“Let’s talk to the neighbor across the hall.”
Eve judged the woman who answered as early thirties, a mixed-race female in black sweatpants, a gray T-shirt over a thin body. She had blond hair that needed a root job pulled back in a tail. Her eyes, a hazel that pulled toward the green, were red and swollen from weeping.
“Ma’am, Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody, NYPSD.”
The woman looked at the badge, looked at Eve as another tear spilled. “Whatever he’s done, I kicked him out. He doesn’t live here anymore.”
“We’d like to speak to you about your neighbor, Leesa Culver.”
“Oh.” Now she glanced across the hall and anger dissolved any more tears. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he slipped her a fifty—of my money, too—for a BJ when I was out working for a living. I work nights, cleaning office buildings, and what happens? I come home, again, and he’s lying in bed. Says he quit his job. Again. Which is bullshit. I bet you twice that fifty he got fired again. I’m finished.”
So we heard, Eve thought.
“Could we come in and speak to you for a few minutes?”
“Hell, I guess I could use the distraction.”
The apartment seemed to be the same footprint as Culver’s, but a world apart. The neighbor obviously used her cleaning skills at home.
She, too, had a two-cushioned sofa, but in a cream color that was spotless. She’d paired it with a chair that had tiny cream-and-blue checks, a small blue rug. The wall screen was double the size of Culver’s and was joined with a few framed prints.
The small white table in the eating area had four blue stools. The kitchen shined.
She’d hit Peabody’s cute and cozy, Eve thought.
“You might as well sit. Do you want coffee? I was late getting home this morning because I stopped to get coffee—since he forgot to pick any up yesterday—and I got pastries because he likes them.
“I’m an idiot.” She pressed her fingers to her swollen eyes. “Two years, two years wasted on that lying, lazy son of a bitch, and I buy him pastries. Do you want some?”
“Thanks, but we’re fine. We don’t want to take up too much of your time, Ms.…”
“Boxer, Stasha Boxer.” She walked over to take the chair, gestured to the sofa. “So what did Leesa do?”
“Ms. Culver was murdered last night.”
“What! Oh God.” Stasha pressed her hands to her face. “Murdered. Now I’m going to hell for thinking bad thoughts about a dead person. I didn’t like her very much, but… She was hardly more than a kid.”
“Could you tell us the last time you saw her, spoke to her?”
“A couple of nights ago, I guess. I think. I’m not really sure. Once in a while we leave for work about the same time. Mostly not, but sometimes. I think we did a few nights ago. How did it happen?”
“We’re investigating that. Can you tell us anything about her personal relationships? Romantic relationships, friendships, family?”
“I don’t think she had any. I sleep during the day, try to get a solid six,maybe seven hours in. That’s the workweek. Weekends I clean around here, do laundry, get the shopping and whatever errands done.”
She paused, closed her eyes. “Listen to that. Not once in there did I say he did any of it. Because he didn’t, and I kept letting that go.”
She drew a breath. “Done. I’d see her now and then on my days off. We’ve got a laundry in the basement, and she came in once or twice while I was doing mine. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing there, just dumping everything in together.”
Stasha shrugged. “She was young, you know, so I said how she should separate things, and showed her. Anyway, I don’t remember ever hearing—and you can hear everything in this place, which is why I wear earplugs to sleep—or seeing anybody go to her door, or hear or see her come home with anybody.”
Stasha lifted a hand. “I remember now. Showing her how to do something as basic as laundry, I asked why a pretty girl like her didn’t have a boyfriend. And she said she didn’t have time for that. She was working her way up, saving her money. She was going to be a top-level LC inside three years, and rich guys would take her places, buy her things. She wanted to travel to Europe—oh, and pay somebody to do the stupid laundry.
“Did she have family?” Stasha wondered. “She never mentioned family. I guess we didn’t talk more than a handful of times over hi, how’s it going.”
Stasha shook her head. “God, she was so young, and pretty, too. But I don’t know if she had anybody who cared about her. I really didn’t know her.”
“Did she have any interest in art?”
