“She what?”
“She’d—recently, since her abduction—bitten her nails below the quick.”
Morris lifted one of Anna’s hands, showed Eve the nail of the index finger. “I removed one of the replacement nails he’d applied and painted—sent it to the lab as well.”
“I missed that on scene.”
“It’s precisely and perfectly done. I imagine an expert could have done no better.”
“He couldn’t know she’d bite her nails, and he wanted to paint them, have them look good.” Eve felt a crack open in the wall she felt she’d been pushing against.
“He had to buy the replacements within the last week, more likely the last couple days. We can work with that.” She looked at Peabody. “We can work with that.”
Because as Eve said, work was work, Peabody approached the body, studied the hand. “The other nine are perfect, and look completely natural. Trina does this kind of service in her salon. To get that kind of precision, I’m betting he had to use salon grade. Not the sort of fakes you can pick up in a drugstore. I’ve used those before and they never look that good.”
Eve had already grabbed microgoggles for a closer exam.
“Not just good. Perfect, like you said, Morris.
“That’s a mistake,” she said as she straightened. “That’s a big mistake. He needed perfect, and she bit her nails.”
“I’ll remove the others as well, but you can see from this one, he smoothed where she’d bitten, then roughed up the nail bed.”
“Yeah, you’ve got to do that to get a good adhesion,” Peabody said. “Then, at least for the cheaper ones, the do-it-yourself kind, you paint on the glue, fit the nail on. You have to give the glue time to set, then you shape it the way you want before you add color.”
“Okay, good, let’s give this a hard shove at the lab. This is a break, Morris. Thanks for coming in to take her. Her parents will contact you. They’re divorced, but they’re both coming to New York.”
“I’ll have her ready for them to say their goodbyes. Thanks for breakfast.”
“You more than earned it. Peabody, with me.”
Hustling to keep up, Peabody sent Morris a wave. “The salon grade are a serious sting.”
“They hurt?”
“The wallet,” Peabody explained. “What I’m saying is the drugstore brand would’ve done the job. I mean, it’s not like she was going to mess them up, right?”
“Looking for perfect, willing to pay for it. Add he might have thought we’d miss them. I didn’t spot them on scene. Less expensive makeup, hair stuff? I’m going with it’s the sort of thing his mother used. Probability is Mommy didn’t bite her nails and buy fakes to cover it.”
“Follows. I’ll tag Trina first, ask where you’d get them. I don’t know if salons sell the kits to regular people.”
“Had to be in the last few days. Had to be. Elder’s nails…” She opened the car door, pushed her mind back to her board. “On the short side, neat and even because he’d manicured them after he killed her. Hobe’s were longer. Not crazy long, but longer, because he was working with the fakes, had more to work with. So it’s not the length, it’s the look.”
Tuning out Peabody’s conversation with Trina, she drove through building traffic.
She parked again, and Peabody continued to talk as they got out of the car.
“That’d be great, big help.”
“No prob for me.” Trina’s voice popped over the noise of downtown. “Catch that murdering bastard, Peabody. And tell Dallas—I know she can hear me—she’s overdue for a trim. And it’s been weeks since her last facial. You get one freaking face, so you gotta take care of it.”
Eve kept walking.
“You bet. See you at the house maybe this weekend. Cha, Trina.”
As she had before, Eve bypassed Berenski’s station and headed straight for Harvo’s.
Purple still ruled the day, but Harvo married it with candy pink in baggies with purple cuffs that folded inches above her ankles and showed off purple high-tops with pink laces.
She sucked something from a jumbo go-cup through a straw and waved them in.
“Figured I’d see you. Pushed this through as soon as my ass hit the chair. Easy one, as I already had the baseline from Elder on the hair products. You got the same deal with your new vic.”
Because she’d expected it, Eve nodded, hooked her thumbs in her belt loops. “How about the clothes?”