Peabody clomped back. “Conference room two. I’ve got some financial data. It’s a little convoluted.”
“Do I need Roarke?”
“Not that convoluted. It looks like the mother retained ownership, kept Smith on salary. Decent enough, I guess, but not as much as you’d think for a daughter—only child—taking over the running of a family business. One said daughter worked in, on record, since the age of seventeen. It’s, you know, stingy. No percentage, no bonuses.”
“Okay. Okay.” Eve thought it through. “Maybe a hard relationship with the mother. Mira turf, but it may play into Smith’s obsession with the female writer, the female characters, the female vics.”
“No personal female power, or female circle,” Peabody finished with a nod. “A little more on that. The place did good business under the mother, held its own for the first couple years after she passed the management, it shows a small decline, then a big drop. The big drop’s about a year before she shut the doors. The mother, from my interpretation, shut them.”
“Got it,” Eve said as she walked herself through transferring what she had to the comp in the conference room. “Let’s get set up. Walk and talk. We’ve got Callendar on the e-work. On her way. Patch in Santiago and Carmichael when we’re ready to brief. I want a map, and whatever we can get of her residence.”
“She’d probably be at work now, right?”
“We need her direct supervisor. Let’s find out.”
In the conference room, Eve immediately set up the board with Smith’s ID shot front and center.
“Address is a three-story, eighteen-unit apartment building. She’s on the second floor, second unit, west side.”
Eve filed it in her head, visualized it, while she worked on the board.
“We tag the store,” Eve said, thinking out loud. “Ask for the seamstress department.”
“I think ‘Alterations.’ ”
“Then that. Request Smith by name for a ’link consult. She might know your face. We get Callendar to do it. Determine whether or not she’s in the store, how long she’ll be there. We need a sense of the area she works in—exits, how much running room. I’d rather wait until we’re there to notify store security. We don’t know them.”
As she worked out those logistics, Uniform Carmichael came in with Shelby. “Grab coffee if you want it. We’re waiting for our e-person. Peabody, try Records. See if we can access a blueprint of the Dobb’s store.”
“The one in Brooklyn?” Shelby asked. “I’ve got a friend who works there.”
Eve stopped what she was doing, turned to Shelby. “Is she a blabbermouth?”
“She can flap them, sir, but not if I swear her down. If I do, she’ll zip it.”
“Tag her and do that. I need her to find out if a seamstress is working today. Ann Elizabeth Smith.” Eve gestured to the board. “She’s our suspect. I need to know if she’s in the store, and the structure of the department where she works.”
“Jill, she’d know. She works in the fancy dress section, like formal wear and all that.”
“Just the data, and no blabbing.”
“She’ll stay frosty, Lieutenant.” Shelby pulled out her ’link as Callendar came in.
She’d whacked her hair short, added blue tips. She wore the many-pocketed baggies the e-geeks seemed to love. Her multitude of pockets sported blue-and-pink polka dots over their fields of electrified green. The rest of the baggies picked up the pink while her high-top sneaks reveled in the green and blue.
The frisky puppy frolicking over her shirt—and impressive breasts—seemed at odds with the weapon clipped to her belt.
She said, “Yo.”
“Yo. Grab coffee, I’ll brief in a minute.”
“Got fizzy.” She shook the go-cup in her hand. “Ready and able.”
“Lieutenant? The suspect isn’t in today.”
“We’ll focus on her residence.”
“Sir?” Shelby continued. “She