Page 32 of Concealed in Death

“No, you can handle yourself. But—son of a bitch.”

“He was always pissed-faced drunk. Hell, he hit on Lydia. She’s eighty-three,” Alma explained. “She does our books. He’s a dog, no question, and I can see him trying to cop a feel as long as it’s female. Age not an issue. But I can’t see him hurting anybody. Ever.”

“No, no, he’d never hurt anybody. He’s an asshole, but—cop a feel? Did he try that on you?”

“Remember that mouse he was sporting after the Fourth of July cookout about six, seven years back? Who do you think popped him?”

This time both hands went to his hair. “Alma, jeez! Why don’t you tell me this stuff?”

“Because then you’d’ve popped him, and I already had. And it was the last time he tried to mess with me. He apologized when he sobered up. What I’m saying, Lieutenant, is say you’re sitting at a bar, waiting for somebody or just trying to have a quiet drink. He’s the type who’d be all over you, thinking he’s witty-like or sexy or whatever, when what he is? Drunk and stupid and annoying. But he’s not the type who’d follow you out of the bar and get physical or get riled up and start something when you tell him to blow. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, but I want to talk to him. I’d appreciate his contact information.”

“Sure. Yeah. Crap.” Brodie boosted up a hip, pulled out his pocket ’link, then read off the data. “Right now I want to punch him in the face, but I have to say, he’d never do anything like this. He wouldn’t have done anything to those girls. I mean, yeah, he might’ve gotten drunk enough back then to try for some touch, but he wouldn’t have killed anybody.”

“Okay. Did you ever see anyone come around, or notice anyone who worked there who gave you a bad feeling?”

“I can’t say I did, or remember. I was juggling a lot of small jobs back then, trying to get a good toehold. It wasn’t like I was there every day or anything. Sometimes I’d be there a few days running, but mostly it was spotty. They’d call me in for some little thing they couldn’t fix, or to fix something they’d tried to fix and screwed up more than it was screwed up to begin with. I got more work out of it—doing stuff for some of the staff, doing stuff for people Nash and Philly recommended me to.”

“Impressions, on any of the staff, including Nash and Philly.”

“They were doing good work, still are, and it takes a lot of doing from what I can see. There’s no clocking in and out.”

“One more thing.” Eve brought Linh’s image on screen. “Does she look familiar?”

“Wow, really pretty kid. No.” He glanced over at his wife, who shook her head. “Is she one of the...”

“She is.”

“God.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, angled, took another, longer look. “She doesn’t ring any bells. I don’t know if I’d remember after all this time, but she’s got a really distinctive face, you know? A stunner waiting to happen.”

“We appreciate the time.” Eve pushed to her feet. “If anything comes to mind, contact me.”

“I will—we will,” Brodie assured her. “I hate thinking about those girls.”

Eve figured she’d be doing little else but thinking about them, especially when the second reconstruction came through as they left the apartment building.

“Got another face.”

Roarke looked at her screen, studied the thin-cheeked, sad-eyed image. “Would you like me to run a search?”

“Peabody’s doing it on the preliminary we got earlier, now she’ll run it on this. But hold on. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

She dashed back into the building, left him on the sidewalk. To pass the time, he took out his PPC, did some research of his own.

She was back inside five minutes.

“He recognized this one. He seemed pretty confident, even added an eyebrow hoop they didn’t have on the image. And said she had crazy hair—purple, pink, and green. She had tats—full sleeves—and he figured her for no more than about twelve or thirteen tops. He remembers all this because he was working right there when she jumped one of the other kids. He doesn’t remember why, just that it took several members of the staff to yank them apart.”

“Which tells you she was in the building, as a resident, had at least one physical altercation, and from the description wasn’t the quiet, retiring type.”

“You can’t get tats at that age without a legal guardian signing off, showing ID, and being in attendance. Her remains indicate she’d been knocked around regularly so I don’t see her legal guardian taking the time to do something that stupid with her. And that tells me she was likely on the street awhile, had connections. Maybe she’d been picked up a few times. We’ll get her ID’d. We’ll have her name.”

“Are we off to talk to the rarely sober asshole while Peabody finds her?”

“Not yet. I’ll get to him, but whoever did this probably wasn’t drunk. Probably isn’t a drunk as they tend to mouth off and make stupid mistakes, like hit on the boss’s wife.”

“Some bosses’ wives,” Roarke said, tapping the dent in her chin with his finger, “handle themselves.”