Kindred in Death (12 page)

“It’s worse than Coltraine.”

Eve got out, said nothing as Peabody walked around to meet her.

“We knew her.” Her eyes, dark and troubled, searched Eve’s face. “She was one of us. And she was Morris’s. I didn’t think it would ever hit home as hard as that one, working that one. But this? A cop’s kid, a girl like that, done like that? And I knew her. It’s worse.”

“He knows that,” Eve said. “He knows it’s worse than anything. He wants it to be, made sure it would be with the video. And he’s thinking he got away clean; he’s rocking on that. We’re going to prove him wrong, and take him down.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Peabody rolled her shoulders. “I guess that was a pep talk.”

“It was a fact. Go north. I’ll take south.”

A day made for strolling, Eve thought. Cotton-ball clouds dabbed across a sky of perfect and delicate blue. The air held the fragrance of flowers and flowering bushes she couldn’t name rioting in swirling islands. Green, green grass rolled like a carpet under tall, majestic trees. The wall of them and the madly flowering shrubs shut out the noise, the pace, the hurry of the city and opened a door to a sedate and verdant world.

The little pond sparkled like a liquid jewel under its pretty arch of bridge with the reflection of the trees and clouds a dreamy blur on its surface.

People sat on benches, drinking from go-cups, talking to each other or on ’links, consulting their PPCs. Business suits, sweats, summer dresses, beggar’s rags mixed together in the eclectic array that was New York, even in the green.

Nannies and professional parents took advantage of the weather and pushed kids and babies in strange wheeled devices, or carried them in stranger harnesses. Along the path joggers bowled along with their ear-buds, headsets, e-fitness pods tucked on, colorful shorts flapping or skin-suits showing off bodies already viciously toned.

She imagined Deena running along the brown path, her life spread out in front of her like the green, green grass and the brilliant islands of blossoms. Until she stopped to help a boy.

Since they were closer, Eve approached a knot of adults with kids first—warily.

She badged the group at large. “NYPSD. Have you seen this girl?”

She held up Deena’s photo.

She got a lot of automatic head shakes. One of the kids—about the age she judged of Mavis’s Bella, stared at her with that doll-eyed blankness Eve found creepy while it sucked busily on the plug somebody had stuck in its mouth.

“Maybe if you actually looked at it,” Eve said. “She jogged here in the mornings, about this time, several days a week.”

One of the women, with a very small, round-headed child strapped to her front, leaned closer. Eve had to force herself not to lean back as the kid waved arms and legs like a human metronome.

“I’ve been here nearly every Monday and Wednesday morning since May. I haven’t noticed her. What did she do?” She lifted her head with an avid, fearful look. “This part of the park’s supposed to be a safe zone, at least in the daytime.”

“She didn’t do anything. Anyone else? She might have jogged here more habitually earlier in the spring. March, April?”

More head shakes, but Eve noticed one of the women taking a harder look.

“You’ve seen her?”

“I’m not sure. I think maybe. But it wasn’t in the park. I don’t think.”

“Around the neighborhood,” Eve prompted, “in a store, on the street. Maybe more than once, if she looks familiar. Or maybe you talked to her.” She glanced at the two kids riding tandem in the cart. “She liked kids. Take another look.”

“I think . . . Yes. Sure. She’s the one who helped me out.”

“Helped you out?”

“I had all these errands. The woman I work for, sometimes she doesn’t remember I’ve only got two hands, you know? I had both boys, little Max and Sterling. Sterling’s a handful by himself. And I had to pick up a dress for her, and the marketing, and she wanted flowers. Lilies. So I’m loading, and all of a sudden Sterling’s screaming like I stabbed him in the ear.”

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 goggles 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.”