Born in Death (In Death 23)

“Find them—the woman and the baby—and we’ll call it even.” Smith dug up a card. “I don’t have anything current that mirrors this one, but I’ll do a search, see if there’s anything in the city that reflects a like crime.”

“Appreciate it. All of it.”

“The missing’s who matters, not who runs the show from here. My home ’link, pocket ’link numbers are on the back. Day or night.”

Eve took the card, offered her hand.

Back in her office she found Roarke at her desk working on her comp. He glanced up at her, lifted his brows in question.

“I’m clear. I got lucky.”

“That’s good then. I got started on your background checks. Do you want to work here or at home?”

“Neither, not yet. Right now we’re going to see a man about a bus.”

The bus driver’s name was Braunstein, and he was about two hundred pounds of hard fat in a New York Giants football jersey. He was fifty-two, married, and was spending his Saturday evening watching a post-season game on-screen with his brother-in-law and son while his wife, his sister, and niece took in some—in his words—“girlie vids” at a local theater.

His irritation at having his viewing interrupted was obvious, until Eve mentioned Tandy’s name.

“London Bridge? That’s what I call her. Sure I know her. Rides with me most every night. Always has her fare card ready, lots don’t. Got a nice smile. She sits right behind me. Somebody takes that seat, I make ’em get up, give it to her. Her delicate condition and all.

“She gave me a nice tin of cookies for the holidays. Made them herself. She got trouble?”

“I don’t know that yet. Did she ride with you Thursday evening?”

“Thursday.” He scratched his chin, which badly needed a shave. “Nope. Funny now you mention it, ’cause I remember her saying, ‘See you tomorrow, Mr. B,’ when she got off at her stop on Wednesday. She calls me ‘Mr. B.’ I remember because she was carting this box wrapped in funny paper with a big-ass bow on it.”

He glanced around as both of his companions erupted with rage at a call on the field. “Offside, my rosy red ass,” one of them shouted.

“Goddamn refs,” Braunstien muttered. “’Scuze the language. Anyway, I asked her about it—the box—when she got on, and she said how she had a baby shower on the weekend. Listen, that little girl get hurt or something? I told her she ought to take the maternity leave, close as she was. She okay? She and the baby okay?”

“I hope so. On the bus, you ever notice anyone paying too much attention to her? Hanging too close, keeping an eye? Anything like that?”

“No, and I woulda.” He scratched his prominent belly. “I kinda looked out for her during the run, you know? Got some regulars, and some of them might strike up a conversation with her the way people do when a woman’s carrying a bun. You know, ‘How you feeling?’ ‘When are you due?’ ‘Pick out any names,’ that kind of thing. But nobody bothered her. I wouldn’a let them.”

“How about people who got off at her stop?”

“Sure, there’d be some. Regulars and otherwise. Never noticed anybody looking funny, though. Someone hurt that girl? Come on, I feel like her uncle or something. She hurt?”

“I don’t know. No one’s seen her, as far as we can tell, since Thursday, at around six o’clock.”

“Well, Jesus.” This time Braunstien showed no reaction to the shouts and curses coming from the living room. “Jesus, that’s not right.”

People like her,” Eve said as she drove. “Like people liked Copperfield and Byson.”

“Bad things happen to likable people,” Roarke pointed out.

“Yeah, yeah, they do. I’m going by where she worked. Walk from there to her bus stop. Get a feel.”

Outside the White Stork, Eve watched traffic zing uptown on Madison. It was later than it would have been when Tandy left work, and a Saturday rather than a weekday. But it would’ve been going dark at six, and, as she recalled, that day was gloomy.

Streetlights on, she mused, headlights cutting through the dank light.

“Cold,” she said aloud. “People bundled up, like they are now. Walking brisk, most of them walking brisk. Want to get home, or get where they’re going. Early dinner, after-work drinks, errands to do on the way home. She comes out. Has to walk over to Fifth to catch her bus. Two blocks down, one block over.”

Eve started to walk it with Roarke beside her. “She’s going to move with the lights. If she hits the walk, she’ll go on down the second block, then over. If she doesn’t, she’ll do the cross-town block first. You want to keep moving.”

“No way to know which way she did it.”