“Next step. She says it was dim light, and almost a year ago, but we have a detective artist who’s got a way of refreshing memories and getting details.”
“Is that his work?” Olsen gestured to the devil sketch on the board.
“Yeah.”
“It’s worth a shot.” Tredway considered, drank cop coffee as if it didn’t burn the stomach lining. “Course some guys—most, really—are likely to put the moves on a frosty-looker. We’re either assholes or optimists, depending how you look at it.”
“Me, I’m an eternal optimist.”
Olsen snorted at Baxter’s comment. “World champ.”
“Worth a shot,” Tredway continued. “What are the odds some random asshole or optimist puts those kind of moves on her at that event, and she and the guy she gets married to fit the target requirements down the fricking line?”
He took notes as they talked—actual notes in a little dog-eared book with a stubby pencil. Though she knew better, Eve would have sworn it was the same book, the same pencil he’d used seven years before.
“I tagged Yancy on this,” Eve said. “He’ll take his first pass with L’Page today. If this is our guy—and though the world is full of assholes, I’m with Tredway on the odds—she’s the only one we know of who’s seen the suspect’s face.”
“Maybe that face?” Tredway gestured toward Anson Wright’s ID shot.
“I’ve just completed an interview with him.”
Eve ran them through it.
“To sum it up, there’s some weight there. He’s been in the third vics’ home, has a second connect with them through the first male vic’s studio. He knows how to do makeup. No alibis, lives alone. He’s the right height and build, and if L’Page is correct, the right race. On the other side, he made no attempt, whatsoever, to come up with an alibi, and seemed oblivious as to why I asked. Not stupid, but oblivious and self-absorbed.”
“An actor,” Baxter added.
“Yeah. Apparently a good one. So I want to keep eyes on him the next couple days.”
“We can take some of that.” Olsen glanced at her partner for confirmation, got his nod.
“The boy and I can run shifts with you. That work, boss?” Baxter asked.
“I’ll clear it. Set it up. Who are your picks up there?”
“Take it away, Detective,” Baxter told Trueheart.
He ran through the bombshell’s data, her husband’s.
“My angle on that,” Eve began, “she doesn’t fit.”
“My angle is, she’d fit anywhere.”
Eve sent Baxter a cool stare. “Keep it in your pants, horndog. She doesn’t fit his type,” Eve continued, and laid out her theory.
Tredway took his notes, nodded through her explanation. “He’s looking for his dream girl, and his dream girl doesn’t bang out the sexy.”
“Unless it’s for him,” Olsen agreed. “But the get-’em-up-big-boy on screen doesn’t fit the image.”
“Too much competition,” Baxter added.
“That factors. They should take precautions,” Eve added, “but they’re low on the list. Who’s next, Trueheart?”
“Jacie and Roderick Corbo, both age thirty-one. Married three years with main residence Upper East. Additional home in Oyster Bay, and an interest in a family estate—her side—on St. Lucia.”
“Big-time trust-fund babies,” Baxter put in. “Both of them.”
“They’ve used both vendors,” Trueheart continued, “and Mrs. Corbo has used On Screen twice to record and broadcast infomercials for a line of skin-care products one of her family’s businesses represents.”
“She’s the face,” Baxter explained. “It’s a hell of a face. She also states she received a couple of overtly suggestive ’link calls a short time after the last infomercial hit the screen.”
“You got her ’link?”
Baxter shook his head. “She said she lost it. Husband confirms she loses her ’link about once a month.”
“The infomercial initially aired in November, Lieutenant,” Trueheart continued. “She thinks the calls came in right after. Two of them.”
“Describe ‘overtly suggestive,’” Eve said, and Trueheart flushed.
“I’ll take that and spare the boy. A male, blocked video, told her he was going to fuck her and fuck her right and she’d beg for more. He claimed he was watching her. The second time he called, she thinks maybe a week after the first time, it was more of the same, but he added he liked her in green, how that tight skirt hugged her ass. But he was going to like her naked, tied up, and begging for it even more.”
“Did she report any of this?”
“No, sir.” Trueheart cleared his throat again. “She said she just considered it an annoyance at the time. She didn’t even tell her husband, didn’t relate it to us until she began to get nervous during the interview.”
“When would the suspect have been able to see her in green? Could she pinpoint?”
“She checked her closet records, gave us two dates. The first was a family Thanksgiving dinner, which included some close friends, the second was an anniversary party held at the Corbo mansion, and catered by Jacko’s. We verified that as she wasn’t a hundred percent on it. The first event had about seventy-five people, the second more than two-fifty.”