Page 6 of Framed in Death (In Death #61)

Unlike the Whittier’s elegant, prewar brownstone, the building that housed Leesa Culver’s apartment was a postwar concrete block with crap security.

Eve considered the graffiti adorning it reasonably artistic and remarkably lacking in obscenities.

On street level, it stood beside a diner, called just that.

A Diner advertised twenty-four-hour service.

Something she imagined a woman in the victim’s line of work appreciated.

On the other side, another post-Urbans building someone had faced with fake brick offered a street-level pair of retail spaces.

One had a sign announcing FOR RENT , and the other housed something called the Witchery that had a lot of crystals hanging in the window.

Eve caught Peabody eyeing it.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Too late, I already did.”

But with Eve, she walked to the doors of Leesa’s building, and waited for Eve to master in.

The lobby with its dingy walls and grimy floors offered a single elevator painted battleship gray. Eve barely glanced at it before pushing open the door to the stairwell.

She said, “Apartment 403.”

“Looser pants. Looser pants. Yours are really nice, by the way, but the jacket? That hits ult. I’m thinking about making myself one.”

The stairwell echoed with sounds of a crying baby, someone’s too-loud music, voices raised in a fight about making the month’s rent.

And it smelled like spoiled cabbage soaked in urine.

“Making a jacket?”

“A leather jacket. In my abso-mag-to-the-ult craft room. I just have to decide on the color.”

“If you make yourself a pink leather jacket, you’ll leave me no choice. I’ll have to kill you, but I can make sure you’re buried in it.”

“Good thing I’m thinking more classic and go-with-everything color. Not black, but maybe a gray with some blue undertones, or a deep brown or maybe a more coppery brown or—”

“This is your mind on the job?”

“It distracts me from four flights of stairs. But job-wise, maybe he—and it feels like a he—hired Culver before. Maybe she knew him from her work.”

“She wasn’t registered for female clients, so that reads male. Unless her killer didn’t like her spouse, lover, father, brother screwing an LC.”

“That also plays.”

“No ’link, no ID, no other jewelry on the body, and no money. LCs have to carry their registration and ID when they’re working.”

“Those would have been anachronistic with the pose, the painting.”

“That, and without a ’link we can’t know if she had any previous contact with the killer.”

She pushed open the door on four to a skinny hallway lined with doors of the same battleship gray as the elevator.

Up here, the lack of soundproofing allowed Eve to hear a woman in 404 shout: “Get up and get out, you lazy son of a bitch. I’m done! Do you hear me? Done!”

“Record on. Dallas and Peabody entering the apartment of Leesa Culver.”

She mastered into chaos.

The tiny space held a sagging two-cushion sofa wrapped in an ill-fitting red-and-gold cover and buried under clothes. Someone—she assumed Leesa—had tossed a couple of wigs, one black, one as red as the sofa, on the single chair.

Upside-down plastic crates made a kind of coffee table where several dishes piled. A tiny screen adorned the beige walls along with a couple of unframed posters. One of the Eiffel Tower, one of Big Ben.

A table barely bigger than a dinner plate and also piled with dishes, take-out containers, and a long-dead rose in a black vase had one chair. Currently serving as another depository for clothes.

Separated by a half wall, the kitchen consisted of a mini-AutoChef, a small friggie, a couple of cabinets, and a sink that would have accommodated a single goldfish.

Peabody handed Eve the Seal-It so they could both reseal.

“It’s not much,” Peabody said, “but with a little care, it could be cute and cozy.”

“Obviously she didn’t care about the cute and cozy.”

She moved toward the open gold shower curtain that separated the bedroom.

The room was, basically, unmade bed. What floor space there was provided a home for more clothes, shoes, an empty bottle of wine.

The closet held a few pieces she’d actually hung up, a few more shoes, a pair of over-the-knee boots in fake black leather that shined like a mirror.

Between the side of the bed and the single window jammed a table smothered with various facial enhancements along with a stand-up magnifying mirror.

On the wall facing the bed a tall, skinny cabinet wedged in.

She turned, looked into the bathroom.

A wall sink with rust spots. A stick-thin shower, a toilet. And barely enough floor space to maneuver from one to the other. Particularly considering the pile of towels heaped there.

“She took sloppy to a very high level.”

“I don’t know how anybody lives like this,” Peabody said. “Honestly, how did she find anything?”

“That’s our job now. I’ll take the bedroom and the bath, you take the kitchen and eating area. We’ll tackle the rest together. Check any drawers—she had to keep records somewhere, somehow.”

“I’ll get to it.”

Since the makeup table had a drawer above bed height, Eve sat on the side of the bed, angling her long legs through the space.

She found more makeup, a jumbo pack of condoms, and a tablet.

It didn’t surprise her to find the tablet sprang to life with a tap of the finger.

Leesa Culver hadn’t bothered with passcodes or security.

She found the victim’s financial records considerably more organized than the rest of her life.

Eve found every night’s income for the nineteen months Leesa had been licensed tallied.

She’d also listed the standard rates and each act performed—the occasional tip. She’d carefully deducted her fees and taxes, kept a calendar for her mandated medical exams, screenings, and clearance.

No customer names, of course. Street levels didn’t deal with names.

But she had the address for the flop she used when the client wanted more privacy than a doorway or alley, or his own vehicle.

Eve bagged and sealed the tablet, set it aside, then rose to try the cabinet.

Cheap jewelry, cheap, sexy underwear, crop tops, tiny shorts, a selection of purses just big enough for a ’link, an ID, her key—she had a spare one in one of the bags. In a pair of sweats that actually looked comfortable, Eve found two-fifty in cash.

She bagged, labeled, and sealed it.

She found another fifty in the toe of a shiny white bootie, then another twenty in the pocket of a skirt the size of a dinner napkin.

She looked under the mattress, dumped pillows out of their cases. Then had to curve her body to get down and look under the bed.

It occurred to her she hadn’t been the best at housekeeping during her apartment days, but even she hadn’t grown dust bunnies the size of a Saint Bernard.

Peabody stepped in.

“Why dust bunnies? They’re just dust. Why are they bunnies?”

Peabody considered. “Maybe because when you’re not watching, they hop around?”

“Do they? Do they really?”

“I don’t know. I never let them grow into bunnies. Even if I didn’t care, and I do, my mom’s disapproval would reach across the miles and shame me. I found a hundred cash in the kitchen, inside a cereal box.”

“Three-twenty in here. Sweatpants and shoe.”

“Otherwise, she had another bottle of wine like that one, but half-full, an empty AC, some snack food—chips, cookies. Crap coffee, and a bunch of little creamers she palmed from the diner next door. Fake sugar packs, same thing. Salt and pepper packs she probably horded from fast food joints or takeout. No cookware—I mean zero. Other than what’s dirty and scattered around, a couple of forks and a single spoon, one plate, two mugs, two wineglasses, and one regular glass.

“You know what I don’t find anywhere?”

Eve glanced over. “Not a single photograph, nothing that strikes as a family or childhood memento.”

“Exactly. I’ll start on the living room.”

“I’ll hit the bathroom, then join you.”

Eve found the medicine cabinet stuffed with skin care products and over-the-counter meds. A thorough check revealed no illegals.

She found another twenty in an empty face cream jar.

Shampoos and soaps littered the lip of the tub, and a full-length mirror hung on the back of the door.

She went out to join Peabody.

“Another twenty in an empty face gunk jar. Plenty more face gunk, hair gunk.”

“I got fifty so far. The inside of that lamp’s hollow, and she rolled a fifty in there. How the hell did she keep track of where she hid cash?”

“Bigger question. Why did she bother to spread it all over this place? A couple hidey-holes, okay, fine. All this? Pathological.”

“A guess?” Peabody continued to work as Eve pulled off the couch cover. “She figures when someone breaks in—though a place like this isn’t going to rank high for a B and E—and they find a stash, they’ll figure that’s it. Which isn’t pathological as much as stupid.

“Did you ever hide cash?”

“No.” Eve started on the couch cushions. “I figured if someone broke in while I was there, they’d have to get through me. I favored my odds. If they broke in when I wasn’t there, why should I add my hard-earned cash to their haul? Such as.”

She held up more.

“This hundred and fifty zipped inside this disgusting couch cushion.”

Peabody pulled two wrinkled twenties from behind the wall screen. “Add forty more, and I’m now giving you the pathological.”

“She kept her financial records on a tablet, and they’re precise and detailed. Then she hides—what is it?”

“Ah.” Peabody closed her eyes, did the math. “Six-sixty. No! Six-eighty. Pretty sure.”

“Hides six-eighty in more than a half dozen places in this sloppy dump. The woman had issues, but she also had a bank. She had somewhere she kept the bulk of her income.”

“She spent a lot on clothes. They’re cheap—style and value—but she had a ton of them.”

“Add the face gunk, etc. She invested in herself, but it doesn’t come close to what she pulled in. Even adding in rent, food. It probably doesn’t apply, but it’s curious.”