Devoted in Death (In Death 41)

“I’ll keep that in mind. Just to play it safe, talk to the locals, see about getting access to their ’links in case the daughter’s contacted them.”

“They already offered, but we’ll breeze by the local badges, see what we can suss out.”

“Good work. Keep it moving. Tag me from the next stop.”

She’d barely clicked off when she got an incoming from Baxter.

“We got two hits, boss, bang-bang. Nothing, nothing, nothing, then two. Pawnshop and pizza joint, both on Hudson. Pawnshop between West Houston and King, pizzeria between Charlton and Vandam.”

Her attention went straight to the map. “Fucking A.”

“After some friendly persuasion, the pawnshop ID’d James. He was in twice last week. Pizza place nailed both of them. Takeout, two visits. We’re going to try this Chinese place, and there’s a souvenir shop one block over.”

“Do that. I’m sending some uniforms to canvass, try some of the residences, the other businesses. If they spent time walking around that area, we can narrow the field. This is good, Baxter. What did they pawn?”

“A wrist unit, sports model, and a second, dress type. Decent ones, both men’s styles. A tablet – wiped clean – a keyboard, musical type, an entertainment screen, an antique vase, a silver Saint Christopher’s medal. Nothing shows up on stolen.”

“Bring the tablet in. EDD will see how wiped is wiped. Send me pictures and descriptions of all. I’ll check them against the vics. Did James go into the pawnshop and the pizza joint the same days?”

“First time, yeah, but about six hours apart, from what we’re getting. Second time, different days.”

“Okay. Keep me in.”

“You bet. Ah, hey, I haven’t heard anything from Trueheart. Have you —”

“It’s too soon. Focus.”

She cut him off, went back to the map.

She recalculated, using the two hits. You go for takeaway, she thought, you go close to home. If you were driving, it didn’t matter so much, but…

Too much time between visits on the first hits. Six hours? No, he drove to the pawnshop, possibly, but then they went back to the same area to pick up food. And back again, same area twice more.

Because it was easy and quick.

She cut six blocks north and three blocks east off her map, let that stew while she pulled up the data Baxter sent and ran it with anything reported missing from the victims.

Tablet, she noted, wrist units – but nothing matching the pawned wrist units.

“You hit somebody in New York for this stuff.”

She shoved up, paced. None of it reported stolen – and that led her to whoever they stole it from was dead.

But not discovered. Not discovered because when the cops had a DB they checked out the DB’s place of residence.

And that’s where James and Parsens were living. That’s what played out.

She turned back to the map. “Getting closer, you fuckers. Getting closer every minute.”

She went to the door, shouted, “Peabody,” then went back to the map as if she could pinpoint the location by will alone.

“Sir!”

“We’re narrowing the area. Baxter and Banner have a couple hits. I’m going to have some black-and-whites cruise the target area for the van. The baby is with Parsens’s mother.”

“Thank God. I had this image of her just, I don’t know, tossing it out of the truck window or something.”

“She had it for a reason,” Eve said, “and played the mother with the rehabilitating-myself-for-the-sake-of-my-tiny-baby routine, gave it a few days, stole what she could use or sell, walked out, leaving said tiny baby. That well may be dry now, but Carmichael and Santiago will pump it a little more before heading to the bar, then the prison.