“This works. Thanks.”
“I can go back up?”
“Yeah. Keep it zipped for now.”
“I will. I swear!” She escaped.
A woman, dark hair coiled at the nape, some sort of magnifier hanging from a fancy chain around her neck, came out of the back, started toward a station.
She spotted Eve and Peabody, shifted direction.
She looked to be about sixty, Eve judged, with perfect makeup and a trim black jacket over pegged pants.
She wore sensible shoes.
“I’m very sorry, this is an employees-only work area. Can I escort you back to the store?”
Eve drew out her badge. “We need to speak with the supervisor.”
“You are. I’m Conchita Gomez. How can I help you?”
“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody. You once employed an Ann Elizabeth Smith.”
“That’s correct. Ms. Smith left Dobb’s employ several months ago. May I ask what this is in reference to?”
“We’re looking for Ms. Smith for questioning regarding an investigation.”
Gomez kept her voice low, under the hum of machines. “Your badge said Homicide.”
“That’s correct.”
“Is Ann a suspect in a murder?”
“We need to locate Ms. Smith.”
“I don’t know how to help you. She did good work here, was paid well. When she handed in her notice, I was surprised, and asked her if there was a problem. She only said she had other priorities and needs. I offered to request a raise for her, but she refused, in her way.”
“Her way?”
“Head down. ‘Thank you, but I’ll finish my current alterations before I leave.’ I hated to lose her, as her work was exemplary.”
“And otherwise?”
“Painfully shy, I suppose. She didn’t mix well. I run an efficient department, and we can be extremely busy. But good working conditions, community, contented employees help foster that good work and efficiency. Ann was efficient and creative. I wouldn’t describe her as content.”
“Any outbursts?”
“From Ann?” Gomez patted at the coil at the nape of her neck. “Absolutely no. Although I sensed something simmering in her silence. She rarely spoke to anyone.”
“Where’d she work?”
“Last station, left. I know she did side work. Most of them do. I look the other way as long as it doesn’t interfere with the work assigned here.”
“Do you know specific customers? It could be important,” Eve added when Gomez hesitated.
“I can’t say I know, but I certainly have an opinion.”
“I’d like a list of your opinions.”
Dark eyes registered surprise, but the voice stayed smooth. “All right. Let me look through my files and compile that for you. It is opinion, not concrete.”
“Understood. I’d like to talk to the other seamstresses.”
“Not all of them knew her. Ming, in Ann’s former station, came on after Ann had left. And Della only last month after our cherished CeCe retired. First station, right.”
“If I could interrupt the work for just a few minutes.”
Gomez turned to the room. “Ladies!” she called out. “And Beau,” she added with a little smile to the only male in the room. “This is Lieutenant Dallas with the NYPSD. She needs to speak with us.”
“Does anyone know the whereabouts of Ann Elizabeth Smith?”
Eve watched people glance at each other, a couple baffled, others fascinated or curious. Nobody spoke until Beau shrugged.
“She used to work here. Quit. She was stuck-up anyway.”
If Eve had seen him from a distance, she’d have pegged him as mid-teens. He had an explosion of curling purple hair under a knit cap, a narrow goatee with a silver stud in the center of his chin, and a slouchy posture now that he’d kicked back from his machine.
Still, he had about fifteen years on the mid-teens.
“Stuck-up.”
“Wouldn’t talk to you if you were on fire. Wouldn’t contribute to the pool. We do pools for birthdays and stuff. And the Secret Santa deal. Hell, I put in for that, and I’m Jewish.”
“You didn’t much like her.”
“I didn’t like her at all. Sorry, Cheeta,” he added with a grin to his supervisor. “It didn’t break my heart when she split.”
“Any idea where she split to?”
“Not a clue.”
In the back, across from Smith’s former station, a tiny redhead raised her hand. “Um, is she in trouble?”
“We need to speak with her,” Eve said.
“It’s just, she was sort of nice to me once, and I don’t like to get people in trouble.”
“Yolanda, it’s very important you tell the police anything you know.”
At her supervisor’s firm, quiet voice, Yolanda hunched up her shoulders. “Once, when I was really slammed, she helped me out a little bit, and that was nice of her.”
“I think she was writing a book or something.”
Eve looked over at a sturdy blonde. “Did she tell you that?”
“She never told anybody anything. I came in early one day to finish up some work because I was going on vacation. She was here, back in the break room. You have to pay for snacks, but the coffee and tea and water are free. She was back there with coffee, working on her tablet. She was into it because she didn’t even hear me, and I looked over her shoulder like you do. She was writing stuff, and I said: ‘Hey, you writing a book or what?’ She jumped like a mile, and grabbed her stuff. Didn’t even say a word, just ran out.”
“I saw her once. After she quit,” Yolanda added.
“When?” Eve fired back. “Where?”
“Well, gosh. A couple months ago. I was shopping for Christmas with my mom and sister. She looked a little different, but I knew it was her.”
“Different how?”
“Her hair. She’d cut it. She always wore it long, back in a tail, but she’d cut it to right above her shoulders, and dyed it really red. I thought it was a nice change for her. I guess—I don’t want to be mean—but maybe she gained some weight? She had on this big coat, and she looked a little bulky in it.”
“Did it have penguins on it?”
“Yes! So I saw her, and I called out, like you would. And I waved. I was going to cross the street and say hi, see what she was doing, but when she saw me, she just kept going. Walking away fast. It hurt my feelings a little.”
“Where?”
Yolanda chewed on her lip, then her thumbnail. “Um.”
“Just try to think back to what you were doing when you saw her. Across the street,” Eve prompted. “In the big coat with penguins on it.”
“I think … I guess … We did a lot of shopping that day, but it was either over on Third Avenue or maybe over on Ninth Street. I mostly think Third Avenue, right after we came out of Baby Love. My brother and his wife had a baby right before Thanksgiving, so we shopped there. I think that was it. Or else it was when we were on Ninth Street. It was back in December for sure, though. The first Saturday in December, because I asked for the day off—right, Cheeta? Cheeta can check. I asked for it off so we could go shopping as a team. And have lunch and—before lunch!”
Now Yolanda clapped her hands together, as if she’d won a prize. “Before lunch. I’m sure it was because it hurt my feelings when she saw me and walked away, and I talked about it at lunch. So the baby store for sure.”
“That’s very helpful, Yolanda.”
“I hate to get her in trouble.”
“You haven’t. You may have helped others out of it. If anyone remembers anything more, I’m going to leave cards with your supervisor. Contact me, anytime. Ms. Gomez, if you can compile that list.”
“I’ll need about an hour. Last year’s files would have been archived, as would a former employee’s tickets—work tickets.”
“Send it to me the minute you have it. Thank you for your time.”
In the elevator Eve pulled out her ’link.
“That was a lucky break,” Peabody commented.
“Maybe. Time to call in the locals.” She tagged her contact. “Lieutenant McMahon, Lieutenant Dallas. I’m still on your turf.”
By the time she got to the car she had Brooklyn ready to canvass the two areas Yolanda gave her.
“Anything?” she asked Callendar, who worked, car-seat danced, and slurped a fizzie in the back.
“Got a list started.”
“I’m going to have another coming in. We’re going to cross yours with that, see if we get any matches. Can you stick with this, Callendar?”
“You got me until the cap says different. Somebody smells like a fancy girl’s gym locker, after a sweaty volleyball game.”
“I’ve got to get it off!” Peabody rubbed at her wrist. “It was just a little spritz.”
“Serves you right.”
Eve took off, updated her teams—both of which currently batted zero.
“Shorter red hair,” she murmured as she wove through traffic. “She needed that to stalk Glaze in character, to select which woman connected to him would be her primary target.”
“Probably a rinse,” Callendar murmured back.
“A what?”
“Maybe she dyed it, maybe she went with temp color. You got somebody needing the different looks to become different killers, smarter to rinse it so you can wash it out, change it back, or change it to something else.”
“Like Mavis,” Peabody explained.
“It just washes out?”
“It takes a few times—and you can seal it so it won’t wash out for more than a few. Like my tips. I want to try them out for a while—not make a total commitment, right? It costs more to seal it up, but you can still do it all yourself. Home jobs.”