“Yes, and the TOD from your gauge confirmed. You see the cherry-red skin color. There are a couple of hairline fractures on her ribs I’d speculate came from an attempt at CPR.”
“There was an attempt.”
“The lack of bruising there indicates it was already too late. The cyanide salts she ingested would have acted quickly. The tats and piercings as you see. She was a bit overweight, and considering the lack of muscle tone didn’t exercise. She had breast enhancements, and was wearing nipple clamps when delivered to us. She has little else to say. A life hard lived, hard ended.”
Peabody came back with a small pot. “I grabbed this out of your office, programmed you three cups from the DLE’s AC, dumped them in.”
“You’re a genius.”
“I couldn’t remember how you take it.”
“At this moment? With great gratitude.”
“If anything else shows up with her,” Eve told Morris, “let me know. Otherwise, you’ve given me what I expected.”
“I don’t think she’s holding any secrets now, but we’ll finish. I haven’t heard from next of kin as yet.”
“If you don’t, her ex said he’d make her arrangements. Let’s hit it, Peabody.”
“Be safe out there,” Morris called after them. “And my eternal thanks for the coffee.”
“I didn’t stall,” Peabody began, and Eve shook her head.
“Straightforward poisoning. No surprises. Unless you consider the fact she was slowly killing herself with alcohol, illegals, and bad choices a surprise. I don’t. You can start trying to nail down where Strongbow got her hands on cyanide salts. Let’s give the next of kin another twenty-four before contacting Glaze.”
Once she slid behind the wheel, Eve sat a moment, organizing her thoughts. “We’re going to focus on looking for the next target, try to get ahead of her. In the book, the vic was sixty-eight, so let’s go from sixty to seventy-five. She was worth about two hundred and sixty mil. We’re going to go from two mil up to four. She can be widowed or divorced—the fictional vic had been both—but she won’t be currently married or cohabbing. She’ll have a son and a daughter. Maybe other offspring, but she’ll have to have one of each.”
“I reread parts of it last night before I got the call from Dispatch. I can start a search.”
“Okay. Unless Harvo pulled an all-nighter like Morris, she hasn’t had time to get us anything yet, but we need to keep on that. I want Yancy all over the sketch. We push on the canvass for the damn dreads.”
“Can I have hot chocolate?” Peabody offered a winsome smile. “I fantasized about it on the hike from the subway.”
“Go.” Eve flicked a hand at the in-dash.
She drove to Central, saw with some astonishment a couple of kids sliding down the sidewalk on what looked like flattened cardboard.
“Why aren’t their asses frozen?”
“Probably because they’re only ten-year-old asses.” She handed Eve a go-cup of coffee. “I’ve been thinking about the coats—the two she made. Well, three, since one was reversible. She has to have a professional machine, like I said, something that will handle the heavier materials, the heavier thread. She probably brought it with her to Brooklyn. If she’s on a budget, buying one’s a big expense, so with her skill level, she probably had it before, hauled it or had it shipped up here. Maybe we can track it.”
“We need to push into Delaware. That’s another angle there. If she had her own professional machine, she likely did work out of her own place. Either full-or part-time. Do you need a license for that?”
Considering, Peabody pursed her lips. “Maybe a certification. I’ll check. If she sewed under the table—I mean didn’t report sales or fees—that’s a harder route to follow, but she’d have had some reportable income, or big flag. She’d need a certification or a tax ID to buy supplies wholesale.”
“She’d want that,” Eve concluded. “She’d need to maximize income. Start playing those angles back in Delaware, and we’ll keep on them in Brooklyn.”
She pulled into the lot at Central, shuffling the agenda in her head.
“Start digging on the license or certification or whatever the hell for tailoring. Female, in Delaware, and cross with any lapses in the last two years. Lapses or transfers to New York. We’ll look for employment, income from tailoring, seamstressing in Delaware, and again the lapse that fits our timeline.”
Eve got out, headed to the elevators. “I’ll push on Harvo, take another look at the Transit Authority feed—and see if we can track her from the stop in Brooklyn last night. Even in a stupid fur hoodie, it was freaking cold, so maybe she took a cab or a bus.”
As the elevator doors opened, something, some compact missile with arms and legs, launched out. It slammed Peabody on the fly, knocking her back and down. At the same instant Eve managed to pivot, catch the missile on her shoulder, use its momentum to flip it over.
A clatter of footsteps on the iron steps echoed with Peabody’s breathless curse. Eve pivoted again, but wasn’t quite quick enough to avoid one of the limbs—a foot—from glancing off her jaw, another from banging into her ribs before she dropped bodily on the now-cackling … man, she realized. A very small man with a really long beard.
She said: “Fuck, fuck, fuck me!” as she held him down, shifting to pull her restraints off her belt.
He continued to cackle, to wriggle, as Peabody gained her hands and knees and the thundering footsteps became a pair of breathless uniforms.
“Little asshole,” one of them spewed as Eve finally clamped on the restraints. “He just all of a sudden went batshit.”
Eve sat on the little asshole, eyeing the uniforms balefully. “What the fucking fuck?”
“Sir, he came in to report an assault, he said, and we were starting to process when he went batshit. He took off for the elevator like he had wings on his tiny little feet.”
Eve looked down at the crazed, glassy eyes of a man who looked like a creepy garden gnome. “And neither of you could tell he’s on something that makes him think he can fly? Get him in the tank. He assaulted an officer. Peabody, your status.”
“I’m, ah, okay. Rapped my head pretty good.” She reached around, probed with her fingertips. “Ow!”
“Haul his tiny, stupid ass up the steps.” Eve dragged him up, shoved him at the uniforms. “Two counts of assaulting an officer,” she said, rubbing her stinging jaw. “Find out what he ingested, popped, or smoked. For Christ’s sake.”
“I love you, sweet cheeks,” the tiny, wriggling man shouted at Eve. “Wanna kiss your boobies!”
“Yeah? Well, I want to kick your tiny ass. We’ll both live with the disappointment.” She gripped Peabody’s arm, guided her into the elevator.
“Boobies!” he shouted before the elevator doors shut.
“I’m surrounded by boobies. Do you need medical?”
“I don’t think … Were we just slammed by a giggling, bearded dwarf?”
“You were.”
“Then I probably only need an ice pack. And a blocker.”
“Get both. Goddamn world’s full of goddamn crazy people.”
The elevator doors opened; several people started to get on. Eve snarled. Several people backed off.
She repeated the process all the way to Homicide, where once again she gripped Peabody’s arm and dragged her to the bullpen. “Somebody get Peabody an ice pack and a damn blocker.”
Baxter swiveled in his chair. “You take a hit, Peabody?”
“I got decked by a flying dwarf.”
“I can’t count the times that’s happened to me.” But he rose, patted her cheek. “I’ve got you covered. Let’s get your coat off, sweetie.”
Across the bullpen, Santiago pulled open a drawer on his desk. “Got your blocker, Peabody.”
Someone else came up with a tube of water, and the reliable and earnest Trueheart trotted over with an ice pack.
Satisfied her partner would live through the morning, Eve started to turn away and walk to her office. She caught the scent of fat, yeast, sugar. Narrowed her eyes as Nadine walked in with a bakery box.
And with a rock star.
The blue line dissolved in the scent of fresh donuts.
Nadine, wisely, pushed the box at Eve and avoided a stampede. “Are you all right, Peabody?”
“I got slammed by a flying dwarf. Hit my head.”
“A flying dwarf?” Nadine repeated with a look of concern at Eve.
“It happens. What do you want, Nadine? We’re a little busy.”
“I come with baked goods, and some potential information. If you aren’t interested—”
“My office.” Eve set the box on Peabody’s desk, gave her men the hard eye. “She gets the first, or I hear about it.”
“Awww,” Peabody said as Eve stalked away.
“What information?” Eve demanded. “I’m not bullshitting about the busy, and Peabody’s eyes are still wheeling around in her head.”
“Um …” Tall, built, and handsome in a been-there-done-that sort of way, Jake glanced over his shoulder. “Where did the flying dwarf come from?”
“The elevator.” Eve headed straight for the AutoChef, as her to-go cup of coffee had splatted on the garage floor. “You’re here because I was going to look you up later, see if you could tell me anything about Glaze and Loxie Flash.”
“Actually, that’s why …” Jake trailed off as he caught sight of her murder board.
Eve programmed three coffees, gave him a once-over. “If you’re sensitive, we can take this elsewhere.”
“I wouldn’t have thought, but … that’s pretty harsh. I guess usual for you, like flying dwarfs.”
She reassessed him. She’d only met him once, under tense circumstances, and had found him steady. He had that tall, dark, dangerous look she knew some women went for. She assumed he had more going for him if Nadine was flustered over him.