Dark in Death (In Death 46)

“Okay. Unless Harvo pulled an all-nighter like Morris, she hasn’t had time to get us anything yet, but we need to keep on that. I want Yancy all over the sketch. We push on the canvass for the damn dreads.”

“Can I have hot chocolate?” Peabody offered a winsome smile. “I fantasized about it on the hike from the subway.”

“Go.” Eve flicked a hand at the in-dash.

She drove to Central, saw with some astonishment a couple of kids sliding down the sidewalk on what looked like flattened cardboard.

“Why aren’t their asses frozen?”

“Probably because they’re only ten-year-old asses.” She handed Eve a go-cup of coffee. “I’ve been thinking about the coats—the two she made. Well, three, since one was reversible. She has to have a professional machine, like I said, something that will handle the heavier materials, the heavier thread. She probably brought it with her to Brooklyn. If she’s on a budget, buying one’s a big expense, so with her skill level, she probably had it before, hauled it or had it shipped up here. Maybe we can track it.”

“We need to push into Delaware. That’s another angle there. If she had her own professional machine, she likely did work out of her own place. Either full-or part-time. Do you need a license for that?”

Considering, Peabody pursed her lips. “Maybe a certification. I’ll check. If she sewed under the table—I mean didn’t report sales or fees—that’s a harder route to follow, but she’d have had some reportable income, or big flag. She’d need a certification or a tax ID to buy supplies wholesale.”

“She’d want that,” Eve concluded. “She’d need to maximi

ze income. Start playing those angles back in Delaware, and we’ll keep on them in Brooklyn.”

She pulled into the lot at Central, shuffling the agenda in her head.

“Start digging on the license or certification or whatever the hell for tailoring. Female, in Delaware, and cross with any lapses in the last two years. Lapses or transfers to New York. We’ll look for employment, income from tailoring, seamstressing in Delaware, and again the lapse that fits our timeline.”

Eve got out, headed to the elevators. “I’ll push on Harvo, take another look at the Transit Authority feed—and see if we can track her from the stop in Brooklyn last night. Even in a stupid fur hoodie, it was freaking cold, so maybe she took a cab or a bus.”

As the elevator doors opened, something, some compact missile with arms and legs, launched out. It slammed Peabody on the fly, knocking her back and down. At the same instant Eve managed to pivot, catch the missile on her shoulder, use its momentum to flip it over.

A clatter of footsteps on the iron steps echoed with Peabody’s breathless curse. Eve pivoted again, but wasn’t quite quick enough to avoid one of the limbs—a foot—from glancing off her jaw, another from banging into her ribs before she dropped bodily on the now-cackling … man, she realized. A very small man with a really long beard.

She said: “Fuck, fuck, fuck me!” as she held him down, shifting to pull her restraints off her belt.

He continued to cackle, to wriggle, as Peabody gained her hands and knees and the thundering footsteps became a pair of breathless uniforms.

“Little asshole,” one of them spewed as Eve finally clamped on the restraints. “He just all of a sudden went batshit.”

Eve sat on the little asshole, eyeing the uniforms balefully. “What the fucking fuck?”

“Sir, he came in to report an assault, he said, and we were starting to process when he went batshit. He took off for the elevator like he had wings on his tiny little feet.”

Eve looked down at the crazed, glassy eyes of a man who looked like a creepy garden gnome. “And neither of you could tell he’s on something that makes him think he can fly? Get him in the tank. He assaulted an officer. Peabody, your status.”

“I’m, ah, okay. Rapped my head pretty good.” She reached around, probed with her fingertips. “Ow!”

“Haul his tiny, stupid ass up the steps.” Eve dragged him up, shoved him at the uniforms. “Two counts of assaulting an officer,” she said, rubbing her stinging jaw. “Find out what he ingested, popped, or smoked. For Christ’s sake.”

“I love you, sweet cheeks,” the tiny, wriggling man shouted at Eve. “Wanna kiss your boobies!”

“Yeah? Well, I want to kick your tiny ass. We’ll both live with the disappointment.” She gripped Peabody’s arm, guided her into the elevator.

“Boobies!” he shouted before the elevator doors shut.

“I’m surrounded by boobies. Do you need medical?”

“I don’t think … Were we just slammed by a giggling, bearded dwarf?”

“You were.”

“Then I probably only need an ice pack. And a blocker.”