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“As long as necessary. Would you please take another look at the image on screen? A closer look.”
“I’m just not sure, either way.”
“He may have longer hair, or shorter. He could look just a little older.”
“Longer hair,” she murmured. “It could be . . . Jesus, it could be. Longer hair and a beard. Dom Patrelli.”
Bingo, Eve thought. Even as she turned to order Peabody to run it, her partner was working her PPC. “How do you know him?”
“I do pro bono work out of a legal-aid clinic, Lower East Side. About three weeks ago, when I was leaving this—he—came running up. Out of breath. Asked if I was Elysse Wagman. He said he was a journalist, and doing a spec piece on women in law with an emphasis on domestic cases. It’s my specialty. He said he’d run behind, had tried to get there before the clinic closed, asked if he could just walk with me, ask me some questions. I didn’t see the harm. He was charming and earnest, and so interested in the work we’re doing.”
“He gave you his name, his credentials.”
“Yes. I guess it was kind of quick, he was a bit fumbly. But we were right on the street. He just walked with me for a few blocks,
asked the right sort of questions. He’d done some good background on the clinic. I was impressed, and pleased. We can use some positive exposure. He bought me a cup of coffee from a glide-cart, and asked if he could contact me if he had any follow-ups.”
“And did he?”
“The next week, he was waiting outside the clinic when I closed up, with coffee. I had some time, so we walked over to the park, sat on a bench, drank coffee while we did his follow-up. He was . . . he was a little flirty, nothing over the top or offensive. I was flattered. He’s twenty years younger, easily, and I . . . I’m an idiot.”
“No. He’s very good at what he does.”
“We talked, that’s all, and it came out he’s a fan of Zapoto’s films.”
“Jesus,” Drobski murmured.
“I know. I’m a rabid fan, and we got into that, debating, dissecting. There was a mini-festival in Tribeca that weekend.”
“You went out with him.”
Elysse moistened her lips, pushed at her hair.
Nervous, Eve thought, but equal parts embarrassed.
“I met him there Saturday night. We had drinks after, a little dinner. God, I actually told him I couldn’t ask him back to my place because of my daughter, which was an obvious way of saying let’s go to his. And he said his roommate’s mother was visiting, and it would be awkward. Then he kissed me and put me in a cab. He kissed me,” she repeated, pressing her hand to her lips.
“We went out again the next week—just lunch, soy dogs down on the wharf. He made me feel young, sexy—and eager,” she confessed, “because he said he wanted me to have a little more time. I’d told him about the divorce, and my daughter. I told him about my girl. He wanted me to have more time because he wanted me to be sure.”
“When are you seeing him again?”
“A week from Friday. He’s working this weekend.”
Not if I can help it, Eve thought.
19
“SHE’S NOT THE NEXT IN LINE,” EVE SAID. “He’s playing her along, stringing it out. Divorced—that’s a couple steps further along. He plays her perfectly. Changes his look, his image. Young, but not too young, flirtatious, but not too, interested in what interests her—knowledgeable about those interests.”
“She doesn’t tell anybody about him because it’s early days yet,” Peabody put in. “And she feels a little foolish contemplating an affair with someone twenty years younger.”
“He doesn’t have a house ’link, he tells her, his pocket’s broken. He hasn’t gotten around to replacing it. He doesn’t want her contacting him yet. He needs to keep her anxious and off balance. He’s got the power. But she’s not next.”
“Somebody else is.” Concern covered Peabody’s face as she studied the images of possible targets Eve had displayed on the rear wall screen. “And probably this weekend.”
“He doesn’t get another one. Let’s take the child services supervisor, then the APA.”
She downed coffee between interviews and gave Peabody a twenty-minute break to grab a sandwich of her own.
