The audio came over it. A playback of her auto-record of the child’s screams. Her beating on the door. The warning, and all the horror that followed.
“You bastard,” she whispered. “You’re not going to get to me with this. You’re not going to use that baby to get to me.”
But her fingers shook as she ejected the disc. And she jolted when her intercom rang.
“Who is it?”
“Hennessy from apartment two-D.” The pale, earnest face of her downstairs neighbor flicked on screen. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant Dallas. I didn’t know what to do exactly. We’ve got trouble down here in the Finestein apartment.”
Eve sighed and let the image of the elderly couple flip into her mind. Quiet, friendly, television addicts. “What’s the problem?”
“Mr. Finestein’s dead, lieutenant. Keeled over in the kitchen while his wife was out playing mah-jongg with friends. I thought maybe you could come down.”
“Yeah.” She sighed again. “I’ll be there. Don’t touch anything, Mr. Hennessy, and try to keep people out of the way.” Out of habit she called dispatch, reported an unattended death and her presence on the scene.
She found the apartment quiet, with Mrs. Finestein sitting on the living room sofa with her tiny white hands folded in her lap. Her hair was white as well, a snowfall around a face that was beginning to line despite antiaging creams and treatments.
The old woman smiled gently at Eve.
“I’m so sorry to trouble you, dear.”
“It’s okay. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” Her soft blue eyes stayed on Eve’s. “It was our weekly game, the girls and mine. When I got home, I found him in the kitchen. He’d been eating a custard pie. Joe was overly fond of sweets.”
She looked over at Hennessy, who stood, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I didn’t know quite what to do, and went knocking on Mr. Hennessy’s door.”
“That’s fine. If you’d stay with her for a minute please,” she said to Mr. Hennessy.
The apartment was set up similarly to her own. It was meticulously neat, despite the abundance of knickknacks and memorabilia.
At the kitchen table with its centerpiece of china flowers, Joe Finestein had lost his life, and considerable dignity.
His head was slumped, half in, half out of a fluffy custard pie. Eve checked for a pulse, found none. His skin had cooled considerably. At a guess, she put his death at one-fifteen, give or take a couple of hours.
“Joseph Finestein,” she recited dutifully. “Male, approximately one hundred and fifteen years of age. No signs of forced entry, no signs of violence. There are no marks on the body.”
She leaned closer, looked into Joe’s surprised and staring eyes, sniffed the pie. After finishing her prelim notes, she went back to relieve Hennessy and interview the deceased’s widow.
It was midnight before she was able to crawl into bed. Exhaustion snatched at her like a cross and greedy child. Oblivion was what she wanted, what she prayed for.
No dreams, she ordered her subconscious. Take the night off.
Even as she closed her eyes, her bedside ’link blipped.
“Fry in hell, whoever you are,” she muttered, then dutifully wrapped the sheet around her naked shoulders and switched it on.
“Lieutenant.” Roarke’s image smiled at her. “Did I wake you?”
“You would have in another five minutes.” She shifted as the audio hissed with a bit of space interference. “I guess you got where you were going all right.”
“I did. There was only a slight delay in transport. I thought I might catch you before you turned in.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Because I like looking at you.” His smile faded as he stared at her. “What’s wrong, Eve?”
Where do you want me to start? she thought, but shrugged. “Long day—ending with one of your other tenants here croaking in his late night snack. He went facedown in a custard pie.”