“Zana.” Bobby rubbed and rubbed at his eyes. “That isn’t what Eve meant.”
“No, I guess not. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m just trying to help.”
“What have you been doing in New York?” Eve asked. “What sort of things ?”
Zana looked at Bobby, obviously expecting him to take the lead, but he just kept his head in his hands. “Um, well, we got in. It was Wednesday, and we walked around, shopped a little bit, and we went to see the show at Radio City. Bobby got tickets from a man right out on the street. They were awfully expensive.”
Scalped tickets generally were, Eve thought.
“It was wonderful. I’ve never seen anything like it. Mama Tru said we didn’t have very good seats, but I thought they were just fine. And we went and had an Italian dinner after. It was awfully nice. We came back sort of early, because it’d been a long day with all the traveling.”
She began to rub a hand up and down Bobby’s back as she spoke. The gold band of her wedding ring glinted dully in the poor light. “Next morning, we had breakfast in a cafe, and Mama Tru said how she was going to see you, and she wanted to go by herself this first time. So Bobby and I went to the Empire State Building, ‘cause Mama Tru said she didn’t want to stand in those lines anyway, and—”
“You’ve been doing the tourist thing,” Eve interrupted, before she got more play-by-play. “Did you see anyone you knew?”
“No. You’d almost think you would, because it doesn’t feel like there could be anyone left out in the rest of the world with all these people.”
“How long was she gone, out on her own?”
“That day? Um.” Zana went back to biting her lip, creasing her forehead as she thought. “I guess I don’t know for sure, because Bobby and me didn’t get back until almost four, and she was here already. She was a little upset.”
Zana glanced at Bobby again, took one of his hands and squeezed it. “I guess things didn’t go as well with you as she’d hoped, and she was a little upset and irritated that we weren’t here when she got back.”
“She was spitting mad.” Bobby finally lifted his head. “It’s all right to say so, Zana. She was hopping because you’d brushed her off, Eve, and she felt put upon because we weren’t waiting for her. Mama could be difficult.”
“Just got her feelings hurt, that’s all,” Zana soothed, brushing her hand over his thigh. “And you fixed it all up, like always. Bobby took her right back out, bought her a real nice pair of earrings, and we went all the way downtown for a fancy dinner. She was feeling just fine after that.”
“She went out on her own the next day,” Eve prompted, and Bobby’s expression turned puzzled.
“That’s right. Did she come to see you again? I told her to leave it alone, at least for a while. She didn’t go to breakfast with us, said she was going to be lazy, then go out for some retail therapy. Shopping always made her happy. We were booked for dinner that night, but she said she didn’t feel like going out. Said she was feeling tired, and she’d have something in her room. She didn’t sound like herself.”
“How’d she look?”
“I don’t know. She was in her room. When she didn’t answer the room ‘link, I called on hers, and she had the video blocked. Said she was in the tub. I didn’t see her. I didn’t see her again after Friday morning.”
“What about Saturday?”
“She called our room, about nine, I guess. Zana, you talked to her that time.”
“I did. She had the video blocked again, now that I think of it. She said we should go on with whatever we wanted to do. She wanted to be on her own. Truth is, I thought she was sulking a little, and I tried to talk her into coming out with us. We were going to take one of the sky trams, and we had a ticket already for her, but she said no. Maybe she’d go walking. She wasn’t feeling that well anyway. I could tell she was upset— didn’t I say, Bobby? ‘Your mama’s irritated, I can tell by her voice.’‘ But we let her be and went on. And that night… You tell it, Bobby.”
“She wouldn’t come to the door. I was getting a little irritated myself. She said she was fine, but still wanted to stay in, watch the screen. We went out to dinner, just the two of us.”
“We had a wonderful meal, and champagne. And we…” She slid her eyes toward Bobby in a way that told Eve they’d done some celebrating when they’d gotten back to their room. “We, ah, slept a little late this morning. We tried to call her room, and her ‘link, but she didn’t answer. Finally, when Bobby was in the shower, I thought, ’Well, I’m going down there and knocking ‘til she lets me in. I’m just going to make her…”
She trailed off, pressed her hand to her mouth.
“And all that time. All that time…”
“Did you hear or see anything last night, anything unusual?”
Bobby only sighed. “It’s loud here, even with the windows closed. And we’d had a bottle of champagne. We put on music when we got back, never turned it off. It was still playing when we got up this morning. And we… made love when we got back last night, and again this morning.”
His color came up as he spoke. “The fact is, I was annoyed with her, with my mother. She pushed to come here, and she wouldn’t contact you by ‘link before we came, no matter how much I talked to her about it. Then she started holing up in her room—sulking, I figured, because you weren’t playing the role she wanted you to play, I guess. I didn’t want Zana’s trip spoiled because of that.”
“Oh, honey.”
“My feelings were, ‘Fine, she wants to pout in there, she can stay in until we leave on Monday. I’m going to do the town with my wife.’ Oh hell. Oh hell,” he repeated and wrapped his arm around Zana. “I don’t know why somebody’d hurt her like that. I don’t understand it. Did they… was she—”
Eve knew the tone, knew the look in the survivor’s eye. “She wasn’t raped. Did she have anything of value with her?”
“She didn’t bring much of her good jewelry.” Zana sniffled. “Said it was asking for trouble, though she loved wearing it.”
“I see you’ve got your window closed and locked.”
Bobby glanced over. “It’s noisy,” he said absently. “And there’s that emergency escape out there, so it’s best to… Is that how they got in? Through her window? I told her to keep that window shut, keep it locked. I told her.”
“We haven’t determined that yet. I’m going to take care of this, Bobby. I’m going to do everything I can. If you need to talk to me, either of you, you can contact me at Central.”
“What do we do now? What do we do?”
“Wait, and let me do my job. I’m going to need you to stay in New York, at least for the next few days.”
“Yeah, okay. I… I’ll get in touch with my partner, tell him—tell him what happened.”
“What do you do?”
“Real estate. I sell real estate. Eve? Should I go with her? Should I go with Mama now?”
He was no good to anyone now, Eve thought. He and his baffled grief would only be in the way. “Why don’t you give that some time? There’s nothing you can do. Other people are taking care of her now. I’ll let you know when there’s something more.”
He got to his feet. “Could I have done something? If I’d made the manager open the door last night, or this morning, could I have done something?”
And here, she thought, she could do the one thing, the single thing, that soothed. “It wouldn’t have mattered.”
When Eve and Peabody walked out, she drew a clear breath. “Take?”
“Comes off a decent guy. Shocky right now. So’s she. One holds up ‘til the other goes down. Want me to run them?”
“Yeah.” Eve rubbed her hands over her face. “By the book.” She watched as the morgue unit rolled out the body bag. Morris came out behind them.