Page 24 of Calculated in Death

“Yes, sir! What?”

“There’s a deli up the block there. Go, fuel up. Get me whatever.”

“Yeah, okay. Sorry. We hung with Mavis and her gang until about midnight. It’s catching up with me.”

“Take a booster if you need it.”

Peabody scrubbed her hands over her face, and yawning, crawled out of the car. Eve skirted around the hood, walked in the opposite direction through the insistent sleet to stand in front of the building where Marta Dickenson died.

It looked good, she decided, even in the crappy weather. Dignified, old-school, and very, very fresh. She imagined the owners would have little problem filling those spaces.

If they ignored the small detail of murder.

Standing in the sleet, she closed her eyes.

Park the van or the four-wheel, because a mini struck her as absurd for abduction, near the front of the office building. She has to come out sooner or later. Waiting’s just part of the job. Security cams don’t scope all the way to the sidewalk. Let her come out.

Get out of the vehicle, she imagined. Let her walk by, step in behind her, stun her, muffle her, muscle her in the back in seconds. One in the driver’s seat, one in the back with her. Hold a hand over her mouth, hold her down when she struggles or makes noise. Short drive. One gets out, unlocks the door—one way or the other—comes back.

Muscle her inside. It wouldn’t take more than seconds.

How wasn’t hard, Eve decided. How seemed pretty straightforward. The why was trickier.

“Lieutenant.”

She turned, watched Officer Carmichael approach, his heavy uniform coat wet, his face pink from the cold.

“I saw Detective Peabody in the deli. We were about to go in for a meal break.”

“Whatcha got?”

“Not a lot. Nobody we’ve talked to heard anything. We dug up one possible wit, other side of the street, fourth-floor apartment, facing this way. She thinks, maybe, she saw a van parked over here last night.”

“What kind of van?”

“Dark,” he said with a wry twist of his lips. “Maybe black, maybe dark blue, maybe dark gray. No idea of make, model, plates. Her privacy screen hung up, and she was trying to fix it, thinks she saw a van over here. And she says she’s sure the lights were on in the lower apartment. She noticed that especially as she’s been watching the rehab progress. She figured the van was one of the crew, working late.”

“What time?”

“About ten-thirty, she says, give or take a few minutes. She messed with the screen awhile, then went for her cohab. He was sleeping in his chair, kicked off watching the screen. I talked to him via ’link. He doesn’t remember one way or the other. We knocked on a lot of doors. In a neighborhood like this, people mostly open up for the cops. But a lot of people were out during this canvass. We’ll follow up in a few hours.”

“Good enough. How did Turney do?”

Carmichael smiled a little. “She don’t give up.”

“Take her on the second pass if she wants it.” Let her see, Eve thought. Homicide, like most cop work, was walking, waiting, asking questions, and paperwork.

She walked down the stairs, broke the seal, entered the apartment.

Nothing to see, really. Same as it had been, but for the fine layer of dust left by the sweepers, and that on-the-edge-of-nasty chemical smell that clung to the air.

They didn’t take her farther than the front living space. No need to drag it out. Privacy-screened windows—lights showed through, but not movement, not activity. Good soundproofing. A dozen people might have walked by on the sidewalk, they’d never have heard her scream.

They took her briefcase, that was more than show, more than cover. That was part of the job. Take her work, her files, her memo book, her tablet, whatever she’d carried.

The woman had two kids at home. She wouldn’t have played the hero. And for what? Numbers, someone else’s money? She’d have told them whatever they wanted to know, if she knew it.

She didn’t fight back. Did she believe they’d let her go if she told them, gave them, cooperated.