Secrets in Death (In Death 45)

“Can I have a fizzy? The flavor doesn’t matter. I like all of them.” Cesca looked all around. “You’ve had killers in here?”

“Yeah, but not right now. Kyle, drink?”

“Fizzy’s good. Cherry’s best.”

“I’ll go get that.”

Eve sat when Peabody went out. She set down her tablet, brought up the floor plan for Du Vin. “This station. Station fifteen.”

“Fifteen. Gosh, we were so busy. Can I think a minute?”

“Take your time.”

Cesca closed her eyes, tapped her finger in the air. “That’s you and Dr. DeWinter. That’s the three ladies from East Washington on a girl trip—they were really nice, having a lot of fun together. Chatty. That’s Mr. Hardy and Mr. Franks—they’re regulars and work just down the block. And that’s … Okay.”

She opened her eyes. “A single, a guy, but I didn’t really see him.”

“Your station,” Eve reminded her.

“Yeah, but he ordered digital, paid cash. He had on … a hat. A watch cap kind of thing, and he worked on his PPC the whole time. Mineral water—a couple of them, and some nuts. He didn’t eat them.”

“How old was he?”

Cesca shook her head. “I guess I’m not really sure. We were busy, and he didn’t want service, even waved me away when I asked if I could get him something else.”

“Skin color?”

“I…” Now she squeezed her eyes shut. “He could’ve been white or mixed race. Maybe. I’m sorry. He sat like this.”

She shifted, hunched over, lowered her head. “I think he kept his coat on. I think. And see, we’re trained to leave customers alone if they want to be left alone. We get some who come in to work a little while they have a drink. I thought he was like that.”

Peabody brought in a drink caddy, set down two fizzies, offered Eve a tube of Pepsi.

“How about his voice?”

“Oh, I don’t think he said anything. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he didn’t say anything. I didn’t interact with him because he didn’t want to be bothered, right? I mean with someone like Dr. DeWinter or Mr. Hardy or Mr. Franks, you make a little conversation, and you can joke around some. Be personable. Someone like him, you leave him alone unless he calls you over. He never called me over.”

Eve glanced at Peabody as she cracked her tube of Pep

si.

“Did you see him get up from the table?” Peabody asked.

“No. I guess he was there for a half hour—forty minutes, maybe. I saw he’d left, so I went back, found the cash. He hadn’t called for his bill, and really should have, but he left cash that covered it and a decent enough tip, considering. So I generated a bill and cashed him out.”

She twisted her fingers together, gave another wide-eyed look at Eve. “I’m not helping. I’m sorry, but … Oh! He had a scarf—I remember that. I remember he had a gray scarf, because I wondered why he didn’t take it off, wasn’t he getting hot.”

“I wish I’d seen him,” Kyle put in. “I mean I might’ve seen him, but I wouldn’t know because I don’t know what he looked like. There were other customers in there with hats and coats and scarves. It’s been really cold.”

He brooded into his fizzy. “She was nice to me. Ms. Mars.”

Eve tried different angles, different questions, but ran into a blank wall. So blank she saw no point in pulling Yancy into it.

She let them go, checked the time. “I’m going to update the commander, then I want to talk to Nadine. We’ll wind around to the guy who paid the check in the group of four our suspect merged with.”

“They could have gotten a better look.”

Eve reran the security feed in her mind, the way he’d stayed a couple of steps back, the way the other four engaged with each other.