“Once Yancy’s worked them, we’ll have more.”
She turned in the gates of home. “While I’m talking to MacMasters, start on the shoes. Tap someone in the division to help on that. Whoever’s not buried on an active. I’m betting they were pretty new, bought just for that meet. And we’ll start canvassing the area where Marta spotted them. See if you can find out what day the East Side Children’s Museum had a magic show, and we had a rainstorm. We can pinpoint the day the wit spotted them. Put someone on that, focus on music venues, vids, gaming parlors, places where teenagers might hang.”
“On it.”
“Tell Summerset to set you up somewhere.” She parked, pushed out of the car. “It’s not going to be his neighborhood either. He wouldn’t want someone to see him, stop, speak. Not when he was with her. Just the two of them.”
She walked in, simply jerked her thumb at Peabody when Summerset appeared.
“Captain MacMasters is waiting in your office. Commander Whitney is with him.”
She said nothing, but started up.
“Your gown is ready, and will be delivered today.”
“My what?”
“Your gown for Dr. Dimatto’s wedding. Leonardo would like to see it on you, in the event it requires any further fitting.”
Eve opened her mouth, closed it, and made some growling sound. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine. Just put it wherever you put those things when it gets here.”
Gowns, fittings, weddings. For God’s sake. Was she supposed to call Louise, report on the gown?
For God’s sake, she thought again.
It would have to wait. Right now she was about to talk to a grieving father about the investigation into his child’s murder.
Everything else had to wait.
9
WHEN SHE STEPPED TO THE DOORWAY EVE SAW MacMasters standing by the windows. Did he see the green, the color, the bloom, the blue? She doubted it.
He looked diminished, she decided. Worn and lessened by the burden of grief. Could he be a cop now? Think like one, stand like one?
She wasn’t sure.
She glanced at the commander, standing beside him. The stance was support, friendship, shared loss.
She would need them both to step back from that loss, to erect a distance of objectivity to give her what she needed.
Or to step away completely.
She walked in. “Commander. Captain.”
They both turned. On MacMasters’s face she saw that quick spark that was hope. Survivors, she knew, needed answers.
“Is there any progress, Lieutenant?”
“We’re pursuing some lines,” she told MacMasters. She moved toward her desk, around the murder board she’d deliberately left up. He had to face it, and she’d remembered what Roarke had said when she’d allowed Morris to see the board on Coltraine’s investigation.
That he would see she was the center of it. She was the focus.
“I brought the captain up-to-date, from this morning’s briefing,” Whitney said, his gaze latched onto her face. “It saves you time.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll go over some of that, but you should know we found two wits this morning who believe they saw Deena with the suspect. Both are willing to work with a police artist. I’ve arranged for Detective Yancy to meet with them.”
“Two?” MacMasters’s voice jumped. “Two people saw him?”