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“Scary?”
“I guess she’d tossed a cover over it, but it fell off, and there was this scary painting of these men—and it was like they were all screaming and falling into like a fiery pit in front of this big, spooky-looking horror vid house that was burning, too. You know, like hell. They were sort of wearing devil’s masks, and nothing else. It kind of looked like they were supposed to be devils, but I only saw it for a second before Charity came out with the coffee, and walked over and closed the door.”
Hunching her shoulders, Laurel flushed. “I wasn’t poking in, I swear! It was just the door was open and I saw. That’s not poking in. So I said I was sorry, I just glanced in. I don’t think she was mad, but I could tell she didn’t want me to say anything, so I didn’t. I just said thanks for the coffee, and how she saved my life, and I left. That was a few days ago. Not like yesterday or the day before, but not like a week ago, either. Reb might remember because I told him about it. I texted him pretty quick because, you know, it was really scary and spooky.”
“Would you be able to describe the two paintings, in more detail? The women’s faces, the ones who aren’t here. To a police artist.”
“Oh.” The bottom lip got the nibble treatment. “I don’t know.”
“Detective Yancy.” Peabody came back in, smiling and flapping a hand over her heart.
“Really?” Laurel’s lashes fluttered over eyes now sparkling with interest. “Well, maybe. Okay.”
“Great. We’ll arrange to have you taken down to work with Detective Yancy, and we appreciate the help,” Eve added.
“Could I tag Reb? He’s going to want to blow off work for this. And, honest, I’d feel better if he came with me, or met me there. He’s, you know, like my brother. Like family.”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
“Okay. I need to get dressed. Officer Tanker woke me up. Lieutenant Dallas? I don’t see how Charity could’ve done anything really wrong, except...”
“Except?”
“That picture she painted. Of the devil-men? I only saw it for a second, but it gave me nightmares.”
Eve walked next door with Peabody.
“No painting of women, or devil-men. Devil-men?”
“Men who looked like devils screaming as they fall into hell—with a burning house in the background.”
“That is spooky. It sounds like she was painting out her issues.”
They went inside. Like MacKensie’s the apartment struck Eve as a place abandoned. Still furnished, flowering plants on a sunny window, but no electronics. Some painting supplies, and some canvases left behind. But none matched the ones Laurel had described. No handy sketches of any of the women.
“Fuckwear.” Eve held up split crotch panties. “And a lot of it. She didn’t take it because she’s done with it.”
“She took most of the toiletries, but left some old stuff, and I’m betting she missed this.” Peabody came out with a small bottle. “Mixed in with skin creams. It’s sleeping pills—the heavy-duty, put-me-out-till-morning kind.”
“When we check her AutoChef, I’ll bet we find regular programs for soothers and over-the-counter tranqs. She was the one in the trenches, so to speak, with Senator Mira. Wearing thin,” she said again. “Sleeping pills and scary paintings. She’ll break when we find them.”
—
They repeated the process at Su’s apartment. They didn’t find an impatient neighbor or a gregarious one, but every indication Su had gone to ground with everything important to her.
“Hit building security,” Eve told Peabody. “Get the discs for the last two days. Let’s see her coming and going, and what she took when she went. It’s going to be her van, so let’s start checking on that.”
“No vehicle registered in her name. I checked that already.”
“She’s got one. We’ll check her parents’ names. Failing that, I’m going to lean on our expert civilian consultant to find aliases. She’s going to have a vehicle, and one of them owns or rents a house, a building, a place.”
While Peabody hunted up security, Eve continued on the apartment. Su had lived well, she noted. A good space in a good building, what appeared to be carefully selected furnishings. Plenty of good-quality clothes left behind—because she didn’t plan to come back.
She’d come from a stable family—or so it seemed, Eve thought. Got a top-drawer education, and had pursued a challenging career.
One that put her in a lab, Eve thought, probably working alone a great deal of the time. No sign or indication of romantic relationships.
Something happened at Yale, she thought again. Something that had put her on a path to ugly revenge. And on that path, she’d met Downing and MacKensie—and two other women, yet unidentified, if Downing’s painting carried the weight Eve believed it did.
