“Your partner’s started the canvass. The sweepers and the morgue have been notified. Keep the scene secured, Officer Morales.”
“Yes, sir. Wit’s shaken up, but cooperative. I don’t think she saw anything. Her story’s holding solid.”
“We’ll take a pass at her.”
Eve stepped in. It was a mirror of Ledo’s flop in size and shape, but it lacked the toxic pigsty decor. Misty Polinsky had a saggy sofa covered with a wildly floral throw, a skinny red rug over clean floors, a fringed lamp with a dented shade. She—or someone—had painted more flowers on boxes stacked into a substitute dresser.
The kitchen consisted of a cup-sized sink, a mini AutoChef, and a counter about as big as a desk blotter. But it was clean.
Misty herself sat on the floral throw, legs curled up, holding a chipped mug in two hands. She wore her sky-blue hair in a sharp wedge, shivered under an oversized sweater draped over narrow shoulders.
Though her face enhancements were badly smeared, pretty peeked out under them. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but from the look of her Eve deduced tears rather than the funk.
“Ms. Polinsky, I’m Lieutenant Dallas. This is Detective Peabody, and our consultant. How are you holding up?”
“I feel a little sick. Officer Morales said to drink some tea, but I still feel a little sick. I never saw anything like that. I never saw anything like Ledo in there.”
Tears swam—shock not grief in Eve’s estimation, so she sat on the arm of the sofa. “It’s hard seeing something like that. How well did you know Ledo?”
“Not really. I mean to see—and I talked to him a few times. You know how you do.”
“Have you ever been in his place?”
“No. He . . . he asked me over, but, well, you know.” She drew in her shoulders. “I didn’t want to.”
“Did you ever buy anything from him?”
“I don’t do that.” Big eyes as blue as her hair went huge. “I swear to God. You can test me and everything. I don’t do illegals.”
“Okay.” Eve scrolled through her PPC as she spoke, doing a quick run on her witness. “How old are you, Misty?”
“Twenty-two.”
“How old are you on Planet Earth?”
The hands holding the mug trembled. “I’m not going back. You can’t make me go back. I got ID that says I’m twenty-one.”
“Go back where?”
“Look, I was just going to work. I work the early shift at the coffee shop around the corner three days a week. Del’s, it’s called, but I never met anybody named Del in there. I had to call in, tell them I’d be late, and now Pete’s mad.”
“And you work at Swing It four nights a week.”
Misty’s face went pink under the blue hair. “I just dance, okay? I don’t do the other stuff. I just dance.”
“How long have you been in New York?”
“Six months. Almost. I was just going to work, Officer.”
“Lieutenant.”
“Okay. I was just going to work, and the door over there was open. I shouldn’t’ve looked in, but it was open, and it’s not a good neighborhood, so I looked in just to make sure Ledo didn’t get robbed or something. And I saw him, on his bed. The blood.”
“Did you go in?”
“Uh-uh.” She shook her head vigorously. “I ran back in here, locked the door. I didn’t know what to do, thought I was going to boot. I was going to run out again, go to work, pretend I hadn’t seen anything. But . . . It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right, so I called the police.”
Though it remained pink, her face went rigid with anger. “I shouldn’t be in trouble for calling the police. For doing the right thing.”