“Hah. I’m nervous, and I never expected to be. We’re changing our lives for each other, making a life with each other. It’s what I want, and I want it more every day I’m with him.”
“That’s good.”
“It’s so good. But I’m nervous because I want the wedding—that one day—to be so perfect, so exact I’m making myself nervous about all the things that can go wrong. Silly. I’m caught up in the fairy tale of the day.”