When he stepped out, Eve took her own look around.
Bright and happy covered it. The tiny room all but glowed with bright pink walls—what was it with pink?—and the cheerful art covering them. Mostly flowers and butterflies, Eve noted, and all, to her eye, little originals likely done by friends or bought on the street.
A candy-striped duvet flowed, just a bit carelessly, over the bed under a mountain range of pillows. More flowers and butterflies, she noted, along with a dancer in one of those ballerina skirts, a unicorn.
Clothes, just as colorful and bright, tumbled over a chair. Over the single window a half dozen suncatchers were draped from fishing wire. A curlicue mirror over a three-drawer bureau held a collection of photos tucked into its white frame. Bottles, pots, a bouquet of paper flowers in a thin vase, costume jewelry—earrings, bracelets, and pendants in a multicolored bowl—jumbled together on top of the bureau.
The lone bedside table held a lamp with a frilly white shade, a tablet, a candle that smelled like sugared cookies. In its drawer Eve found tubes of hand cream, face cream, lube, a vibrator, a lighter—likely for the candle—a nail file, little clippers, and basic female paraphernalia.
She tried the tablet—not passcoded—and skimmed through with the vague hope for a diary or journal. She found what she realized were plays, some with parts highlighted, a calendar and schedule, a lot of bookmarks for stores, theaters, music, e-mails—plenty of them junk and spam—more photos.
She’d leave the deeper search for EDD, she decided, and turned to the closet.
If she’d spread her arms, she’d have rapped her elbows on the sides. While she didn’t really appreciate the size of her own closet, studying the complete chaos here made her grateful that hers, through little effort on her part, somehow remained organized.
Everything jumbled and tumbled—dresses, pants, jackets, shirts—in cheerful disarray. Dozens of scarves and belts hung over the rods. Boots, shoes, skids tumbled together in skinny cubbies, and out of them like a footwear river. A pair of battered toe shoes hung on a hook by their pale pink ribbons. Worn ballet slippers, shoes with straps and low heels Eve took for dance shoes—and a couple had those metal tap things on the bottoms—crowded onto a shelf above the rods.
Getting dressed every day must’ve been a frigging opera, she thought as she reached up for a box that bore Chanel’s name in big, bold letters among the glitter of stars.
Inside, Eve found playbills, old programs from school plays, dance recitals. The playbills had been signed by fellow cast members, some with inscriptions. Inside each, Chanel had tucked photos. Of herself, of other cast members—rehearsals, costume fittings, makeup sessions.
She’d saved some menus from the restaurant, had her coworkers sign them, attached photos.
No journal, no diary, Eve thought. Chanel had recorded her life as she lived it. In theater.
Eve replaced the box, stepped out of the closet. She wouldn’t find the killer here, or any trace of him. Chanel’s life hadn’t mattered to him. She’d only been a character in his world.
She went back out.
Lola remained tucked up, DeVon beside her. Peabody sat across from them, talking in low, soothing tones.
“Did you find anything that helps?” Lola leaned into DeVon as she spoke. “I didn’t touch anything in her room. I couldn’t even go in.”
“I’d like to take her tablet in, go through it more thoroughly.”
“You can take anything you need, anything.”
“Did she have other electronics?”
“Just the tablet. And the ’link in her purse—you already have that. Do you want mine? You can take mine.”
“That’s all right.”
“Should I … should I go see her? Her parents are coming in, and they’re going to see her. Should I?”
Eve read dread, guilt, fear, grief.
“I imagine her parents are going to want to have a memorial for her. Maybe you could help them with that. I think that would be more important.”
“I could help.” She pressed her face to DeVon’s shoulder. “I could.”
“We’ll help. I bet Annalisa would let us hold one in the restaurant. Music, dancing. That’s Chanel, right?”
Lola nodded. “Would it be all right if I cleaned up her room some, before her parents come? And maybe, ah, take out a couple of things Chanel would be embarrassed for them to see?”
“I think Chanel would appreciate that,” Peabody said as she rose. “You’re good friends, both of you.”
When they trooped back down the stairs, Peabody sighed. “They don’t know anything, Dallas. They want to know something, they’d turn themselves inside out to find something that would help.”
“There isn’t anything for them to know. We’ll finish it out, hit the vet office, the theater, but it’s long odds. If she knew her killer, it was casually, more like peripherally. Someone who came into the restaurant or to a performance, to the vids, all to observe her. She didn’t keep a diary, but she posted every damn thing on social media. Where she had dinner—while she was having it. Her classes, rehearsals, something that happened at the restaurant, a date, a shopping trip. It’s all there, so he could follow her tracks, pick just the right moment. The one that mirrored the scene in the book.”
They stopped at the pet clinic on the way to the theater. Eve had Peabody interview the distraught assistant while she herself warily eyed the waiting room full of cats, dogs, and what appeared to be large, furry rodents. One of the cats hissed like a snake inside its carrier, but the rest, as cats often did, simply looked bored or superior.
Dogs, in Eve’s mind, had three basic modes: dangerous, insanely happy, or just insane.
She caught the crazy-eyed look in one about the size of a small horse, wondered vaguely why anyone would want a dog they could essentially ride around the house.
When she made the mistake of meeting those crazy eyes for a split second, it danced its great gray bulk in place, then charged, dragging its squeaking owner out of her chair.
In defense, Eve slapped a hand to her weapon, but the horse-dog covered the ground like a sprinter, heaved itself up, planted its enormous front paws on her shoulders. And lapped its wide, wet tongue from her chin to her hairline in one noisy slurp.
“Sampson!” Uselessly, the woman tugged on the leash, pulled at the thick collar. “Down, Sampson, down! He doesn’t bite!”
If he bit, Eve thought, she would no longer have a face.
“He likes you.” Breathless, the owner pulled and tugged. “Sometimes something just clicks with someone he sees. He’s still a puppy.”
Eve looked into eyes shining with a terrifying, crazy love. “A puppy.”
“He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Sampson, down! He’s gentle as a lamb.”
“Step on his back foot,” the assistant advised.
Willing to try anything, Eve put her boot on one of the enormous paws. Sampson dropped down, wagged, leaned his considerable weight lovingly against Eve’s legs.
“Mrs. Pinksy, you have to be the alpha.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I do apologize,” she said to Eve.
“Uh-huh. Peabody?”
“Yes, sir, we’re done.”
Relieved, Eve sidestepped, turned for the door. Sampson blithely galloped with her, dragging his owner behind as she begged him to stop, sit, heel, behave.
Once again, Eve looked down into the eyes gleaming with mad love.
She pointed, said, “Sit!”
He dropped his huge ass onto the floor, slapped his axe of a tail. “Stay,” she ordered.
As she escaped, she heard the assistant say, “That’s an alpha, Mrs. Pinksy.”
“He was sweet,” Peabody began. “Big and sloppy and sweet.”
“He licked my entire face.” Eve ran her hands over it, grateful her skin appeared to be intact. “I think he might have licked my eyeballs.”
She shuddered it away as they walked. “I lost track in there, but from what I heard, she couldn’t add anything.”
“Nothing. She bought the emergency, and why wouldn’t she? She tried to get more information, but he broke the call. She followed protocol, contacted Lola, then went in to set up an exam room, and possibly surgery.
“She also checked their records. They have two patients named Prince, but one’s a cat, the other’s a ferret. No canine patients by that name.”
“We tie it up, then we layer over Jenkinson and Reineke’s work on Rosie Kent. The killer crossed both vics’ paths, and DeLano’s. We find the intersections.”
The wind blew and with it brought the scents of soy dogs, hot pretzels, roasted chestnuts. The urban street banquet. She caught Peabody’s head swivel toward a smoking glide-cart.
“After,” Eve said.
She badged the guard at the theater door, crossed the empty lobby. She paused at the back of the house as music swelled and the woman onstage finished up a number in a belting Broadway voice.
She ended it with her arms raised high, her head flung back.
Then she dropped her arms, shot out a megawatt smile as one of the three seated in the center of the house applauded.
“Thank you!”
“Thank you, Jessilyn. Or should we say Sadie.”
“Oh God.” She clasped her hands together. “I got it? I got it?” On a throaty laugh she circled the stage in pirouettes. “Oh my God.”
“She looks enough like Rylan to be her sister,” Peabody commented.
“Yeah. Take the three, and I’ll start with her. Let’s see what we get.”
7
With her high, sunny ponytail swaying, the actress bounced offstage toward the three in the seats. Eve started down the sloping center aisle.
She heard the woman bubbling, saw her shaking hands, or in one case, hugging the one she called David.
Eve gave it a moment to play out.
“Sorry to interrupt. Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody.”