And his voice shook on the statement so that he had to stop, just stop and breathe.
“My brother, he lives half a block from them. It’s a good neighborhood. Safe. Goddamn it.”
“It’s a good neighborhood, Mr. Waterman.” And small comfort. “When the panic siren went off, people came out. They didn’t burrow inside and ignore it. We’ve already got a couple of witnesses who saw the man who attacked her running away. He might not have run if it wasn’t a good neighborhood, if people hadn’t opened their windows or come outside to help.”
“Okay.” He swiped the heel of his hand across his cheek, the back of his hand under his nose. “Okay. Thanks. I helped them find that apartment, you see. My sister, Marley’s mother, she asked me to check the place out.”
“And you found her a place where people come out to help. Mr. Waterman, a guy runs a bar, he notices people, right? You get a feel. Maybe you got a feel for somebody who’d come in recently.”
“People don’t come into my place looking for trouble. We got sing-alongs for Christ sake. We got regulars, and there’s some tourist trade. I got a deal going with a couple of hotels. It’s a middle-class, neighborhood pub, Sergeant.”
“Lieutenant.”
“Sorry. I don’t know anybody who’d do this to our Marley. I don’t know anybody who’d do this to anybody’s daughter. What kind of sick bastard beats a little girl like that? Can you tell me? What kind of sick bastard does something like this?”
“No, sir, I can’t tell you. Did she mention anyone she met recently, or anyone she noticed around the neighborhood, around where she shopped or ate or hung out? Anything at all?”
“No. Some guy she met in school earlier this summer. I don’t know his name. One of my girls might.” He took out a handkerchief, blew his nose. “We pushed her to drop her summer classes, because of those kids that were killed. Those college kids a few weeks ago. She knew one of them, the first one, so it upset her. Upset all of us. I got her that mugger spray, told her to keep it in her pocket. She did. She’s a good girl.”
“And she used it. That means she’s smart and she’s tough. She drove him off, Mr. Waterman.”
“The doctors won’t tell us.” Eve turned as a woman spoke behind her. She’d come to the door and stood there, leaning on the opening as if she couldn’t bear her own weight. “They won’t say, but I could see what they thought. That’s my baby they’ve got in there. My baby, and they think she’ll die. But they’re wrong.”
“She’s going to be fine, Sela.” Waterman pulled her into his arms, held her tight. “Marley’s going to be just fine.”
“Mrs. Cox, is there anything you can tell me that will help?”
“She’ll tell you herself, when she wakes up.” Sela’s voice was stronger than her brother’s, and absolutely sure. “Then you’ll go after him, and you’ll lock him up. When you do, I’m going to come in, and look right at his face and tell him it was my girl, it was my baby who put him there.”
Dallas left them alone, found a corner, a cup of coffee, and waited until Peabody returned and sat down beside her.
“No luck on the rental yet, but McNab and Feeney are on it.”
“Smart. Careful,” Eve commented. “Rents it via computer with a bogus name and license number, and pays to have it delivered to the bogus address. Nobody sees him. He seals up, so we’ve got no prints, no hair, no nothing inside the van except the wig he ditched and the pieces of plaster.”
“Maybe some of the blood on-scene will turn out to be his.”
Eve only shook her head. “He’s too smart for that. But he’s not as smart as he thinks he is because he didn’t get Marlene Cox. Not the way he wanted. And somebody’s seen him. Somebody saw him get in that rental or park it by her building. Just the way people saw him running like a scared rabbit away from the scene.”
She took a long breath, a long sip of coffee. “The moving van, that was his stage set, so he was careful there. He wanted us to find her inside the van. But he had to run, with his eyes burning, his throat on fire from the spray. Had to get to his bolt-hole.”
She looked over as a doctor in surgical scrubs came down the hall. On his face she could see what Sela Cox had seen—the grimness. “Damn it.”
Eve got to her feet, and waited for him to go in and speak with the family.
She heard weeping, male and female, and voices down to murmurs. She was waiting when he stepped back out.
“Dallas.” She flipped out her badge. “I need a minute.”
“Dr. Laurence. She can’t talk to you, or anybody else.”
“She’s alive?”
“I don’t know how she made it through surgery, and I don’t expect her to last the morning. I’m letting her family go in, to say good-bye.”
“I wasn’t able to speak to the MTs on-scene. Can you tell me about her injuries?”
He stalked over to a vending machine, ordered coffee. “Broken ribs. I’d say he kicked her. Collapsed lung, bruised kidneys, dislocated shoulder, broken elbow. Those are just some of the minor injuries. Her skull, that’s a different matter. Ever taken a hard-boiled egg, run it with your palm over a hard surface to break up the shell?”