Despite the pouches under her eyes smeared with yesterday’s mascara, she owned a dissipated sort of beauty. Behind her the apartment smelled of stale smoke and last night’s Chinese.
“That girl’s in trouble again, and it’s nothing to me. I’m done. So you can tell her, since she thinks she’s so smart, to figure it out herself.”
“Ms. Gregg.” Eve held up her badge. “I’m Lieutenant Dallas. This is Detective Peabody. We’re NYPSD.”
“This ain’t New York City.”
“We believe your daughter’s in New York. Can we come in?”
“I don’t have to let you in, do I?”
Not going to budge, Eve thought.
“No. We can talk right here in the hallway.”
“Fine by me. Can you hear all right, you nosy bitch!” Gregg shouted it as she sneered at the door across the hall.
To Eve’s amusement, the woman behind the door called back. “Yeah, I can hear just fine, thanks.”
“When’s the last time you saw or spoke with Dorian?”
“I don’t know. Last summer, maybe. Don’t know, don’t care. That girl’s been nothing but trouble to me since the day she was born. A thief’s what she is, a sneaky little thief.”
“Your—at the time—twelve-year-old daughter goes missing last summer—you think. You didn’t file a missing persons report, go to the authorities?”
“I said I’m done, didn’t I? They find her whiny ass, haul her back, she brings trouble before she takes off again. I got a life of my own, and I’m living it. She can live hers.”
Peabody tried to insert a little soothing balm with the placating tone of her question. “Does she have friends or other relatives she might go to?”
“Got some bitchy little sneaks for friends.”
“Names?”
Jewell sneered at Eve’s single, snapped word. “How the hell do I know? They don’t come around here. That girl says we live in a dump and how she doesn’t like who I date. Well, la di da, maybe she can go live in a palace like a princess.”
“Relatives?”
Gregg shrugged. “My grandmother’s somewhere. Queens, maybe Yonkers. She doesn’t approve of how I live my life, so fuck her. We don’t speak, maybe ten years now. Who needs that?”
“Would Dorian know how to contact her?”
“Don’t know how, don’t know why she would. That old lady’s got nothing except bad knees from scrubbing other people’s floors. Ran my own mother off, too, with all her ‘Do this, do that,’ and God knows where she ended up. I got away from the old bitch. Probably should have left the brat with her. I’d be better off.”
“If we could come in, see Dorian’s room, her things, it might help us locate her.”
“She ain’t got no room here, not anymore.” Jewell fisted her hands on her hips. “I said I’m done! Got rid of her things. And you don’t come in here without a search warrant.”
Before Jewell could slam the door, Eve slapped a hand on it.
“You continue to hold professional mother status and collect your payment for same every month.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t I?”
“Because, by your own statement, you’re done being Dorian’s mother. She’s been missing for nearly a year, but you filed no police report. You said she no longer lives here, and you’ve tossed out her belongings.”
“So the fuck what? I’m still a mother. Gave birth to her, didn’t I?”
“You’ve willfully defrauded the federal government and the state of New Jersey. Believe me when I tell you I’m going to report same, and you’ll be getting another visit from the authorities. You’ll also face questions on the fact you haven’t reported a missing minor child in your custody—all while reaping the monetary benefits.”
The look in her eye, ice-cold rage, had Jewell backing up a step.
“You’re going to do some time, Jewell.”
“I am not! You shut the fuck up over there,” she shrieked as a burst of laughter erupted behind the neighbor’s door.
Instead of shutting up, the woman shoved the door open.
She had an easy decade on Jewell Gregg and lacked her tired beauty. In its place was cool dignity.
“She smacked that child around. I saw it myself.”
On a howl, Gregg shoved Eve with murder in her eye for the neighbor.
“That’s called assaulting an officer.” Eve spun her around, slapped restraints on her. “Peabody, notify the locals so we can get the ball rolling here on Ms. Gregg.”