Peabody left her hand on Essie’s shoulder another moment. “Mine sure does.”
“She never hurt anybody.”
“Do you want to stay here while we do this? Or maybe you have a friend in the building. You could go there until we’re done.”
“I don’t want to talk to anybody. Just do what you have to do. I’ll be right here.”
Eve took the closet, Peabody the dresser. In various pockets, Eve found a tiny bottle of breath freshener, a sample-size tube of lipdye and a mini pocket organizer that turned out to belong to Essie.
“I got something.”
“What?”
“They give these little buttons out at the Met.” Peabody held up a little red tab. “It’s a tradition. You put it on your collar or lapel, and they know you paid for the exhibit. He probably took her there. It’s the kind of thing you keep if it’s a date.”
“The odds of anybody remembering her at the Metropolitan Museum are slim to none, but it’s a start.”
“She’s got a little memento box here. Bus token, candle stub.”
“Bag the candle stub. We’ll run for prints. Maybe it’s from his place.”
“Here’s a pocket guide for the Guggenheim, and a theater directory. Looks like she printed it out from online. She’s circled the Chelsea Playhouse in a little heart. It’s from last month,” she said as she turned to Eve. “A limited run of Chips Are Down. He took her there, Dallas. This is her ‘I love Bobby’ box.”
“Take it in. Take it all in.” She moved over to the dented metal stand by the bed, yanked on the single drawer. Inside she found a stash of gummy candy, a small emergency flashlight, sample tubes and packs of hand cream, lotion, perfume, all tucked into a box. And sealed in a protective bag was a carefully folded napkin. On the cheap recycled material, written in sentimental red, was:
Bobby
First Date
July 26, 2059
Ciprioni’s
Peabody joined Eve and read over her shoulder. “She must’ve taken it out to look at every night,” she murmured. “Sealed it up so it didn’t get dirty or torn.”
“Do a run on Ciprioni’s.”
“I don’t have to. It’s a restaurant. Italian place down in Little Italy. Inexpensive, good food. Noisy, usually crowded, slow service, terrific pasta.”
“He didn’t know she was keeping tabs, little tabs like this. He didn’t understand her. He didn’t get her. He thought he was safe. None of the places we’re finding are anywhere near here. Get her away from where she lives, where people she knows might see them. See him. Take her to places where there are lots of people. Who’s going to notice them? But she’s picking up souvenirs to mark their dates. She left us a nice trail, Peabody.”
Chapter 6
After dropping Eve at home, Peabody drove off in the sauna on wheels. And Eve let herself into the blessed cool. The cat thumped down the steps, greeting her with a series of irritated feline growls.
“What, are you standing in for Summerset? Bitch, bitch, bitch.” But she squatted down to scrub a hand over his fur. “What the hell do the two of you do around here all day anyway? Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”
She checked with the in-house and was told Roarke was not on the premises.
“Jeez.” She looked back down at the cat, who was doing his best to claw up her leg. “Kinda weird. Nobody home but you and me. Well… I got stuff. You should come.” She scooped him up and carted him up the stairs.
It wasn’t that she minded being home alone. She just wasn’t used to it. And it was pretty damn quiet, if you bothered to listen.
But she’d fix that. She’d download an audio of Samantha Gannon’s book. She could get in a solid workout while she listened to it. Take a swim, loosen up. Grab a shower, take care of some details.
“There’s a lot you can get done when nobody’s around to distract you,” she told Galahad. “I spent most of my life with nobody around anyway, so, you know, no problem.”
No problem, she thought. Before Roarke she’d come home to an empty apartment every night. Maybe she’d connect with her pal Mavis, but even if she’d had time to blow off a little steam after the job with the woman who was the blowing-off-steam expert, she’d still come home alone.
She liked alone.
When had she stopped liking alone?
God, it was irritating.
She dumped the cat on her desk, but he complained and bumped his head against her arm. “Okay, okay, give me a minute, will you?” Brushing the bulk of him aside, she picked up the memo cube.
“Hello, Lieutenant.” Roarke’s voice drifted out. “I thought this would be your first stop. I downloaded an audio of Gannon’s book as I couldn’t visualize you curling up with the paper version. See you when I get home. I believe there are fresh peaches around. Why don’t you have one instead of the candy bar you’re thinking about?”
“Think you know me inside out, don’t you, smart guy? Thinks he knows me back and forth,” she said to the cat. “The annoying part is he does.” She put the memo down, picked up the headset. Even as she started to slip it into place, she noted the message light blinking on her desk unit.
She nudged the cat aside again. “Just wait, for God’s sake.” She ordered up the message and listened once again to Roarke’s voice.
“Eve, I’m running late. A few problems that need to be dealt with.”
She cocked her head, studied his face on the screen. A little annoyed, she noted. A little rushed. He wasn’t the only one who knew his partner.
“If I get through them I’ll be home before you get to this in any case. If not, well, soon as possible. You can reach me if you need to. Don’t work too hard.”
She touched the screen as his image faded. “You either.”
She put on the headset, engaged, then much to the cat’s relief, headed into the kitchen. The minute she filled his bowl with tuna and set it down for him, he pounced.
Listening to the narrative of the diamond heist, she grabbed a bottle of water, took a peach as an afterthought, then walked through the quiet, empty house and down to the gym.
She stripped down, hanging her weapon harness on a hook, then pulled on a short skinsuit.
She started with stretches, concentrating on the audio and her form. Then she moved to the machine, programming in an obstacle course that pushed her to run, climb, row, cycle on and over various objects and surfaces.
By the time she started on free weights, she’d been introduced to the main players in the book and had a sense of New York and small-town America in the dawn of the century.
Gossip, crime, bad guys, good guys, sex and murder.
The more things changed, she thought, the more they didn’t.
She activated the sparring droid for a ten-minute bout and felt limber, energized and virtuous by the time she’d kicked his ass.
She snagged a second bottle of water out of the mini-fridge and, to give herself more time with the book, added a session for flexibility and balance.
She peeled off the skinsuit, tossed it in the laundry chute, then walked naked into the pool house. With the audio still playing in her ear, she dove into the cool blue water. After some lazy laps, she floated her way over to the corner and called for jets.
Her long, blissful sigh echoed off the ceiling.
There was home alone, she thought, and there was home alone.
When her eyes started to droop, she boosted herself out. She pulled on a robe, gathered up her street clothes, her weapon, and took the elevator up to the bedroom before she thought of missed opportunity.
She could have run naked through the house. She could have danced naked through the house.
She’d have to hold that little pleasure in reserve.
After a shower and fresh clothes, she went back to her office. She turned off the audio long enough to handle some details, to make new notes.
Top of her list were: Jack O’Hara, Alex Crew, William Young and Jerome Myers. Young and Myers had been dead for more than half a century, with their lives ending before the first act of the drama.