Down These Strange Streets (George R.R. Martin) (Kitty Norville 6.50)

He blew out a sigh and turned and leaned back against the end of the van, looking at the notepad in his hand. Salvador prompted him:

“Their stories were consistent?”

“Yeah, jefe. Right from the start, it wasn’t just listening to each other and editing the memory.”

He touched the screen. “Okay, sequence: When Mrs. Lopez got home with the kids, around five, Ellen Tarnowski’s car, she’s the upper-floor tenant, was there. Mr. Lopez, the husband, got home a little later and noticed it too. Because she’s usually not back from work by then.”

“They friends with her?”

“They know her to talk to, just in passing. Said she was nice, but they didn’t have much in common.”

The senior detective grunted and looked at his notepad, tapping for information; Mr. and Mrs. Lopez were a midlevel state government functionary and a dental hygienist respectively. Ellen Tarnowski . . .

Works at Hans & Demarcio Galleries. Okay, artsy. God knows we’ve got enough of them around here.

There were three-hundred-odd galleries in Santa Fe, plus every other diner and taco joint had original artwork on the walls and on sale. Half the waiters and checkout clerks in town were aspiring artists of one sort or another too, like the would-be actors in L.A. She looked out at him, a picture from some website or maybe the DMV: blond, midtwenties, full red lips, short straight nose, high cheekbones, wide blue eyes. Something in those eyes too, an odd look. Kind of haunted. The figure below . . .

“Jesus.”

“Just what I said. Anyway, she comes downstairs just after Mr. Lopez arrives. Mrs. Lopez looks out the kitchen window and notices her because she’s wearing—”

He checked his notes again.

“—a white silk sheath dress and a wrap. She knew it was Tarnowski’s best fancy-occasion dress from a chat they’d had months ago. Another woman was with her. About Tarnowski’s age, but shorter, slim, olive complexion or a tan, long dark hair, dark eyes . . .”

“Really going to stand out in this town.”

“Sí, though if she’s going around with la Tarnowski s

he will! I got a composite on her too, but it’s not as definite. Mrs. Lopez said her clothes looked really expensive, and she was wearing a tanzanite necklace.”

“What the fuck’s tanzanite?”

The other thing we have hundreds of is jewelry stores.

“Like sapphire, but expensive. Here’s what she looked like.”

He showed a picture. The face was triangular, smiling slightly, framed by long straight black hair. Attractive too, but . . .

Reminds me of that mink I handled once. Pretty, and it bit like a bastard. Took three stitches and a tetanus shot.

“I don’t think she’s Latina, somehow,” he said aloud, as his fingers caressed the slight scar at the base of his right thumb.

“Yeah, me too, but I can’t put my finger on why. Incidentally, let’s do a side-by-side with the composite on the man they saw standing still outside, when the old goatsucker with the gun ran them out past him. The one he shoved into the backseat later.”

Salvador’s eyebrows went up as the pictures appeared together. “Are they sure that’s not the same person? It’s an easy mistake to make, in the dark, with the right clothes.”

His partner nodded; it was, surprisingly so under some circumstances.

“Looks a lot like Dark Mystery Woman, eh? But it was a guy, very certainly. Wearing a dark zippered jacket open with a tee underneath. Mrs. Lopez said he looked real fit. Not bulked up but someone who worked out a lot. She got a better look at him than at the woman; they went right by. Nothing from the databases on either of them, by the way, but look at this.”

His fingers moved on the screen, and the two images slid until they were superimposed. Then he tapped a function box.

“Okay, the little machine thinks they’re relatives,” Salvador said. “I could have figured that out.”

“But could you have said it was a ninety-three percent chance?”

“Sure. I just say: It’s a ninety-three percent chance. Or in old-fashioned human language, certainemente. Okay, back up to what Mystery Woman was doing earlier. She and Tarnowski get in Tarnowski’s car and drive off around five thirty, a few minutes earlier?”