He smacked his hands together. “Closed.”
“Sew it up for me.”
“Coworker, been stalking her, convinced they were soul mates. But he kept it chill—says how he was shy. He’s watching her place, so he sees her come out, take a walk. She does some window-shopping, even goes into a couple places, but doesn’t buy anything. Then when he sees she’s heading back, he runs into her.”
“Imagine that.”
“Right? He’s: ‘Oh hey, how’s it going?’ He likes to think she’s coming on to him, says how he’ll walk her home. And how he thinks she lives just down the block from a friend of his who’s having a party. That’s where he was heading anyway. Because she’s with someone, she’s fine with cutting through the park. He makes his move, and she rejects that. He’s upset, shoves her. She slips, cracks her head. So he grabs her purse, the earrings and such, takes off.”
“He did have a friend down her block,” Trueheart added. “That’s another reason he knew they were soul mates. He takes her stuff to that building, dumps it in the recycler, goes up to the party for a while, then goes home.”
“He puked all that out after eight years?”
“Credit my boy.” Baxter jerked a thumb at Trueheart. “He’s kind of doe-eyed, all sympathetic. We had a good whiff, but Trueheart played him good. How he knows what it’s like to love someone, to know they belong together.”
“Guilt all over him, Loo,” Trueheart said. “We have to figure they didn’t catch that the first time around because he wasn’t guilty, didn’t feel it. And where they worked? Nobody paid much attention to him. Plus, the friend vouched he was at the party. Nobody knew he had a thing for the vic, not then.”
“Good work, both of you. Peabody, I need ten in my office, then I’m heading up to EDD. I’ll probably go straight to Mira after. See if you can dig up anything on the blonde in New York. Try Fancy as legit or alias. Use the basic description. Could get lucky.”
In her office, wired from coffee, Eve wrote up the interviews, included her focus to identify the blonde. She copied her commander and Mira before turning her attention to her board.
A cop’s mind was a suspicious mind, and she accepted that.
So the question nagged. If Fancy Blonde had stayed in Barrister House for several days, and during a period of time when Henry Barrister was slipping, cognitively, physically, why didn’t any of the family know about her?
Had the victim? And if he had, given the impression of their relationship, wouldn’t he have mentioned it to his wife? Due to their professional and personal relationship, wouldn’t he have said something to his sister?
It just hit wrong that three adults, with their lives so closely entwined, with a multibillion-dollar business as part of that twining, wouldn’t keep better tabs on a failing father—and titular head of that business.
Possible—more than, she admitted—they’d left him to his own devices in the female companion area, at least. Maybe they’d checked in, maybe he’d told them he had company, and they’d given him space.
She made him happy, Tyler had said. And maybe that was enough for them.
And maybe, just to cover it, she’d ask Roarke to do another dive into the survivors’ finances. Just to make sure they hadn’t pulled out a nice lump sum that could cover hiring a thief.
“Just feels off,” she muttered, then put it aside to head out to EDD.
Though they were busy, she took the glides. Elevators not only closed her in, it made it harder for her to think when a bunch of other cops breathed her air.
Nobody breaks into a vault and takes one thing among many unless they’re under orders. Strict ones. So much there for the taking? A reason everything else stayed put.
She agreed with Roarke. Nobody steals something as recognizable, as valuable, as unfenceable as the Royal Suite unless they have a plan for it.
Unless stupid. But stupid would have grabbed a lot more.
Young, maybe still on the green side. Roarke termed the job basic, so why hire—if it had been a hire—someone who’d demand a bigger cut?
But you get what you pay for. So a little green takes too long. Maybe dazzled by all those treasures. Maybe has to touch a few. So tempting. Nathan Barrister comes along. Panic. Grab a handy weapon and take him down. Take him out.
Run. Leave the vault open and run.
Not Fancy Blonde, if that’s how it played. Eve’s impression there? Not green. But she was in it. Every instinct told Eve the blonde was in it neck-deep.
Since she figured Feeney for the lab, she walked past the center ring of the EDD circus. And still, the color, the movement, the chatter poured out. Rainbows and sunbursts, hip bopping, ass twitching. As she walked by, someone sang out.
She didn’t know the tune, but had to appreciate, from a cop standpoint, the lyrics.
“I got you now, fucker. In my sights and going down, down, down.”
