Connections in Death (In Death 48)

“Awhile, I guess. My mom thinks he moved out. Hope so. I’m never supposed to open the door to him, even if she?

?s home. She says he’s trouble. What do you want him for anyway?”

Eve held up her badge. “He’s trouble.”

The girl looked mildly impressed with the badge, and eased up for a closer look at it.

“Man, how come she’s always right? If you’re a cop, how come you have that rocking coat? And she has those chill boots?”

“If you’re a kid, why aren’t you in school?”

“Yo, school let out hours ago.”

The accompanying eye roll, Eve had to admit, was practiced and perfect.

“My mom says Mrs. Aimes works really hard, and tries her best and doesn’t deserve trouble like her son, and how he’s going to end up dead or in jail. I bet you put him in jail so she’ll be right again.”

Eve dug out a card. “If you hear him come back, contact me. Don’t speak to him and, like your mother said, don’t open the door.”

“I don’t speak to him anyway—and if my mom knew how he looked at me a couple of times, she’d…” She looked up from the card, clever blue eyes narrowing. “I know what Homicide is. I need to tag my mom. She’s at work. I don’t want her walking home by herself if that pervy jerk’s killed somebody.”

“Tag your mom. Otherwise, keep this quiet. Do you know when his mother usually gets home?”

“I think around seven or eight most nights. Except Fridays and Saturdays she works late and it’s more like eleven, I guess. She works at the Sky Mall at Trendy. She gives me discount vouchers sometimes. She’s nice. I need to tag my mom. She’ll be starting home soon.”

“What’s your name?”

“Carrie Dru.”

“Carrie, we have a warrant for Aimes’s arrest, and it includes entry into his residence. So we’re going inside.”

“Can you do that?”

Eve tapped her badge. “Yeah. You go inside, stay inside.”

Without another word, Carrie popped inside, closed the door. Eve heard locks click.

Engaging her recorder, Eve moved back to Aimes’s apartment door. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Peabody, Detective Delia, mastering into suspect’s apartment.”

She drew her weapon, and did just that.

“Clear it. He may be lying low, or sleeping off a high.”

The living area, clean, neat without being crazy about it, held decent furniture without a lot of fuss, the standard entertainment screen, a scatter of photographs, including one she took to be the suspect as a toddler.

The kitchen off the living space—also clean—told her the kid next door had it right. Even lying low or high, if a teenage killer was in residence, there’d be dirty dishes.

The mother’s bedroom, neat and spare, faced one with a lock drilled into it, and a handwritten sign.

KEEP OUTTA MY SPACE!

“Not today, Barry.”

Eve mastered through.

The smell told her the mother obeyed the sign. It stank of stale Zoner from the minute butts of same littering a small plate; of sweaty, who-needs-a-shower male; and of the remnants of a days-old burrito.

Dirty clothes littered the floor along with discarded, empty tubes of Cola Blast and a couple of foggy brown bottles of what she deduced had been cheap, homemade brew.