“Your people complaining?”
“Not the point. We got a system. I’m the system. And I got the jewelry from Hobe, and you’ll get the freaking report when I finish and send it.”
When Eve took a step forward, she watched Berenski’s eyes jitter, just a little.
“Mary Kate Covino, age twenty-five. Missing for six days. She’s got shackles digging into her wrist, her ankle. He held Elder for ten days before he sliced her throat. He moved up the timeline a day with Hobe. If you sit on that report, on any of the reports that pertain to this investigation, I’ll pop out your eyes with my thumbs and make you eat them like gumballs.”
“Back off, back off. Nobody sits on anything around here. I’m not having my people harassed because you want to cut the line.”
“Mary Kate Covino, age twenty-five. Missing for six days. She won’t get another six. If you don’t want me talking to your people, who work for the same city I do, fine. You tell me about the shoes found on Anna Hobe’s body.”
“Dezi’s got the shoes,” Berenski muttered.
A bare instant before he turned to Dezi, the tech stopped mugging monster faces and sat quietly. “Where are you on the shoes, Dezi?”
“Just finished, Chief.”
“Give her what she needs. Don’t like end runs,” he said, jabbed a finger at Eve, then stomped off.
“You’re a card, Dezi.”
“You gotta make your own fun. Hey, listen, Dickhead can be just that, but things hop around here, and he keeps it going.”
“I got that. What’ve you got?”
“Size seven and a half, open-toe pump, four-inch stiletto-type heels, three-quarter-inch platform, polyurethane upper, synthetic sole—I’ll have all the data in the report. Style was called Andrea, under the City Styles brand. They named their shoes, see? This style was available from 2002 to 2004 in this shade—Ruby—and in black. It’s in excellent condition for a shoe that old. Some scuffing on the sole, but not much. I’d say it wasn’t worn much. Probably hurt like hell.”
“Good data, thanks. And for the show.”
“Hey,” Dezi called as Eve walked off, “I’m here all week!”
“Why say you’re a card when you mean funny?” Eve wondered. “What’s funny about a card?”
“I guess, maybe, I don’t know. Jokers. A joker’s a card,” Peabody said.
“Nobody uses jokers. She must’ve ditched the drugs whenever possible,” Eve continued. “Dark circles under her eyes, so maybe from lack of sleep if she managed to ditch the drugs. Nail biting—you don’t do that when you’re drugged out or zoned by them. The indications she beat or banged on something.”
“And the shoe size, same as the first victim, but they were loose, like you said on scene. She was a size seven, Elder more like an eight. So you have to figure the mom was a seven and a half.”
“He used concealer stuff—she had to be perfect. No flaws. Mira and the other shrinks are going to have a field day with this guy when we get him.”
Out of the lab and back in the car, Eve sat a moment. “Let’s get all this added to the board in the conference room. I want Mira to have all the data.”
She pulled out, eased behind a delivery truck, biding her time. Then zipped around it, punched it, and squeezed through a light an instant before it turned red.
A couple of pedestrians trying to advance ahead of the Walk signal shook fists at her back bumper.
“Trina came through during the Dickhead show. I’ve got a list of outlets that sell directly to salons. She says you have to have an account.”
“We don’t have the readout on the nail yet, but it’s going to be a new account. Got to be in the last week. Make it two for a buffer. Start on that, and I’ll set things up.”
She pulled into the garage. “Wouldn’t it be a kick in the ass if a fake fingernail breaks this?”
Her ’link signaled as she got out of the car. “And Roarke came through with the list of additional properties.”
“He copied me, too.” Peabody nodded at her handheld. “I’ll send it to Jenkinson and Reineke.”
They got in the elevator, and Eve started her mental checklist. Cops and support staff shuffled or clipped off. As she worked on that list, she calculated she could handle another couple of floors before bolting for the glides.
When the doors opened again, she spotted the wild eyes of a junkie at the peak of a high, caught the whiff of urine, which explained the dark spot spreading at crotch level and the stream of wet in his wake. As the two uniforms flanking him began to perp-walk him toward the elevator, she bodily blocked the door, said, “No.”