“I’ll talk to them later.”
“We determined the victim was deceased. No ID on her. No bag, no jewelry, no coat. Pretty clear her neck’s broken. Visually, there’s some other marks on her—bruised cheek, split lip. Looks like a mugging gone south. But . . .” The uniform flushed slightly. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
Interested, Eve gave a go-ahead nod. “Because?”
“It sure wasn’t a snatch and run, figuring the coat. That takes a little time. And if she fell or got pushed down the stairs, why is she over against the side there instead of at the bottom of the steps? Out of sight from the sidewalk. It feels more like a dump, sir.”
“Are you angling for a slot in Homicide, Officer Turney?”
“No disrespect intended, Lieutenant.”
“None taken. She could’ve taken a bad fall down the steps, landed wrong, broke her neck. Mugger goes down after her, hauls her over out of sight, takes the coat, and the rest.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It doesn’t feel like it. But we need more than how it feels. Stand by, Officer. Detective Peabody’s on route.” As she spoke, Eve opened her field kit, took out her Seal-It.
She coated her hands, her boots as she surveyed the area.
This sector of New York’s East Side held quiet—at least at this hour. Most apartment windows and storefronts were dark, businesses closed, even the bars. There would be some after-hours establishments still rolling, but not close enough for witnesses.
They’d do a canvass, but odds were slim someone would pop out who’d seen what happened here. Add in the bitter cold, as 2060 seemed determined to go out clinging with its icy fingers, most people would be tucked up inside, in the warm.
Just as she’d been, curled up against Roarke, before the call.
That’s what you get for being a cop, she thought, or in Roarke’s case, for marrying one.
Sealed, she went down the stairs, studied the door to the unit first, then moved in to crouch beside the body.
Yeah, middle forties, light brown hair clipped back from her face. A little bruising on the right cheekbone, some dried blood on the split lip. Both ears pierced, so if she’d been wearing earrings, the killer had taken the time to remove them rather than rip them off.
Lifting the hand, Eve noted abraded flesh on the heel. Like a rug burn, she mused before she pressed the right thumb to her ID pad.
Dickenson, Marta, she read. Mixed-race female, age forty-six. Married Dickenson, Denzel, two offspring, and an Upper East Side address. Employed: Brewer, Kyle, and Martini, an accounting firm with an office eight blocks away.
As she took out her gauges, her short brown hair fluttered in the wind. She hadn’t thought to yank on a hat. Her eyes, nearly the same gilded brown as her hair, remained cool and flat. She didn’t think about the husband, the kids, the friends, the family—not yet. She thought of the body, the position, the area, the time of death—twenty- two-fifty.
What were you doing, Marta, blocks from work, from home on a frigid November night?
She shined her light over the pants, noted traces of blue fiber on the black cloth. Carefully, she tweezed off two, bagged them, marked the pants for the sweepers.
She heard Peabody’s voice over her head, and the uniform’s answer. Eve straightened. Her leather coat billowed at the hem around her long, lean frame as she turned to watch Peabody—or what she could see of her partner—clomp down the steps.
Peabody had thought of a hat, had remembered her gloves. The pink—Jesus, pink—ski hat with its sassy little pom-pom covered her dark hair and the top of her face right down to the eyes. A multicolored scarf wound around and around just above the plum-colored puffy coat. The hat matched the pink cowboy boots Eve had begun to suspect Peabody wore even in bed.
“How can you walk with all that on?”
“I hiked to the subway, then from the subway, but I stayed warm. Jeez.” One quick gleam of sympathy flicked across Peabody’s face. “She doesn’t even have a coat.”
“She’s not complaining. Marta Dickenson,” Eve began, and gave Peabody the salients.
“It’s a ways from her office and her place. Maybe she was walking from one to the other, but why wouldn’t she take the subway, especially on a night like this?”
“That’s a question. This unit’s being rehabbed. It’s empty. That’s handy, isn’t it? The way she’s in the corner there? She shouldn’t have been spotted until morning.”
“Why would a mugger care when?”
“That’s another question. Following that would be, if he did, how’d he know this unit’s unoccupied?”
“Lives in the area? Is part of the rehab crew?”
“Maybe. I want a look inside, but we’ll talk to the nine-one-one callers first. Go ahead and notify the ME.”
“The sweepers?”
“Not yet.”
Eve climbed the stairs, walked to the black-and-white. Even as she signaled to the cop inside, a man pushed out of the back.
“Are you in charge?” Words tumbled over each other in a rush of nerves.
“Lieutenant Dallas. Mr. Whitestone?”
“Yes, I—”
“You notified the police.”
“Yes. Yes, as soon as we found the—her. She was . . . we were—”
“You own this unit?”
“Yes.” A sharply attractive man in his early thirties, he took a long breath, expelling it in a chilly fog. When he spoke again, his voice leveled, his words slowed. “Actually, my partners and I own the building. There are eight units—third and fourth floors.” His gaze tracked up. No hat for him either, Eve mused, but a wool topcoat in city black and a black and red striped scarf.
“I own the lower unit outright,” he continued. “We’re rehabbing so we can move our business here first and second floors.”
“Which is what? Your business?”
“We’re financial consultants. The WIN Group. Whitestone, Ingersol, and Newton. W-I-N.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll live in the downstairs unit, or that was the plan. I don’t—”
“Why don’t you run me through your evening,” Eve suggested.
“Brad?”
“Stay in the car where it’s warm, Alva.”
“I can’t sit anymore.” The woman who slid out was blonde and sleek and tucked into some kind of animal fur and thigh-high leather boots with high skinny heels. She hooked her arm through Whitestone’s arm.
They looked like a set, Eve thought. Both pretty, well-dressed, and showing signs of shock.
“Lieutenant Dallas.” Alva held out a hand. “You don’t remember me?”
“No.”
“We met for five seconds at the Big Apple Gala last spring. I’m one of the committee chairs. Doesn’t matter,” she said with a shake of her head as the wind streamed through her yard of hair. “This is horrible. That poor woman. They even took her coat. I don’t know why that bothers me so much, but it seems cruel.”
“Did either of you touch the body?”
“No.” Whitestone took over. “We had dinner, then we went for drinks. At the Key Club, just a couple blocks down. I was telling Alva what we’ve been doing here, and she was interested, so we walked over so I could give her a tour. My place is nearly done, so . . . I was getting out my key, about to plug in the code when Alva screamed. I didn’t even see her, Lieutenant, the woman. I didn’t even see her, not until Alva screamed.”
“She was back in the corner,” Alva said. “At first, even when I screamed I thought she was a sidewalk sleeper. I didn’t realize . . . then I did. We did.”
