“Count on it.” She kissed him, walked out.
“I do,” he murmured, slipping a hand into his own pocket to rub his fingers over the button he carried there. “I do count on it.”
12
In her home office, Eve read the list of names from her search list. Potential third victims, and some, she thought, hit close to the fictional character’s careless, reckless, selfish description.
More than a few of them had a sheet—assaults, illegals, destruction of property, shoplifting, DUI, disorderly conduct, public nudity. Some charges dismissed, some community service, some cage time, and a lot of court-ordered rehab.
As far as she could discern not one of them contributed in any way to society. And not one of them deserved to end up on her board as a victim.
She sent them to Peabody with instructions to set up interviews—and to twist arms where necessary to get said individuals into Central.
As she’d likely be talking to people most of the day, she didn’t want to start now. She sent Nadine a text telling her to come in to Central, with a camera.
She sent a message to Blaine DeLano requesting that she and her mother come in to Central at their convenience, advising them to contact Peabody with the time they expected to arrive.
After one more message, this to Mira asking for another consult, she sat back a moment to review her notes, then her board.
Shake things up, she thought again. Change the angles and give the crazy bitch something to think about.
She looked forward to giving Strongbow a dose of the real.
She headed downstairs, saw her coat, a scarf—not the one she’d unwound the night before but a long black cloud—along with black gloves probably lined with some ridiculously expensive fur, and her oddly beloved snowflake cap.
She lifted the memo cube topping the pile, engaged.
After a brief, sort of jazzy instrumental, voices—male and female—sang in harmony.
Baby, it’s coooold ouuutside!
She snickered, wondered how he managed to think of the silly. After gearing up, she slipped the memo cube into the pocket of her coat.
She walked into the cold outside.
Something fell from the sky that wasn’t quite snow, wasn’t quite ice, but took elements from both to create the altogether nasty. The thin skin of it over the streets boosted traffic from annoying to insane.
She cursed it. Cursing it didn’t make anyone move faster or with more skill or sense, but she felt better after venting.
By the time she pulled into the garage at Central, she wished the entire driving population of New York City into the fiery flames of hell.
She made her way up to Homicide, and as she swung in noted Santiago sat at his desk. He wore a cowboy hat and a sulky expression.
She said, “You’re wearing the hat.”
“I know, boss. It’s on my head.”
“Why are you wearing the hat?”
He shifted to aim his sulky look at his partner. Detective Carmichael smiled her most serene smile. “A little bet,” she said, “on the Knicks game. Chicago wins, I spring for lunch for a week. Knicks win, he wears the hat for a week.”
“You bet against the Knicks? You deserve the hat.”
“I grew up in Chicago,” Santiago protested. “That’s gotta count.”
“The people of New York pay your freight, Santiago. That’s what counts.”
The sulk deepened. “Don’t you own the Celtics?”
“Roarke owns the Celtics,” she corrected. “And when they play the Knicks, they’re the enemy. We have standards in this division. Mets, Knicks, Giants, Rollers, Rangers. Get on board, Detective, or you may wear that hat permanently.”
“What about the Yankees, the Jets?”
Eve stared coldly. “Don’t make me write you up.”
She turned to Peabody as her partner clicked off her ’link.
“Got some of it lined up,” Peabody told her.
“My office.”
Eve walked straight to it, dumped the outdoor gear as Peabody followed.
“The DeLanos are coming in as soon as the girls leave for school. On the skank list … It’s heavy in skank, Dallas,” she said when Eve aimed a fresh stare. “On that I’m mostly getting machines. Your average skank’s not an early riser. I did tag one who hadn’t been to bed yet. She told me to fuck off, but since she’s currently on parole—jumped another skank in a club, attempted to shove second skank off the balcony. Both were intoxicated at the time. Also stoned. And as one Loxie Flash—legal name change from Marianna Beliski—is on parole, and in court-ordered rehab—which ingesting illegals and/or alcohol would break—and since she appeared to be under the influence of both, my suggestion that she come in or have her parole officer advised of this violation was met with a ‘Fuck you, I’ll be there.’ ”
Peabody’s rundown gave Eve a fairly clear picture. However. “I think we’ll refrain from referring to potential targets of a murderer as skanks.”
“Let’s see what you say after you deal with her, and the others once I run them down. I predict a skank parade. Anyway, I read your report. This Strongbow looks like a viable suspect. Obsessed.” Peabody ticked them off a list with her finger. “Pissed off. Threatening. Irrational.”
“Now we have to find her. I didn’t find a single Strongbow in Delaware after casting the net over the last five years. And the ones I’ve found in New York don’t fit.”
“It’s her nom de plume.”
“It’s her nom de bullshit, but we need to keep pushing on it. There’s probably some sort of connection. Going with the odds again, she’s in Brooklyn, low-rent digs, low-level job. We can start running females who relocated to Brooklyn around the date Strongbow wrote DeLano she’d taken the risk—so May ’58. Females living alone, no spouse, no cohab. No criminal,” Eve considered. “She never took a risk before, stayed in the background. We can flag any seamstresses, tailors—though that might just be hobby.”
“You really think she made that coat? If she did, that takes real talent.”
“I’ve exhausted the search, and that sort of reversible wouldn’t be hard to pin down if it’s retail. You’re going to run that down. You’ve got to get the material, right, whether she made it or had it made? If we continue with the living-on-a-budget line, having it made is less likely. If she made it, that dopey penguin material came from somewhere. Let’s find out where.”
“I’ve got some sources there that might be able to help. If she’s a serious craftsman, she wouldn’t order material online. You want to see it, feel it. And I’d guess she’d need a professional machine.”
“Tap the sources.”
“Will do. I want to study the security feed again, get a good zoom of the material. I bet my eyes would be sharper if I had coffee.”
Eve just jerked a thumb at the AC. “If you tap out with local sources, try Delaware. Maybe she brought it with her, the material. If she’s that good, she must’ve had specific venues for buying her supplies.”
“If she actually made it, she might be in the business. If she’s in the business, she probably gets her supplies wholesale.”
Frowning, Eve took the coffee Peabody handed her. “That’s a point. If you wash out with your suppliers, tag Leonardo.”
“He’s a high-end designer,” Peabody pointed out. “Did he design those pants you’re wearing, because they’re abso-mag. If I had yard-long legs toned like steel, I could wear those pants.”
“I don’t know who the hell made them, and Leonardo wasn’t always high-end. He’d still know people.”
And her oldest friend Mavis’s “honey bear” had the sort of sweet, open nature that drew people.
“Get on it, stay on it. Pull in help if you need it, but let’s track those stupid penguins. I’ll take the DeLanos when they get here.”
“Already booked A. Dallas, we could pass the run on Strongbow—hunt for single female in Brooklyn—to EDD. They’d cut through it faster.”
“Do that. And …” She trailed off when she heard footsteps coming their way. Female.
Hell, all she had today was female.
Mira, looking very female in her soft blue winter coat, some sort of fuzzy white beret angled over her dark sweep of hair, stepped to the doorway.
“I’m interrupting.”
“No, your timing’s great.”
“I’ll get on this. I love the hat,” Peabody said to Mira with a grin, getting one in return.
“It’s a new favorite. You do such pretty work, Delia.”
“It’s not work if you love it.”
Peabody clomped out; Mira swept in.
The thin, short heels on the rose-colored booties made no concession to whatever fell out of the sky. But they matched the pretty suit under the coat to an exact shade.
Mira set down her suitcase-size handbag—shades of blue and rose in a wavy pattern—unwound her white scarf.
“You want some coffee? Or that tea stuff?”
“The tea, thanks. I had coffee this morning.”
Though Eve couldn’t say what having had coffee had to do with having coffee, she programmed the tea.
“I appreciate you getting to me so fast.”
“I read your reports, last night and this morning.” Mira sat in the desk chair after Eve pulled it out for her, crossed her legs. “I wanted to get to you before my day started, as it’s very full. From the data and evidence you’ve gathered, Strongbow is the prime suspect. This person—and I agree with your conclusion, she’s a woman—exhibits signs of obsession and delusion.”
“And then some,” Eve agreed.
“She’s clearly obsessed with DeLano, with the books, with her own desire to publish. She’s moved from fan to fanatic. The accusations—her absolute conviction that DeLano plagiarized her work—is part of the delusion. And that delusion and obsession has its roots in her conviction that DeLano was not just the author of a series of books she enjoyed, but her personal friend, her mentor and advisor.”