“It reads: ‘No matter your race, creed, sexual orientation, or political affiliation, we protect and serve, because you could get dead. Even if you were an asshole.’
“These are the words the brave men and women of the NYPSD, Homicide Division, live by.”
Nadine touched up her lip dye. “You ran over the thirty, so you’d need some editing. And you’ve fallen back on passive voice here and there. Example: ‘The motto in their bullpen speaks for itself.’ Then you quote it. Active voice, fewer words.”
“Got it. Can I observe the one-on-one?”
“Stay off-camera, and keep it zipped.”
As Quilla pumped a fist at her side, Nadine saw her eyes track to Eve’s board. It made her proud. “That’s off the record,” she said briskly. “Any journalist who doesn’t respect off the record has no ethics, and doesn’t deserve to be a journalist.”
“I’ve got that, too. Can I ask you questions later?”
“Why would I want an intern who didn’t ask questions?” Nadine returned. “But right now, zipped. No visual of the board,” she added to the camerawoman as she rose. “Let’s see how it looks by that sorry excuse for a window. A little slice of the city outside, the murder cop all in fuck-you black, the hard-driving crime beat reporter in her serious, if elegant, plum. How’s the light?”
“Second,” the camerawoman muttered as she made adjustments. “Good. Good light.”
“Content’s the big guns,” Nadine told Quilla as she took her angle. “But on air, if you want those bullets to penetrate, visuals matter. We’ll do the intro back at the station, so a straight-on two-shot. In three, two … Lieutenant Dallas,” she began.
Nadine hit all the points. Eve kept it short and pithy, and tossed in a touch of arrogance with one viewer in mind. She judged it a satisfying use of her time, and calculated Nadine would have it on air within an hour—with repeat showings through the evening.
Before she could get back to her desk, Peabody came in. “Got you another skank, in fact, two for one. Turns out they’re frenemies and came in together.”
Eve considered. “I’ll take them together then. It may have more impact that way.”
“I’ll set them up. Oh, and I may have a line on the fabric—and now I’m pretty sure you’re right about her making that coat. I’m waiting for a tag back. How about that Quilla?”
“How about her?”
“Seriously, Dallas, she’s really excited about working with Nadine. Talk about impact. It’s the kind of opportunity that can change the direction of a life. She told me she binge-watched, like, six hours of Nadine’s reports and some of Now, and she put in a request to read The Icove Agenda. She really wants to learn.”
Peabody pulled out her signaling ’link. “That’s my tag-back.”
“Take it. I’ll set up the skanks.”
“They’re right outside the bullpen.”
Eve went out, studied the pair of them. Decided they’d entered a contest on who could present a skankier appearance.
She judged it a tie.
“I’m Lieutenant Dallas.”
The one on the left rolled her thickly kolhed eyes at the one on the right with the tattoo on the vast landscape revealed by the low scoop of her skin top that read: SEXY BITCH
Sexy Bitch said, “B to the FD.”
Her companion laughed so hard it made the cock-and-balls earrings hanging from her lobes dance and spin.
Eve led them to Interview, spent nearly thirty minutes delivering the warning. Cock and Balls seemed genuinely frightened, enough she ignored Sexy Bitch’s derision, and stated she intended to go stay with her mother in New Jersey for a few days.
Sexy Bitch claimed no crazy cunt scared her, and nobody messed with her good time. But Eve read fear in her eyes.
When she released them, Eve sat in the relative peace of the box and wondered what set a life in the direction of sporting genitalia as an accessory, or having somebody carve “Sexy Bitch” into your flesh.
Peabody gave the door a quick rap, opened it. “Dallas, I hit two outlets that carry the fabric. And the fact the fabric exists makes it a damn sure bet that coat was handmade. I think the outlet on the Lower East Side’s the best shot. I talked the manager into looking up sales of three yards or more prior to Christmas. She’s got one for five yards, logged in on Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving. It’s the only sale of enough yardage to make that coat.”
Eve rose. “Good work.”
“The clerk who logged it’s on a break, but she’s due back in twenty.”
“Let’s go talk to her.”
“We can do a skank run while we’re at it. One on the list lives a couple blocks from the outlet.”
Eve thought of the four women she’d already dealt with. “I’m going to need more coffee.”
Peabody worked her ’link as they made their way to the garage.
“Another outlet—Brooklyn. It’s the first I found in Brooklyn.” Peabody slid into the car, strapped in. “I hit there first, figuring if she lives there, she’d go for fabric stores there, but this is the first I’ve found that confirms that fabric. Still, they don’t have a record of a sale over two yards.”
“Maybe she works at a fabric store.”
“Even employees have to log the yardage. Otherwise, the manager or owner doesn’t know what’s selling for inventory and reorders. Or what’s low on yardage and maybe going on remnants or clearance. You can get some really nice remnants for small projects and crafts. And the fact is, the people I’ve talked to all say the same thing. That particular fabric sells primarily one to two yards. Something for kids, for a craft. A lot of one-yard sales for winter and holiday crafty gifts and decorations.”
“Whether or not she lives in Brooklyn, she has to come over the bridge to study and stalk her targets. No reason she can’t shop while she’s over here.”
“That’s what I thought, and I think this place is where she shopped. It’s not that popular a fabric. I only found four places, all boroughs, that carried it at all, and only this one with the right yardage.
“She might’ve bought it online.” But Peabody shook her head even as she considered it. “I’ve bought fabric—more like a sample of it—that way if I really know what I want and can’t find it in my usual spots. But that fabric? How could she decide she had to have penguins all over the coat? What she’d want is something easy to work with. Why would she care about pattern?”
“I think, considering the pattern she used, she didn’t.”
“Exactly, and Black Friday. It was on sale.”
Watching the budget, Eve thought. Shop the big sale, buy the cheap. “Look for a silly pattern—who thinks stone killer when they look at a bunch of penguins? Girlie pattern. Come in as a guy, leave as a girl. Again, who’s going to look twice?”
“We are!”
“That’s not how she wrote it. She’s going to think about that when she catches Nadine’s report.”
She found a parking spot that required a two-block walk. What fell out of the sky now was a cold and bitter rain, the sort that made her hate February with every cell in her body.
And still she found that icy wet less of a chore than time spent in the bright, patterned, swirling world of the Sewing Basket.
Big bolts of fabric rose in stacks on tables, hanks and balls of yarn hung from walls. Spools of thread—huge to tiny—formed pyramids or towers. Buttons—also huge to tiny—glinted and glowed.
Why had she never noticed that buttons with two holes looked like faces with empty eyes? Why had she never considered that?
Big, cheerful signs marked sections: BUTTON WORLD, YARN CITY, ON NEEDLES AND PINS.
But the worst of it, the part that made her back itch, were the fake people—men, women, children, even household pets—suspended from the ceiling.
And they all smiled.
Peabody pressed both hands to her chest. “Oh my God!”
“I know. They dress fake people, they give them fake dogs and cats wearing coats and vests and, Jesus, little hats, then they hang them. It’s just sick.”
“How have I missed this place? Oh, look at the colors on that Egyptian cotton! It would make a mag duvet cover. Maybe it’ll go on sale. Oh, and those yarns, the pastels look like Easter eggs! Spring sweaters!”
The voice, the eyes, sparkled, and had Eve taking a hard grip on Peabody’s arm. “No.”
“If I could just—”
“No. Ride your hobbyhorse off duty.”
Music played. Not loudly, but it hit the obsessively chirpy level on Eve’s personal gauge. The way customers—men, women, children, and household pets—packed the place told her Peabody had a lot of company on that hobbyhorse.
A woman scurried by hauling a bolt of something pink and shiny topped by a bolt of something white and frothy.
Eve risked releasing Peabody to snag her.
“We need the manager.”
“Oh, um …” Obviously distracted, the woman glanced around. “She was just here.”
“That pink shantung is gorgeous,” Peabody commented.
“Isn’t it? And perfect for a girl’s ballet recital, with this tulle?”
“So sweet!”
“Manager,” Eve repeated.
“Oh, yes, Karleen … There she is! In the midnight mohair gradated tunic and ebony velvet slimmers. I’d take you back to her, but the young diva and her mother are waiting for these fabrics.”
“What the hell is a gradated tunic?”
“It’s the mohair yarn that’s gradated. I see her.”
All the way back through the maze of tables, the towers, the stacks, Peabody made yummy noises and wistful sighs.
14
They found the manager—long sweater in varying blended blues—in an intense discussion with a man in a fitted vest, a precisely knotted tie, and a topcoat over his arm.