Forgotten in Death

by J. D. Robb

  She tapped her feet, one, then the other, so her glittery blue toes sparkled through the clear boots.

  Blue, Eve assumed, ranked as color of the day, since Harvo had gone for it with her short, spiky hair.

  She shifted, swiveled. Eve caught the bold red lettering on the front of the shirt.

  GIRL GEEKS SAVE

  THE WORLD!

  “Yo,” she said to Eve as she made an adjustment on the microscope, then tapped something else on the pad.

  On-screen the fabric traces popped, magnified. The screen split with the right side full of symbols.

  “Sorry I couldn’t get anything interesting from your dumpster DB, but I hit solid on the shoe in the wine cellar.”

  “You took the shoe?”

  “Dezi or Coke would’ve run it usually, but they went and got married. They’re honeymooning this week. Anyway, my baby’s working on your fabric from the hanging man, but I can give you the lowdown on the shoe.”

  “What’s the lowdown?”

  “High-quality Italian leather.” She swiveled again, worked a keyboard to bring the shoe on-screen. “European size thirty-seven, narrow, and exceptional workmanship. A classic low-heeled pump in your classic black. Prada.”

  “Where it was made?”

  “No, the designer. It’s a designer shoe, and they carried that classic pump, with that heel height and width, that toe shape 2022 to 2025. Before ’22, they had a slightly thicker heel, after ’25, a thinner with a more narrow toe shape.”

  “That’s good data, Harvo.”

  “We live to serve. The bad news is, classic black Prada pump. You’re never going to narrow down where she bought it if that would apply. Plus, thirty-five, forty years in the deep, dark past.”

  “It’s not the where so much, but the what. Designer shoes, good jewelry. Classic pump. You’d call that…”

  Harvo arched her eyebrows as Eve gestured to the screen. “Boring, and way, way conservative. Even for back then. A conservative, no-risk, no-statement lady shoe for a lady who could afford a grand for boring shoes.”

  “A grand. Okay, yeah, it’s all giving me a picture.”

  Something went ding-ding-buzz, and Harvo swiveled back again.

  “Okay. First, good eye on the fabric trace, Dallas. You didn’t get much, but I don’t need much. I could nail it as wool—the good stuff—just eyeballing it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Sure. How it looks, and the texture. Good wool. Italian again, as it turns out. Very finely combed Italian wool.”

  “Sounds expensive.”

  “You betcha. This is ult-grade fabric. And I’m going to give you a ninety percent probability the garment this came from is new. No chemical remnants from dry-cleaning—and you gotta with this fabric. Got your dye lot, and that tracks back to Italy.”

  “It’s going to be a male. The trace came from a suit jacket or pants. Had to. I can use this to track designers or tailors or vendors who used this fabric from that dye lot.”

  “Or … I could’ve programmed that in. Geek, not a cop, but—”

  “Girl geeks save the world.”

  Harvo spiraled a blue-tipped finger in the air. “Exactamundo. Now, the fabric and in that color, which is a medium sort of gray, probably sold to a whole bunch of high-class designers and tailors. Like the bespoke kind. My uncle’s a tailor.”

  “Your uncle?”

  “Actually my great-uncle. Uncle Den’s in Chicago, has his own shop and all that. He’s probably worked with this fabric. But the specific dye lot narrows it down.” She toggled the symbols off, and a list came up.

  “I’ll take that list. If we go with the probability of new, he got it in New York. Most likely.”

  “Got that. Hey, baby, display New York City recipients only.” Seconds later, the list shortened to three.

  “Better.”

  “Hey, Leonardo’s on there. I got to get myself over to see the new digs in progress. Anyway, I can run it for—”

  “I got it from here. You never fail, Harvo.”

  “Geeks accept no failures. Sending all data to you now. Copy Peabody?”

  “Do that. I owe you a sticky bun.”

  “I like sticky buns.”

  “You’d be crazy not to. Thanks.”

  “Get the bastard, Dallas, save our world. Cha.”

  Peabody continued to scroll on her PPC. “It’s still work, I swear. And I was listening, so I got that we got.”

  “We got a lot. Tag Leonardo, since that one’ll be quick and easy. Have him check what he used the fabric for—that dye lot of it.”

  Eve paused because she’d scanned the lab and saw Dickhead standing, waving an arm in the air.

  “The bribe paid off. He’s got something.”

  Once again, she wound her way to his workstation. “Were you waving or having a seizure?”

  “Funny. You got lucky.”

  “Did I? I’m not the one with sticky bun breath.”

  He grinned at that. “Those bastards are awesome. But you got lucky. Full analysis isn’t complete, but the concrete—and that’s floor, ceiling, outer wall—it’s substandard and preformed shit. Wouldn’t have passed code pre-Urbans, wouldn’t pass it now. Only passed it during that period because they relaxed the codes. But…”

  He went for the dramatic pause.

  “The area from the approximately three-by-eighteen-feet area between the interior and exterior walls is high-grade poured concrete.”

  So Roarke, and Mackie, hit that one, Eve thought.

  “Tell me about the brick, Berenski.”

  “I’m going to tell you, for Christ’s sake. Brick’s top grade. Natural clay. You got barium carbonate in there for adding resistance to the elements, and your colorants added to sand for the shade. Samples we got are uniform, so they were molded, fired, cooled, and whatnot. They weren’t slapped together. The mortar samples are top grade, too.

  “Had to cost, especially back then, see? A lot of money for one wall when the rest of the place went up on the cheap.”

  “Yeah, I see.” She saw very well. “Send me what you’ve got so far. I’ll take the rest as it comes in. Tell your lab rats I appreciate it.”

  “Hey, I got it done.”

  “You already ate some of my appreciation. It’s coming together, Peabody,” she said as they walked away.

  “Leonardo’s going to check on the fabric. He’s weirded out, because he’s Leonardo, that he might have designed something for a killer.”

  “Then he’ll feel better, if that’s the case, when we lock said killer in a cage. Start contacting the others on Harvo’s list. They won’t be as quick and easy, but we’ll nail it down.”

  “Dead Delgato? It plays for me like he didn’t do the killing—it doesn’t give him a pass. But it plays like since he was on that job, he probably saw her around sometime, and the statements from the super, the wife paint him as nonviolent. A loser, a cheat, a gambling addict, but like somebody who’d have tried talking his way out of it. Making up a story she might have even bought. Then he ends up dead because he freaked.”

  “It plays like that,” Eve agreed. “But if he hadn’t been a loser, a cheat, a gambling addict—add thief and liar—he wouldn’t have been up there with someone who killed Alva, then killed him.”

  When they got in the car, Eve picked up a small white bag, held it out to Peabody.

  “You didn’t! You did! I can smell it!” Bouncing in the seat, Peabody opened the bag and inhaled lavishly. “Jacko’s sticky bun!”

  “Don’t make me sorry. And don’t make me sorry I’m giving you five minutes—five—to blather on about tiles and counters and the rest of that crap. Five.”

  “Best partner ever.” Peabody sighed. “You have to take half of this. I’ll hate myself later if I eat it all. They’re huge.”

  If she hadn’t smelled them most of the morning, Eve could’ve said no. “A third. I’ll take a third. And your five minutes starts now.”

  With the care
usually reserved for cutting diamonds, Peabody tore a section off the bun, passed it to Eve. “We’re going sort of soft in the kitchen. I thought I wanted strong and bold, but when I saw the soft, I fell for it. So the cabinets are going to be this soft, but deep, sage green. I didn’t want wood tones or white. But two-toned because we’re going cream on the lower cabinets of the island.”

  She took a tiny bite of the bun, made a yummy noise. “And we’re reversing that on the counters. Creamy white, except the island top will echo the green.”

  Eve drove, ate her portion of the bun while Peabody rhapsodized about backsplash tile and cabinet hardware, kitchen sinks, faucets and pot fillers.

  Eve had always figured a faucet was a pot filler.

  “Time,” Eve called in the middle of an ode to walk-in pantries. But she added, “It sounds nice, Peabody. It sounds like you.”

  “It feels like me, and McNab’s all about the sound and security systems, the lighting, so we’re merging it all really well. At least right now.”

  She ate her last bite as Eve pulled into Central’s garage.

  “You should see what Mavis and Leonardo are doing in the main house.”

  Eve thought about it. “I can definitely wait.”

  “It’s going to be a showstopper.”

  “It’s Mavis. What else could it be? Start on the designers. Reo ought to have a warrant on Tovinski’s financials by now. Or soon. And when we have that, we’ll bring him in.”

  13

  Eve decided to take a chance and jumped off the elevator at Mira’s level. The NYPSD’s top profiler always added some insight. She expected to get pushback from Mira’s admin and started working on a pushback to the pushback that would get her by the dragon and into Mira for ten minutes.

  Instead of the dragon, she found a young, chirpy sort behind the admin’s desk.

  “Good morning! May I help you?”

  She all but sang it.

  “I need ten minutes with Dr. Mira.”

  “Do you have a session or appointment?”

  “No. I have dead bodies. Lieutenant Dallas, Homicide.”

  “Oh, oh! Of course! I’m reading The Red Horse Legacy right now! It’s amazing. I was still on Long Island when that happened, but I heard all about it. Let me see if Dr. Mira has a free slot.”

  She tapped her earpiece. “Dr. Mira, Lieutenant Dallas is here. She’d like a few moments. Yes, ma’am, thank you.”

  She tapped again. “Dr. Mira can see you now. She does have an appointment in fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll keep it short.” Eve stepped to the office door. “What happened to her usual admin?”

  “Oh, her daughter went into labor early this morning. It’s so exciting! I’m filling in for her for a few days.”

  Too bad it wouldn’t be longer, Eve thought. The chirp would get annoying fast, but the new one was an easy mark.

  Inside, Mira sat behind her desk. It was rare to see the calm and elegant Mira frazzled, but that’s what Eve saw now.

  “Sorry to add to your day. You must be busy.”

  “I’m scattered. My temp is adorable, but not efficient. Or not what I’m used to.” Mira pushed back her rich brown hair, then shook her head. “We thought we had another week, but babies will come when they come. And a new life’s about to come into the world, which is a lovely antidote to what you and I deal with every day.

  “So I need to stop whining.”

  “That sounded like frustration, which is way different than whining.”

  “I’ll take it.” Rising, Mira walked to her AC, and Eve knew flowery tea was coming. “I’ve read your reports—not as thoroughly as I’d like. Alva Quirk—or Alva Elliot Wicker Quirk.”

  Thorough enough, Eve thought.

  “Actually, I know your time’s short so I’d rather focus on the unidentified remains. I’ve got a solid line on Alva’s case.”

  “The Russian gangster.”

  “Evidence is circumstantial so far, but it’s piling up.”

  “Sit,” Mira said, and took out two delicate cups of girly tea.

  She settled in one of her scoop chairs. Though Eve knew appearances deceived, Mira looked as delicate as the china in a suit of pale pink that showed off admirable legs. The shoes with heels like wicked stilettos mirrored the shade.

  “I’m not sure how much I can help you there,” she began.

  “I have additional data. I know she was between twenty and twenty-five, in good health. Odds are she’d had excellent dental care—straight teeth, no decay. She was wearing—as we found one with her and the sizes match—designer shoes. Classic Prada pumps, according to Harvo. Black leather. I haven’t gotten the report on the jewelry yet, but it didn’t look like costume to me. Subtle stuff, but the real deal. Gold band on the third finger of her left hand, gold earring, a gold neck chain with like little swans forming a heart, a gold analog watch. Watch brand, Bulgari. That’s another high-dollar brand.”

  “Yes, it is. So a young woman of means and taste. Nothing overt, but conservative and classic.”

  “The fetus was thirty-two weeks, and again in good health at TOD.”

  “We can assume the victim had good health care, was seeing a midwife or OB. She was married, or wore a symbol of marriage. Young. Clearly she wanted to deliver a healthy baby, whether she intended to keep it or she was a surrogate for someone else, or she intended to give it up for adoption.”

  “Or sell it.”

  “Yes, certainly possible. The jewelry and so on may have been down payments. Although—”

  “Why go subtle—or boring, as Harvo sees it?”

  With the saucer perfectly balanced on her knee, Mira sipped from the cup. “A matter of taste, perhaps. If so, I’d tend to see her as someone who aspired to the subtlety wealth can buy, or who had experience with it. The shoes. I know they were in your report, but can you refresh me?”

  Eve took out her PPC, brought the photo of the shoe on-screen.

  Mira studied it. “They are a bit boring, aren’t they? You’d expect something with more flair from someone that young. But they’re very practical.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  Mira laughed, sipped more tea. “A low-heeled pump—practical for a meeting, for instance. Low enough for a woman in her last trimester of pregnancy. Certainly not practical for a visit to a construction site.”

  “She dressed up. Subtle, tasteful, low-key, but she dressed up. That pulls me back from the probability she worked on the site. She could have been part of the design team, or part of the architect’s firm. I need to run all that down when I close Alva’s murder. So, maybe she came from work, but she met someone on the site.”

  Setting her cup aside, Eve leaned forward. “Substandard materials—but if she threatened to blow the whistle there, nobody would give a damn. Regs and codes had been rolled back. Nobody’d kill her over it. But there’s been a steady stream of pilfering and stealing, doctoring invoices going on at the Singer site. Maybe that’s got a history.”

  “Singer owned this site at the time.” Mira nodded. “She discovered, as you believe Alva did, this activity, threatened to report it?”

  “She went to the wrong person—maybe. Agreed to meet the wrong person on the site. Bang, bang, you’re dead. Whoever killed her knew enough to know where to hide the body. Knew where to get good brick—not substandard—and build a wall, and the form thing, pour the form over her with concrete. Seal her up.”

  “Cold, killing a woman, a pregnant woman, and walling them up. It takes cold calculation, planning, and, as you say, the ability to access the materials and use them to conceal the bodies.”

  “I don’t see how it could be someone on the level of Delgato—he wasn’t employed by them then, I’m just meaning at his level. Why wasn’t the wall, the work, questioned? Even if it was all so rushed, nobody noticed the wall was three feet farther in—and I understand construction often was rushed and cheap and disjointed post-Urbans, but nobody questions the work?”
/>   Dissatisfied, Eve pushed up. “The murder had to happen when nobody was working. Probably at night. Crew comes back to work in the morning, or say after the weekend, and nobody goes, ‘Hey, somebody poured this section of floor in this building’?”

  “A good question. Then again, if anyone at a higher level answered that question by claiming they’d done it over the weekend, that would likely suffice. People were hungry for work,” Mira pointed out, “for paychecks, for housing, for normality.”

  “So they might not question it in the first place.” Eve sat again. “She may have been married, may have been in a relationship, may have carried the baby as a surrogate. If any of those are true, someone should have looked for her. I’ve been running missing persons from a three-year period, to cover all the possibilities, but I haven’t come up with any record of a woman in her early twenties in the later stages of pregnancy.”

  Eve shook her head. “It feels like someone killed her and sealed her up, and everyone just forgot her. She had bottles of wine stacked up in front of her, on the other side of that wall. People ate and drank and worked over her head.”

  It didn’t seem right. None of it felt right.

  “Didn’t anybody go to where she worked, where she lived? Didn’t she have family or friends who filed reports? But I don’t find any.”

  “It may have been a friend or family who killed her.”

  “Yeah, I’m working with that, too. Have to ID her to go there. But … what if she wasn’t from New York? She could have worked at one of the suppliers, seen the problem. She comes in to meet with someone to report it, to offer what she knows. Bang, bang, you’re dead. But the missing persons don’t show up because she wasn’t from here. She might not have told anyone she was coming. She could have been told to keep it quiet. ‘Don’t want to alert the bad guys, don’t let on what you know, where you’re going. We’ll look through everything and go to the authorities.’”

  Mira nodded, sipped tea. “It’s a theory, and a good one. Given her age, she may have been naive enough to believe all that and follow those instructions. And I’m not helping you.”