“They don’t.They’re just cheap overalls.It was a different crew when I took over from the job; they had them back then, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you where they came from.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Vinny’s expression softened.“But hey—I wanna help.So…” He pulled a notepad from a drawer, scribbled something down, then tore off the sheet and handed it to Marcus.
“That’s the supplier we use for all the maintenance and cleaning stuff.You can ask ’em if they stock ‘em, who they sell to.Maybe get lucky.”
Marcus took the note.“Thanks, Vinny.This helps.”
Vinny gave a grim nod.“Whoever that guy is, Detective… he didn’t belong in my building.I know my people.”
Marcus pocketed the note and straightened.“We’re going to find him.”
“Good,” Vinny said quietly.“Because Miss Hayes… people say some things about her, ok, maybe she had her skeletons.But who’s perfect, y’know?She deserved better.”
Marcus agreed.
And as he left the building office, he felt the first glimmer of something useful—an angle, a thread, a place to start pulling.
The killer had disguised himself carefully.
But he must have gotten those overalls from somewhere.
*
The bullpen outside Kate’s temporary office was running hot—phones chirping, printers clattering, someone arguing half-heartedly with a vending machine that had eaten their dollar.The hum of fluorescent lights buzzed above it all, a kind of mechanical tinnitus she’d stopped noticing hours ago.
Kate sat hunched over the narrow metal desk the precinct had assigned her, elbows braced on the paperwork-strewn surface, phone pressed to her left ear.The two artworks lay beside her notes, illuminated by the desk lamp’s thin, sour-yellow beam.A Styrofoam cup of precinct coffee sat untouched, cooling into something that could strip paint.
She tapped the desk. Gabe had called her, then promptly said he had to deal with a ‘domestic emergency’ and would call back in five minutes.
That was twenty minutes ago.
She was about to send him a text but when the phone buzzed into life.
“Hey,” she said.
“Sorry for the delay.My sister is staying.She doesn’t understand ovens.”
Kate blinked.In all the years she’d known Gabe Levine, as both tutor and mentor, he’d never mentioned a sister once.
Outside her door, someone shouted for a case file; someone else shouted back that it was on the copier.The place smelled of dry-erase markers, old coffee, and damp jackets.
Gabe rustled paper.She could almost see him sliding books aside, clearing space on his desk, the cat probably asleep on an open Talmud.
“I’ve gone through the art pieces you sent,” he said.“Your killer—whoever he is—is a very accomplished artist.Troublingly so.The tablets piece?Gorgeous chiaroscuro.Controlled.Studied.He knows his art history.”
“That tracks,” Kate murmured, rubbing at her temple.
“But the second one, the little painting…” Gabe paused.“Now that one is fascinating.”
Kate glanced at it again—the overdressed man at the feast, the older woman about to box his ears.
“Satire,” she said.“Late nineteenth-century.Playful.A little grotesque.”
“Yes,” Gabe said.“And it jogged something familiar.Took me a while.Then I realized—it reminds me of a passage from theShulchan Arukh.”
Kate straightened.“The compendium of Jewish law?”
