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“She made a nice nest for herself in a very ugly tree,” Eve commented. “I’ve got no transmissions or any correspondence from anyone named Jack, or any one guy in particular for that matter. No marriage or cohabitation on record?”
“No, sir.”
“We’ll talk to her counselor, see if there’s anybody she was close to, or had been close to. But I don’t think we’ll find him there.”
“Dallas, it seems to me, what he did to her . . . it seems to me that it was personal.”
“Does, doesn’t it?” She turned around, looked at the room again. Neat, girlie, with a desperate attempt at style. “I think it was very personal, but not specific to the victim. He killed a woman, and a woman who made her living from selling her body. That’s the personal part. You not only kill her, but you hack out the part of her that made that living. It’s not hard to find a street LC in this area any time of the night. You just have to choose your time and place. A sample of his work,” she murmured. “That’s all she was.”
She walked to the window and, narrowing her eyes, visualized the street, the alley, the building just out of view. “He might have known her, or have seen her. Just as possible it was chance. But he was ready if chance presented itself. He had the weapon, he had the note written and sealed, and something—a case, a bag, a satchel, something to carry fresh clothes, or to store whatever he was wearing. He’d’ve been covered with her blood.
“She goes in the alley with him,” Eve continued. “It’s hot, it’s late, business can’t be very good. But here’s a job, maybe one last job before she heads home. She’s experienced, been in the life for two decades, but she doesn’t make him as trouble. Maybe she’s been drinking, or maybe he looked okay. And there’s the fact that she’s not used to street work, wouldn’t have the instincts for it.”
Too accustomed to the high life, Eve thought, to the sexual kinks of the wealthy and discreet. Coming down to Chinatown must’ve been like landing on Venus for her.
“She’s up against the wall.” Eve could see it, see it perfectly. The dark, spiked hair shimmering with silver, the come-on-big-boy red of the halter. “And she’s thinking she needs the fee to make the rent, or she hopes he hurries because her feet hurt—Jesus, they had to be killing her in those shoes. She’s tired, but she’ll take one more mark before she calls it a night.
“When he slashes her throat, she’s surprised more than anything. It had to be quick and clean. One quick slice, left to right, straight across the jugular. Sprayed blood like a son of a bitch. Her body’s dead before her brain computes it. But that’s only the beginning for him.”
She turned back, scanned the dresser. Cheap jewelry, expensive lip dye. Perfumes, designer knockoffs, to remind you that you’d been able to bathe in the real thing once, and damn well would again.
“He arranges her, lays her out, then cuts the woman out of her. Had to have a bag somewhere to put what he’s taken from her. He cleans his hands.”
She could see him, too, the shadow of him crouched in the filthy alley, hands slick with blood as he tidied up.
“I bet he cleaned his tools, too, but he certainly cleans his hands. Takes the note he’s written, sets it neatly on her breasts. He had to change his shirt, or put a jacket on. Something, because of the blood. What then?”
Peabody blinked. “Ah, walks away, figuring job well done. He goes home.”
“How?”
“Um, walks if he lives close enough.” She took a breath, pushing herself out of the alley and into her lieutenant’s mind. Into the killer’s mind. “He’s on top of the world, so he’s not worried about being hassled by a mugger. If he doesn’t live close by, he’s probably got his own ride because, even changing, or covering up, there’s too much blood on him, and there’d be a smell. It’d be a stupid risk to take a cab or the subway.”
“Good. We’ll check the cab companies for pickups around the crime scene during our time frame, but I don’t think we’ll find anything. Let’s seal this place up, canvass the building.”
Neighbors, as was expected from neighbors in such places, knew nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing. The landlord operated out of a storefront in Chinatown, between a market that was running a special on ducks’ feet and an alternative medicine joint that promised health, well-being, and spiritual balance or your money back.
Eve recognized Piers Chan’s type, the beefy arms in shirtsleeves, the pencil mustache over thin lips. The humble surroundings and diamond pinky ring.
He was mixed-race, with enough Asian to have him set up in the business bustle of Chinatown, though she imagined his last ancestor to see Peking might have been at his prime during the Boxer Rebellion.
Just as she imagined Chan kept his home and family in some upscale suburb in New Jersey while he played slumlord of the Lower East Side.
“Wooton, Wooton.” While two silent clerks busied themselves in the back, Chan flipped through his tenant book. “Yes, she’s got a deluxe single on Doyers.”
“Deluxe?” Eve repeated. “And what makes it deluxe?”
“Got a kitchen area with built-in friggie and AutoChef. Comes with the package. She’s behind. Rent was due a week ago. She got the standard reminder call a couple days ago. She’ll get another today, then an automatic evict notice next week.”
“That won’t be necessary as she’s changed her address to the city morgue. She was murdered early this morning.”
“Murdered.” His eyebrows lowered into an expression Eve interpreted as irritation rather than sympathy or shock. “Goddamn it. You seal the place?”
Eve cocked her head. “And you ask because?”
“Look, I own six buildings, got seventy-two units. You got that many tenants, some of them are going to croak one way or another. You get your unattended death, your suspicious death, your misadventure, and your self-termination.” He ticked them off on his fat fingers. “And your homicide.” For that he used his thumb. “Then you guys come along, seal the place up, notify next of kin. Before I can blink some uncle or other is clearing the place out before I can put in a claim and get my back rent.”
He spread his hands now, and sent Eve an aggrieved look. “I’m just trying to make a living here.”
