Big Jack

by J. D. Robb

  “When’s the last time you did talk to her?”

  “A couple of weeks. I’m . . . I was very fond of Andrea, and she was wonderful to work with. But we had very different lifestyles. She was single and loved to go out. I’m incredibly married and raising a three-year-old, having another child and running a business. So we didn’t see each other often outside of work, or talk often unless it was work-related.”

  “Has anyone come in asking about her or for her specifically?”

  “She has a regular customer base. Most of my girls do. Customers who ask for them specifically when they’re planning a trip.”

  “She’d have a customer list.”

  “Absolutely. There’s probably some legal thing I’m supposed to do before I agree to give that to you, but I’m not going to waste my time or yours. I have all my employees’ passcodes. I’ll give it to you. You can copy anything you feel might help off her work unit.”

  “I appreciate your cooperation.”

  “She was a delightful woman. She made me laugh, and she did a good job for me. I never knew her to hurt anyone. I’ll do whatever I can to help you find who did this to her. She was one of my girls, you know. She was one of mine.”

  It took an hour to copy the files, search through and document the contents of the workstation and interview the other employees.

  Every one of Andrea’s coworkers had gone out with her to clubs, bars, parties, with dates, without dates. There was a great deal of weeping but little new to be learned.

  Eve could barely wait to get away from the scent of grief and lipdye.

  “Start doing a standard run on the names on her customer base. I’m going to check in with Samantha Gannon and verbally smack this asshole ME around.”

  “Morris?”

  “No, Morris is tanning his fine self on some tropical beach. We caught Duluc. She’s slower than a one-legged snail. I’m going to warm up with her, then, if there’s time, drop-kick Dickhead,” she added, referring to the chief lab tech.

  “Boy, that should round out the morning. Then maybe we can have lunch.”

  “We’re dealing with the cleaning service before the morgue and lab. Didn’t you have breakfast a couple hours ago?”

  “Yeah, but if I start nagging you about lunch now, you’ll cave before I get faint from hunger.”

  “Detectives eat less often than aides.”

  “I never heard that. You’re just saying that to scare me.” She trotted on her increasingly uncomfortable shoes after Eve. “Right?”

  Chapter 4

  Maid In New York was a pared-down, storefront operation that put all its focus and frills into the services. This was explained to Eve with some snippiness by the personnel manager, who reigned in an office even smaller and stingier than Eve’s at Central.

  “We keep the overhead to a minimum,” Ms. Tesky of the sensible bun and shoes informed Eve. “Our clients aren’t interested in our offices—and rarely come here in any case—but are concerned about their own offices and homes.”

  “I can see why,” Eve observed, and Tesky’s nostrils pinched. It was sort of interesting to watch.

  “Our employees are the product, and all are strictly and comprehensively interviewed, tested, screened, trained and must meet the highest of standards in personal appearance, demeanor and skill. Our clients are also screened, to ensure our employees’ safety.”

  “I just bet they are.”

  “We provide residential and business housekeeping services, in teams, pairs or individually. We use human and droid personnel. We service all of greater New York and New Jersey and will, upon request, arrange for maids to travel with a client who requires or desires approved out-of-town, out-of-country and even off-planet services.”

  “Right.” She wondered how many of the maids were also licensed companions, but it didn’t really apply. “I’m interested in the employee or employees who handled Samantha Gannon’s residence.”

  “I see. Do you have a warrant? I consider our personnel and client files confidential.”

  “I bet you do. I could get a warrant. A little time, a little trouble, but I could get a warrant. But because you made me take that time and that trouble when I’m investigating a murder—a really nasty, messy murder, by the way, that’s going to take a whole slew of your mighty maids to tidy up—I’m going to wonder why you slowed me down. I’m going to ask myself, Hey, I wonder what Ms. Testy—”

  “Tes-ky.”

  “Right. What she has to hide. I have a suspicious mind, that’s why I got to be a lieutenant. So when I get that warrant, and I start wondering those things, I’m going to dig, and I’m going to keep digging, getting my suspicious little finger smears all over your nice tidy files. We’ll just have to give INS a heads-up so they can breeze in here and make another big mess, making sure you didn’t miss any illegals in all that testing and screening.”

  The nostrils pinched again, even as a thin breath hooted up them. “Your implication is insulting.”

  “People keep saying that to me. The fact that I’m innately suspicious and insulting means I’ll probably make a bigger mess than those anal-retentives in INS. Won’t I, Detective Peabody?”

  “As someone who’s cleaned up after you before, sir, I can verify that you will, absolutely, make a bigger mess than anyone. You’ll also find something—you always do—that will certainly inconvenience Ms. Tesky and her employer.”

  “What do they call that? Tit for tat?”

  Throughout Eve’s recital, Ms. Tesky had turned several interesting colors. She appeared to have settled on fuchsia. “You can’t threaten me.”

  “Threaten? Golly, Peabody, insult, sure, but did I threaten anyone?”

  “No, Lieutenant. You’re just making conversation, in your own unique style.”

  “That’s what I thought. Just making conversation. So, let’s arrange for that warrant, shall we? And since we’re taking the time and trouble, let’s make it for the financials, and civil and criminal cases or suits brought, as well as those personnel files.”

  “I find you very disagreeable.”

  “There you go,” Eve said with an easy smile. “Tit for tat one more time.”

  Tesky spun her chair around to her desk unit, coded in.

  “Ms. Gannon’s residence is on a twice-monthly schedule, with quarterly extended services, and priority for emergency calls and entertainment requests. She was due for her regular service yesterday.”

  Several more frown lines dug into Tesky’s forehead. “Her maid failed to confirm completed service. That’s simply unacceptable.”

  “Who’s the maid?”

  “Tina Cobb. She’s seen to the Gannon residence for the last eight months.”

  “Can you check on there if she’s missed any other jobs recently?”

  “One moment.” She called up another program. “All Cobb’s jobs were completed and confirmed through Saturday. She had Sunday off. No confirmation of the Gannon residence yesterday. There’s a flag by her name today, which means the client notified us she didn’t report for work. Scheduling had to replace her.”

  Ms. Tesky did what Eve assumed anyone named Tesky would. She tsked.

  “Give me her home address.”

  Tina Cobb lived in one of the post-Urban Wars boxes that edged the Bowery. They’d been a temporary fix when buildings had been burned or bombed. The temporary fix had lasted more than a generation. Lewd, creative and often ungrammatical graffiti swirled over the pitted, reconstituted concrete. The windows were riot-barred, and the loiterers on the stoops looked as though they’d be more than happy to burn or bomb the place again, just to break the monotony.

  Eve climbed out of her car, scanned the faces, ignored the unmistakable aroma of Zoner. She took out her badge, held it up.

  “You can probably guess that’s mine,” she said, pointing at her vehicle. “What you might not be able to guess is that if anybody messes with it, I’ll hunt you down and pop your eyes out with my thumbs.”
/>   “Hey.” A guy wearing a dingy muscle shirt and a gleaming silver earring flipped her the bird. “Fuck you.”

  “No, thanks, but it’s sweet of you to ask. I’m looking for Tina Cobb.”

  There were whistles, catcalls, kissy noises. “That’s one fiiine piece of ass.”

  “I’m sure she’s delighted you think so. Is she around?”

  Muscle Shirt stood up. He poked out his chest and jabbed a finger at Eve’s. Fortunately for him, he stopped short of actual contact. “What you want to hassle Tina for? She don’t do nothing. Girl works hard, minds her own.”

  “Who said I was going to hassle her? She might be in trouble. If you’re a friend of hers, you’ll want to help.”

  “Didn’t say I was a friend. Just said she minds her own. So do I. Whyn’t you?”

  “Because I get paid to mind other people’s own, and you’re starting to make me wonder why you can’t answer a simple question. In a minute, I’m going to start minding yours instead of Tina Cobb’s.”

  “Cops is all shit.”

  She bared her teeth in a glittering grin. “Want to test that theory?”

  He snorted, shot a glance over his shoulder at his companions as if to let them see he wasn’t worried about it. “Too hot to bother,” he said, and shrugged his skinny shoulders. “Ain’t seen Tina for a couple of days anyway. Don’t run a tab on her, do I? Her sister works across the street at the bodega. Whyn’t you ask her?”

  “I’ll do that. Mitts off the car, boys. Pitiful as it is, it’s mine.”

  They walked across the street. Eve assumed the kissing noises and invitations for sexual adventure that came from the stoop were now aimed at her and Peabody. But she let it go. The skinny asshole was right about one thing. It was too hot to bother.

  Inside, she noted the girl manning the checkout counter. Short, thin, olive complexion, an odd updo of hair with purple fringes over the ink black.

  “I could get us something,” Peabody offered. “Something to do with food.”

  “Go ahead.” Eve walked to the counter, waited while the customer in front of her paid for a pack of milk powder and a minuscule box of sugar substitute.

  “Help you?” the woman said, without much interest.

  “I’m looking for Tina Cobb. You’re her sister?”

  The dark eyes widened. “What do you want with Tina?”

  “I want to talk to her.” Eve slipped out her badge.

  “I don’t know where she is, okay? She wants to take off for a couple days, it’s nobody’s sweat, is it?”

  “Shouldn’t be.” Eve had run Tina Cobb in the car and knew the sister’s name was Essie. “Essie, why don’t you take a break?”

  “I can’t, okay. I can’t. I’m working alone today.”

  “And nobody’s in here right now. Did she tell you where she was going?”

  “No. Shit.” Essie sat down on a high stool. “Oh shit. She’s never been in trouble in her life. She spends all the time cleaning up after rich people. Maybe she just wanted some time off.” There was fear lurking behind the eyes now. “She maybe went on a trip.”

  “Was she planning a trip?”

  “She’s always planning. When she had enough saved she was going to do this, and that, and six million other things. Only she never saved enough for any of it. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know what to do.”

  “How long’s she been gone?”

  “Since Saturday. Saturday night she goes out, doesn’t come back since. Sometimes she doesn’t come home at night. Sometimes I don’t. You get a guy, you want to stay out, you stay, right?”

  “Sure. So she’s been gone since Saturday?”

  “Yeah. She’s got Sundays off, so what the hell, you know? But she’s never been gone like this without letting me know. I called her work today and asked for her, and they said she didn’t show. I probably got her in trouble. I shouldn’ta called her work.”

  “You haven’t reported her missing?”

  “Shit, you don’t report somebody missing ’cause they don’t come home a couple nights. You don’t go to the cops for every damn thing. Around here, you don’t go to them for nothing.”

  “She take any of her things?”

  “I dunno. Her maid suit’s still there, but her red shirt and her black jeans aren’t. Her new airsandals neither.”

  “I want to go inside the apartment, look around.”

  “She’s gonna be pissed at me.” Essie scooped up the soft tacos and Pepsis Peabody laid on the counter, did the transaction. “What the hell. She shouldn’ta gone off without saying. I wouldn’t do it to her. I gotta close up. I can’t take more than fifteen, or I’ll get in real trouble.”

  “That’s fine.”

  It was two tiny rooms with a bump on the living area that served as the kitchen. The sink was about the width and depth of a man’s cupped palm. In lieu of the pricier privacy screens, there were manual shades at the windows that did absolutely nothing to cut the street or sky noise.

  Eve thought it was like living in a transpo station.

  There was a two-seater couch Eve imagined converted to a bed, an ancient and clunky entertainment screen and a single lamp in the shape of a cartoon mouse she suspected one of them had saved from childhood.

  Despite its size and sparseness, the apartment was pin neat. And, oddly enough to her mind, smelled as female as the girl-powered travel agency had.

  “Bedroom’s through there.” Essie pointed at the doorway. “Tina won the toss when we moved in, so she has the bedroom and I sleep out here. But it’s still pretty tight, you know? So that’s why if one of us has a guy, we usually go to his place.”

  “She have a guy?” Eve asked as Peabody walked toward the bedroom.

  “She’s been seeing somebody a couple of weeks. His name’s Bobby.”

  “Bobby got a last name?”

  “Probably.” Essie shrugged. “I don’t know it. She’s with him, probably. Tina’s got this real romantic heart. She falls for a guy, she falls hard.”

  Eve scanned the bedroom. One narrow bed, neatly made, one child-sized dresser, likely brought from home. There was a pretty little decorative box on it and a cheap vase with fake roses. Eve lifted the top of the box, heard the tinkling tune it played and saw a few pieces of inexpensive jewelry inside.

  “We share the closet,” Essie said as Peabody poked inside the tiny closet.

  “Where’d she meet this Bobby?” Peabody asked her, and moved from the closet into the bathroom.

  “I don’t know. We live in this box together, but we try to stay out of each other’s faces, you know? She just says she met this guy, and he’s really cute and sweet and smart. Said he knew all about books and art and shit. She goes for that. She went out to meet him like at an art gallery or something one night.”

  “You never met him?” Eve asked.

  “No. She was always meeting him somewhere. We don’t bring guys here much. Jeez, look at this place.” She looked around it with the forlorn and resigned expression of a woman who knew it was the best she was going to do. “She was going out to meet him Saturday night, after work and shit. To a play or something. When she didn’t come home, I figured she’d stayed at his place. No big. But she doesn’t miss work, and she hasn’t ever stayed out of touch this long, so I’m starting to worry, you know?”

  “Why don’t we file a report?” Peabody stepped back out of the bath. “A missing person’s report.”

  “Oh man, you think?” Essie scratched at her bicolored hair. “She comes waltzing in here and finds out I did that, she’ll be on my case for a month. We don’t have to tell my parents, do we? They’ll get all twisted inside out and come running over here hysterical and whatever.”

  “Have you checked with them? Maybe she went home for a couple days.”

  “Nah. I mean yeah, I checked. I buzzed my mom and did the hey, how’re things, la la la. She said to have Tina call ’cause she likes to hear from her girls. So I know she hasn’t seen her. My
mom would flip sideways if she thought Tina’s shacked up with some guy.”

  “We’ll take care of it. Why don’t you give the information to Detective Peabody?” Eve looked at the tidily made bed.

  “She’s not off with some guy for extended nooky,” Eve said when they were back in the car. “Girls like that don’t take off without a change of clothes, without taking earrings and their toothbrush. She doesn’t miss a day of work in eight months, but she just happens to miss the Gannon job?”

  “You think she was in on it?”

  Eve thought of the tiny, tidy apartment. The little music box of trinkets. “Not on purpose. I doubt the same can be said for Bobby.”

  “It’s going to be tough to track down some guy named Bobby. No full name, no description.”

  “He left footprints somewhere. Do a check on Jane Does, any that came in since Saturday night. We’re heading down to the morgue anyway. Let’s just hope we don’t find her there.”

  “Want your taco?”

  Eve unwrapped it on her lap, then decided eating it while she drove was just asking to go through the rest of the day with taco juice on her shirt. She switched to auto, clicked back a couple inches and chowed down.

  When the in-dash ’link signaled, she shook her head. “Screen it,” she said with a mouthful of mystery meat by-product and sinus-clearing sauce.

  “Nadine Furst,” Peabody announced.

  “Too bad I’m on lunch break.” She slurped up Pepsi and ignored the call. “So, a maid from the projects somehow hooks up with some guy named Bobby, who takes her to art galleries and the theater, but he never comes to her place and meets her sister. She’s out of touch, missing work, among the missing for three days, but her new boyfriend doesn’t call, leave a message, scoot by to see what’s up. Nothing.”