“Jabbed at her with it,” Santiago added. “So we add that to the charges even though he fell on his face.”
“Tripped over his own feet. Blood on the sticker matches the vic. Asshole confessed in under ten in interview, claiming he had to kill the guy because he was overcharging. It was a matter of principle.”
“So it’s wrapped.”
“And tight,” Carmichael agreed. “Mope’s got a sheet as long as your legs. Just got out after doing a nickel for assault. Add all that, he’s in for life this time around.”
“Good work.”
“LCs did most of it. You’re in early. Something up?”
“Paperwork.” Eve started to step back, get to it, then frowned at Santiago. “I thought you played ball, not the . . .” She wiggled her fingers over imaginary keys.
“Both. I wanted baseball—practically lived for it. So the ’rents said, No problem, play all you want. As long as you keep your grades up, stay out of trouble, and take a year of piano lessons from your aunt. My aunt’s a pain in the ass, so striking the deal showed I wanted ball. Turned out I liked the music, too, so I stuck with it.”
“Now you’re a cop.”
“A base-running, keyboard-smoking cop who got to jam with Avenue freaking A.”
“And you sing,” she said to Carmichael.
“I kill when I can get to open mic night. And now I’ve sung duets with Mavis and Jake. Big night, right, partner?”
Santiago rapped his mug to hers. “Hey, we should start a cop band. Call it The Badge.”
Eve retreated.
In her quiet office she programmed coffee from her AutoChef, then settled down at her desk. Because cop work wasn’t only about locking up assholes who killed over happy poppers, she dug into schedules, requisitions, reports, budgets. The budget part required more coffee, but she felt she’d made solid headway before she heard Peabody’s clomping stride heading toward her door.
“Santiago said you came in early.”
“Paperwork.”
“I’m going to finish up the report on the double we closed Friday. Man, I’m glad we wrapped that before Nadine’s party. What a night.”
Rather than the glittery, boob-hoisting number she’d worn for “what a night,” Peabody now stood in sturdy trousers and a sensible jacket, with her dark hair in the weird little flip she’d taken to wearing rather than all swirled around.
“I hardly got to talk to you,” Peabody added.
“You were busy shaking your ass most of the night.”
“The more you shake your ass, the looser your pants. Plus, fun!”
Eve’s communicator signaled. She saw Dispatch on the readout. “Fun’s over.”
* * *
Within twenty minutes, Eve stood with Peabody over the body crumpled on the second floor landing of a multi-tenant building. From the looks of it, the building had once been a warehouse, now converted to apartments. Working class primarily in Eve’s estimation, decently maintained, poorly secured.
Neighbors identified the dead guy as Stuart Adler, apartment 305. With the uniforms keeping those neighbors back, Eve crouched down to confirm ID with her pad.
“Victim is confirmed as Adler, Stuart, age thirty-eight, of this address. Single. Divorced, no offspring. Got some bumps here for drunk and disorderly, public drunkenness. Two rounds of mandatory rehab, and since it’s not yet nine A.M. and I can smell the booze on him, that didn’t stick.”
His eyes, pale blue and shot with blood, stared up at her as she examined the body. “Neck’s broken. From the head wound, the blood spatter, it looks like he took a hard fall down the steps. Then add the knife still sticking out of his abdomen.”
“Stick him,” Peabody suggested, “give him a good push. Down he goes. Except . . .”
“Yeah, except. The sticking—with an open pocketknife—came after the fall or there’d be more blood from the gut wound. Not much of a blade, not much of a gut wound.”
“Gary did it!” somebody shouted from above.
“What? Are you crazy?”
At the sounds of a scuffle, Eve straightened. “Stay with the body,” she told Peabody. “See if you can lift any prints off the knife. And bag that apple in the corner.”
She went up the stairs where a half dozen people were shouting at each other.
“Knock it off!” She jabbed a warning finger toward a woman with wild eyes and a helmet of hair even that the bluster of March wind wouldn’t move. “Who’s Gary?”
“I’m Gary.” The man who raised his hand had a small beard, a shock of brown hair tipped gold at the ends. He wore a tweed jacket with a loosened tie and his shirt unbuttoned at the neck. “Gary Phizer. 304. Across the hall from . . . from Stuart. I called the police. I called them. I was leaving for school—I’m a teacher—and I saw him. I ran down to him, but I could see . . .”
“You were fighting last night!” Helmet Hair glared at Gary. “You threatened to break his neck.”
“I threatened to break his screen, Mildred, if he didn’t turn down the volume. He was drunk, again,” he said to Eve. “And he had some vid on—a lot of shouting, crashing, whatever. I live right across the hall. It was two in the damn morning when we got into it. I’d already asked him twice. He’d turn it down, then turn it up again. I was just trying to get some sleep.”
“You had an altercation.”
Nervously now, Gary shifted. “Well . . . I guess. He took a swing at me. He missed, and nearly fell over. And, okay, I nearly punched him, and I’ve never punched anybody in my life. But he was drunk and stupid. Yeah, I was pissed off, so we had some words. I told him if he didn’t turn the screen down, I’d get a damn hammer and break it to pieces.”
“You didn’t think to call the police about the noise?”
Now he sighed. “I have before—and I’m not the only one. What’re they going to do? They tell him to turn it down, he turns it down, maybe keeps it down a few days. Then he gets drunk again, and around and around we go.”
“That’s the truth.” A woman, still in her pajamas, jiggled a baby. “My husband and I finally ended up soundproofing the wall. We’re in 303. When Stu fell off the wagon—which was at least once a week—he got obnoxious. Gary didn’t kill anybody, Mildred, and you know it. Any more than my Rolo did, and Rolo had plenty of words with Stu about the noise before we gave it up and soundproofed that wall.”
She wagged the finger of her free hand at Mildred Helmet Hair. “So did you, Mildred, and the rest of us. So did the family in the apartment below his because he’d stomp around half the night when he was drinking. Or he’d crash into things. Didn’t you have to call the MTs, Mildred, just last month when you heard a crash and found him sprawled out right here in the hall. Tripped,” she told Eve, “broke his nose that time. Either knocked himself unconscious or passed out from the drink.”
Mildred crossed her arms over prodigious breasts. “I’m not saying he wasn’t a drunken idiot, but he didn’t stab himself in the belly.”
“Or he did,” Eve countered. “Peabody! Bring up that apple.”
Peabody brought up the evidence bag holding a sad-looking apple going sickly brown where the peel dangled away from the fruit.
“Did Gary like apples?”
Mildred’s wild eyes teared up. “‘Apple a day.’ That’s what he’d say. He liked to peel them, try to get the peel off in one run. Said it was good luck if you did.”
“What did he peel them with?”
“His pocketknife usually, I guess. But Gary—”
“Did you get prints off the pocketknife from the body, Detective?”
“Yes, sir. The victim’s.”
“We have work yet to do, but I’m going to tell you that—with the evidence and statements given thus far—this doesn’t look like a homicide. It reads, at this point, like an accident. Mr. Adler was drunk, he was using his pocketknife to peel an apple as he started down the stairs. Your elevator’s out of order.”
“For four days now,” Mildred said, bitterly. “The landlord—”
“Ma’am, save that,” Eve advised. “He trips, loses his balance, takes a bad fall. When he lands, breaking his neck, fracturing his skull, he also has the misfortune of landing on his open pocketknife.”
“It sounds just like him,” the woman with the baby muttered.
“Why don’t you all go back in your apartments, let us do our job.”
“I’m glad I didn’t punch him,” Gary said quietly. “I’m sorry I called him an asshole last night, but I’m glad I didn’t punch him.”
* * *
Accident or not, death had to be investigated, evidence gathered, statements taken. All that took a bite out of the morning. By the time Eve sat back down at her desk in Cop Central to write the report, Roarke’s admin, Caro, led Rochelle into his office in Midtown.
Rochelle tried not to goggle. She’d never seen an office so big, so classy. When the man himself stood up from his really important desk, with that heart-stopping framework of New York behind him, and crossed that plush carpet to shake her hand, she let out a breathless laugh.
“I never expected to meet you at all, much less twice in a matter of days.”
“I appreciate you coming in, and so quickly.”
“Curiosity’s a big motivator.”
“How about some coffee? Or tea?”
“Whatever you’re having’s fine. Thanks.”
“I’ll take care of that.”
The admin looked as classy as the office, to Rochelle’s mind, with her gorgeous hair the color of fresh snow, the sharp suit that made Rochelle’s—now in its third season—feel just sad.
“Let’s have a seat.” Roarke steered her to a sofa as plush as the rest of the place.