Abandoned in Death Read online

  “If you understand how this works, you know we’re in the very beginning stages of the investigation. We can surmise Lauren was abducted on the night of May twenty-eighth. You filed a missing persons report.”

  “Detective Norman.”

  “Yes, and we’ll coordinate with him.”

  “He said she left the bar like Buddy said. They were the last ones, they closed. And they left, and he walked to the subway, and she started home. Buddy wouldn’t hurt her, okay? He’s a friend, and they checked, they checked the cams in the subway and everything. And he—the detective—couldn’t find anybody who saw her after.”

  “He would’ve asked, but I’m asking, do you know of anyone who’d want to hurt her? An ex?”

  “No. I mean she dated before me, but we’ve been together more than a year, and people move on. She wasn’t stressed about anything or anyone. She never said anything about somebody bothering her or watching her. There was nothing. She’d have told me.”

  He picked up the coffee, set it down again. “Did he—they— Was she raped?”

  “The medical examiner will determine that, but she was fully dressed. What was she wearing when she went to work?”

  “Detective Norman asked that. They have kind of a uniform at Arnold’s. So black pants, a white shirt. She wore her black low-tops because she’s on her feet behind the bar.”

  “Jewelry?”

  “Ah … I gave her a ring when we moved in. Not like an engagement ring because we weren’t ready for that. But a silver band, a thumb ring, so that, and her wrist unit. Her parents gave her a nice one last Christmas. She isn’t much for a lot of it, but she usually wore these little ruby studs, shaped like hearts. Ruby’s her birthstone, and her grandparents gave them to her when she turned twenty-one.”

  “One for each ear?”

  “Yeah. She’s kind of conservative.”

  “So, no other piercings, no tats?”

  “Lauren?” A ghost of a smile came and went. “Oh no. Wait.” He jerked up. “Maybe it’s not her? You’re not sure it’s Lauren?”

  “I’m sorry, we’re sure.”

  “How? I mean how did she die? What did they do to her? I’m not going to fall apart again, okay? I need to know.”

  “There were abrasions and lacerations on one of her wrists and one of her ankles that indicate she was restrained for some time. My on-scene examination indicates a severe neck wound caused her death.”

  “They … they cut her throat.” He closed his eyes, then covered his face. “One second, give me a second. Her family. I have to tell her family. We talk every day. They’re going crazy, and I have to tell them.”

  “We’re going to notify her family when we leave here. It’s best if we tell them. Could we see the bedroom?”

  “The bedroom? Oh, sure. I have a little office, too. It’s more of a closet, but you can look in there. I can open the comp for you. You can look at anything that will help.”

  “We appreciate that.”

  He rubbed his eyes; Eve saw his shoulders tremble before he stiffened them.

  “I need to contact my supervisor. She gave me her personal contact when Lauren went missing. I need to tell her I’m not coming in.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “When can I see her? When can we—her family and I—see her?”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as that’s cleared. Roy, the ME? She couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “I remember from the vid, and I’ve seen him in court, too. You’ll find who did this. You’ll find who treated her this way.”

  When they left, Eve had a good sense of her victim. Lauren Elder had close family ties. Her mother had done several of the street scenes on the walls, and she kept a photo of her family on her dresser—a beach vacation scene from the background—and with everyone mugging for the camera.

  She’d kept her clothes—a little on the conservative side, Peabody had confirmed—ordered in the closet she’d shared with her cohab. She hadn’t gone for a lot of frills, a lot of sparkles. Her ambitions had run to one day owning her own bar. She’d kept a memory book of photos—family, her circle of friends, coworkers—so loyal and sentimental.

  She’d lived within her means, and kept a careful record of tips—considerable, which led Eve to believe she’d been good at her job.

  No nail polish and minimal makeup in her supply.

  Whoever the killer had wanted her to be, she hadn’t matched the image inside.

  “They made a nice place.” Peabody settled in for the drive to Brooklyn. “You can tell most of the furniture’s family castoffs, but they made it nice. I don’t think he’s going to be able to stay there now. It’s too much them.”

  “He’s been waiting for us to knock on the door since she went missing. He wasn’t ready, because you never are, but he’s been waiting for us.”

  Her family wouldn’t be ready, either, she thought.

  “Contact Detective Norman, fill him in, and get his files. We’ll need to talk to the staff at the bar, so let’s see if we can set that up, at least to start with Buddy, since he was the last we know of who saw her.”

  “Buddy’s his actual birth name. Buddy James Wilcox. Who names their kid Buddy?”

  “Buddy’s parents. She had a routine,” Eve continued, and whipped around a slow-moving mini. “Roy said she’d had the seven-to-closing shift for the last eight months. They’d try to grab dinner together about six, and she’d head to work by six-forty-five. He’d head to his night class at the same time. Except for Sundays when they both had off, Mondays for her, and Saturdays for him. Some Saturdays he’d hang out at the bar for a while, but mostly he studied. Work nights, she walked home between two-fifteen and two-thirty. Same route. Three blocks north, one east.”

  “She was nabbed on that route.”

  “Did he get lucky or did he know her routine? He knew, that’s how I see it. She was a type he wanted. Need a consult with Mira, but that’s what plays. Her age, coloring, build. Something about her hit the marks, and he could do the rest with the clothes, the tat, the hair.”

  “He kept her for ten days,” Peabody added. “Plenty of time to make those adjustments.”

  “The tat, at least, is fresher than ten days. I think.”

  “A good-sized tat, with detail,” Peabody pointed out. “Had to take a couple of hours.”

  “Precise work, maybe a pro. But is she going to stay still while you’re poking all those needles into her flesh?”

  Even the thought of it had Eve’s back muscles quivering.

  “You could strap her down, but there’d be movement if she was conscious.”

  “I’m going to get a tat.”

  In reflex, Eve nearly hit the brakes. “What? Why? What?”

  “Not right now this minute. I have to decide on what and where. Just a little one.” Peabody held up her thumb and index finger to indicate an inch or two. “I’m down to the back of my shoulder or my ankle. Something girlie maybe.”

  “Something girlie, carved into your living flesh. Forever.”

  “That’s why it has to be the exact right symbol or image.”

  “Tiny needles injecting ink into your body. Which you pay for. On purpose.”

  “Maybe a thistle—Scottish symbol—because McNab. But maybe a rainbow.”

  “You could do two rainbows. One on each ass cheek.”

  “Or a crescent moon with a little star,” Peabody continued, unperturbed. “Those are my top contenders right now. It’s a big decision.”

  “Yeah, paying somebody to pump ink into your skin’s a big one. Now, let’s move on from voluntary self-mutilation and back to murder.”

  “Self-expression. Body art.”

  “Whatever.” The entire conversation just weirded her out. Murder, at least, Eve understood.

  “We’ll see what Elder’s tox says, but I think it’s a safe bet she was drugged for a good portion of those ten days. Still, you need a nice private place to do all of that. You need transpor
t.”

  “Private residence, or exceptional soundproofing in a multiunit. With a multiunit you’d need a private entrance. Someplace to keep a vehicle. Maybe a private garage for the whole deal.”

  “Did she know the killer? From the bar, her old neighborhood, her new one? He rolls up—‘Hey, Lauren.’”

  “Bartenders are usually friendly types. It’s part of the job. But why would she willingly get in a vehicle when she’s only blocks from home?”

  “Check the weather the night she went missing. Otherwise, maybe he lured her in. ‘Hey, Lauren, take a look at this.’ Or he’s parked along the route, maybe looks like he needs help with something. Or just grabs. He got her into the vehicle. No head wounds that showed on scene, but if he bashed her that could’ve healed up, and Morris will find it. Jabbed her with a drug, that’s more likely.

  “Jab, load her in, drive away.” Eve played it out like a vid in her head. “It wouldn’t take half a minute.”

  “Partly cloudy, no precipitation, low of sixty-two on May twenty-eighth.” Peabody lowered her PPC. “Not the kind of night you’d jump into a vehicle for a couple of blocks.”

  She’d walk the route, Eve thought. Family notification had to come first, but she wanted to walk in Lauren’s footsteps, see what she’d seen.

  “If she didn’t know him, how did he choose her? He had to see her to want her, had to want her to choose her. At the bar? Is he from the neighborhood? Say he spots her, studies her, decides on her. Maybe he starts parking the vehicle along the route so she gets used to seeing it. Doesn’t think anything of it.”

  She rolled it around and around as she crossed the bridge into Brooklyn.

  “Who’s Mommy? That’s going to matter. If it represents a sexual thing, he’d rape her. Or she’d rape her if the killer’s female. If Mommy’s Mommy, that’s fifty-fifty.”

  “Ew.”

  “Didn’t Octopus have a mommy deal?”

  “Octopus? I don’t think they screw with their mothers. Do they know their mothers? How do they know?” Peabody wondered. “They all have weird heads and tentacles.”

  “No, the guy with the complex, and the mother banging and the eyes.”

  “Oedipus. I think. I think Oedipus.”

  “Octopus, Oedipus, all creepy. So maybe the perp wants to bang his mom, but mom isn’t all about that, so he creates a substitute. Or she was, and that fucked him up, so a substitute. Or it’s some other mom deal, and he doesn’t want to bang her.”

  “Why kill her once you create her?”

  “She’s not the real deal. And she’s not banging him right, or giving him what he needs. She’s not the original. He was always going to kill her.”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Because he’s shithouse crazy, Peabody. You don’t do all this unless you’re shithouse crazy. Ten days, ten months, whatever, the crazy’s going to crack through the control eventually. The perfection of the tat, the piercings, the makeup, the hair, the clothes. That’s control, precision. So he’s got to have that, but under it? Shithouse crazy.”

  And following that logic, Peabody turned to Eve. “He’s going to need another substitute.”

  “Yeah, so let’s hope he doesn’t already have one picked out.”

  Eve followed her in-dash directions to a pretty house with a pretty yard on a block of pretty houses and yards.

  “Father’s a mechanic—owns his own place,” Peabody began. “Mother’s an artist—you saw some of her stuff in the vic’s apartment. She runs a local gallery. I’d guess both the sibs are home from college for the summer. Somebody’s probably home.”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Eve got out of the car and prepared to destroy someone else’s world.

  * * *

  By the time they’d finished, the emotional overload had a headache trying to drill through the crown of her head. She programmed coffee, black for her, regular for Peabody.

  “They reminded me of my family.” Peabody let out a sigh. “Not Free-Agers, but they’re tight. They’ll get through it, but nothing’s ever going to be exactly the same.”

  “You can check out the couple of ex-boyfriends they gave us. If nothing else, it’ll block that avenue. We’ll take the bar next, then you can split off, check out the exes, for what it’s worth. I’ll take the morgue. Morris should have at least started on her by the time I get there.”

  “Need to close off the avenue,” Peabody agreed, “but I can’t see either of the exes they gave us. I think we’re looking for older.”

  So did she, but Eve glanced over at her partner. “Why?”

  “It’s that control and precision. It’s not that somebody in their twenties or early thirties can’t have it, and we’ve dealt with younger organized killers, but you add the control and precision with needing, almost for sure, a private space, a vehicle. And the killer could be female. Daughters have mom issues, too. She’d have to be strong enough to load a struggling or unconscious woman into a vehicle. Unless we have a team. And it could be. Siblings even.”

  “Siblings.” Eve considered it. “Both obsessed, severely pissed or sexually attracted to their mother? Not impossible. Interesting even. Easier for two to do the snatch and grab, the transporting. But the kill was one stroke from the look of it. Then again, the second could have done the sewing up. You’d think that and the ribbon covering the wound could be signs of remorse, then the sign contradicts that. The sign was like a kid’s printing, and with the thing.”

  “Crayon.”

  “Right. A kid thing. Made her pretty—or his/her/their version of pretty. Dressed her up, put her near a playground—another kid thing. Who’s Mommy? His/her/their mommy. Is she still alive, already dead?”

  “Mommy didn’t have much fashion sense,” Peabody commented. “I mean her clothes were just tacky.”

  “Cheap. Maybe she couldn’t afford better ones. The jeans were ripped.”

  “I’ve seen pictures of my granny in jeans with holes in the legs. When she was younger.”

  “A Free-Ager thing? Don’t all you guys sew? Wouldn’t she sew up the holes or whatever?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was a thing. I’ll check into it. But the top—really short—and all spangles, the shoes—really dressy, and tacky, out of style—shoes with the weird jeans? Comes off kind of slutty, especially with the overdone makeup.”

  Fashion might not have been Eve’s area of expertise—by a long shot—but she followed Peabody’s line.

  “Mommy could’ve been kind of slutty—which may be part of the issue. Or he/she/they see her that way. Or he/she/they want Mommy to be slutty. I really need to talk this out with Mira. We’ve got to find the logic in the shithouse crazy, so we need a shrink.”

  * * *

  With the manager’s cooperation, they spent an hour at Arnold’s interviewing coworkers. More tears, no new information, and more confirmation of Eve’s sense that the victim had a solid, happy life, enjoyed her job, her circle.

  The bar struck her as solid as well, if a little pretentious. It wasn’t the casual neighborhood place you’d belly up for a brew, but where you’d take a date to impress, or a client to ply with a fancy drink served in a fancy glass on a table with low lights flickering in a little potted plant.

  It served tidbits like organic squash blossoms and goat cheese truffles. She couldn’t see ever being hungry enough to put either in her mouth.

  When she said so, outside the bar, Peabody shook her head.

  “They’re pretty terrific, and the pancetta crisps are totally mag. You could make a meal.”

  “You make a meal. Later. Go into Central, check out the exes, update Detective Norman, and get me a time slot with Mira. I’m going to walk the vic’s route and back before I hit the morgue.”

  They split off, and Eve walked in the not-quite-warm late-spring sunshine. She saw some tourists, who never seemed to know how to actually walk on a sidewalk, several kids and babies in various pushcart things, a man walking a pair of tin
y, hairless dogs who could’ve passed for large rats.

  They yip-yip-yipped, darting at her boots as she passed, and the man scolded them in sugary tones.

  “Now, now, Sugar and Spice, be good doggies.”

  She saw well-maintained homes, tidy buildings, busy shops, restaurants with patrons sitting outside in the spring air sipping drinks or having lunch.

  A few homes had front yards separated from the pedestrians by fences more ornamental than functional. Flowers bloomed or spilled out of pots on doorsteps. A team of three efficiently washed the windows on a duplex. A woman carrying a pair of market bags hurried up to the door of another.

  Traffic streamed by, almost pleasantly.

  It was hard to beat New York in the spring. Nothing could beat it for her at any time, but spring added some shine.

  She stopped in front of the victim’s apartment again. Roy still had the privacy screens engaged. In the apartment below his, a woman sat on the windowsill, busily washing the window.

  It seemed to be the day for it.

  As she started back, she decided a decent vehicle parked along the route wouldn’t cause attention. A beater, now, would, but a decent ride, a clean one, who’d notice?

  And the vic’s block—especially the vic’s block—would be quiet at night. Almost entirely residential, and the restaurants would be shuttered, the bakery and deli closed.

  A five-minute walk at night, a couple minutes more if she’d taken it at a stroll. Less if she’d jogged it.

  Home base, familiar. No worries.

  And in seconds—it would only have taken seconds—everything changed.

  And all because, Eve was sure of it, she’d looked just enough like someone else.

  Bad Mommy.

  3

  Eve walked the long white tunnel of the morgue, bootsteps echoing. Her thoughts focused on the victim, and that last walk toward home. Odds were she’d been at least a little tired, and likely moving briskly.

  Young, in familiar territory, heading home in the night quiet of a good neighborhood.