“He’s good,” she said as she sent out the new data. “You’re better.”
“Yes, of course, but thanks all the same.”
“We’re on a nice roll here. Let’s keep it going. Let’s go harass some apartment-dwelling Texans.”
Roarke toasted her with his coffee. “Yee-ha.”
The building showed some wear, squatting in the lowering light. The patch of parking on the side apparently doubled as a playground as a bunch of kids ran between and around cars, shouting the way kids always seemed to at play.
Security was just shy of adequate, but as several windows were wide open to the nonexistent breeze—just inviting a visit from thieves—she assumed nobody cared.
As she got out of the car one of the kids barreled straight into her.
“Tag! You’re It!”
“No, I’m not.”
He grinned, showing a wide gap where, hopefully, his two front teeth would grow in at some point. “We’re playing Tag. Who are you?”
“I’m the police.”
“We play Cops ’n’ Robbers, too. I like being a robber. You can arrest me.”
“Get back to me in about ten years.”
She eyed the entrance, eyed the kid. What the hell, you had to start somewhere. She pulled out the ID of Sarajo Whitehead. “Do you know her?”
“She don’t live here anymore.”
“But she did.”
“Yep. Uh-huh. I gotta go tag.”
“Wait a minute. Did she live by herself?”
“I guess. She slept a lot. She used to yell out the window for us to stop all that noise ’cause people are trying to sleep. But my ma said that was just too bad ’cause it’s the middle of the day and kids get to play loud as they want outside.”
“Who’s your ma?”
“She’s Becky Robbins and my pa’s Jake. I’m Chip. We live on the fourth floor, and I’ve got a turtle named Butch. You wanna see?”
“Is your mother home?”
“Course she’s home. Where else? Ma!”
He shouted, loud and high-pitched so Eve’s ears rang.
“Jesus, kid.”
“You shouldn’t oughta say ‘Jesus.’ You should say ‘Jeez it.’ ”
“You really think zzz makes a difference?”
“Ma says so. Ma!”
“Christ!”
“Nuh-uh.” Gap-toothed Chip shook his head. “ ‘Cripes’ is okay, though.”
“Chip Robbins, how many times have I told you not to yell out for me unless you’re being stabbed with a pitchfork?”
The woman who stuck her head out the window had her son’s curly dark hair and an aggrieved scowl.
“But Ma, the police want to talk to you. See?” He grabbed Eve’s hand, waved it with his.
Eve took hers back, resisted wiping off whatever sticky substance his had transferred. She held up her badge. “Can we come up, Mrs. Robbins?”
“What’s this about? My boy’s a pain in the behind, but he’s good as gold.”
“It’s about a former neighbor. If we could come up—”
“I’ll come down.”
“Ma doesn’t like to let people she don’t know in the house when my pa’s not home. He’s working late.”
“Okay.”
“He drives an airtram, and Ma works at my school. I’m in second grade.”
“Good for you.” Eve looked to Roarke for help, but he just smiled at her.
“Are you gonna arrest a robber?”
“Know any?”
“My friend Everet stoled a candy bar from the store, but his ma found out and made him go pay for it out of his ’lowance, and he couldn’t have candy or nothing for a whole month. You could arrest him. He’s over there.”
He pointed, cheerfully ratting out his pal.
“It sounds like he’s paid his debt to society.”
Jesus—jeez it—where was the kid’s mother?
“Talk to him,” Eve suggested, desperately sacrificing Roarke.
“Okay. Are you the police, too?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You talk different,” Chip commented. “Are you from French? The lady at the market is, and she don’t talk like us either. I know a word.”
“What word?”
“Bunjore. It means hello.”
“I know a word.”
Chip’s grin widened. “What word?”
“Dia dhuit. It’s hello where I was born.”
“Deea-gwit,” Chip repeated, mangling it a bit.
“Well done.”
“Chip, stop pestering the police and go play.”
Becky Robbins had taken time to tame back her hair. She hurried now, her flip-flops flapping as she reached out to tuck an arm around her son’s shoulders. After a quick hug, she made a shooing motion.
“Okay. Bye!” He raced off, and was immediately absorbed into the running and shouting.
“What’s going on?” Becky demanded. “A couple of the neighbors said the FBI was here before when we were out. Now the police.”
“Do you know a woman calling herself Sarajo Whitehead?”
“Yeah, the neighbors said the FBI asked about her. She used to live here. Second floor. She moved out a while back. Eight, ten months, maybe. Why? She did something, didn’t she?” Becky continued before Eve could speak. “The FBI people didn’t really say, but Earleen—my neighbor—she could tell. And now you’re here, too. I never liked that woman—Sarajo, I mean, not Earleen.”
Chip came by his talkative nature honestly, Eve decided. “Why is that?”
“She could barely be bothered to say a friendly hello. I know she worked nights, mostly, but I don’t appreciate anybody yelling at my kid—all the kids.”
Becky put her hands on her hips as she looked over the racing, shouting kids with the mother’s version of the beady eye.
“They got a right to play out here in good weather, and in broad daylight for heaven’s sake. Told her that myself, after she yelled and used swears at those kids one too many times. Told her she ought to get herself some earplugs or whatever.”
Becky looked back at Eve. “What did she do?”
“We’ll know more about that when we locate her. Did she have any visitors?”
“The only person I ever saw go in or out of there except her was another woman. Young, pretty.”
“This woman?” Eve showed her Melinda’s photo.
“Yeah, that’s the one. She’s not in trouble with the police, is she? She seemed so nice.”
“No, she’s not. You don’t remember seeing anyone else?”
“Well, yeah, a man came once. A really fat man. Said she worked for him, and he was looking for her. But she’d already gone by then. Just left one day. Left the furniture, too. Turned out it was rented. She paid it up-to-date though, rent, too. The landlady told me. Anyway, I wasn’t sorry to see her gone.”
Eve waited a moment. “There’s something else.”
Becky glanced around, shifted. “It’s just something I think. I can’t swear to it.”
“Anything you know, think, saw, heard. It’s all helpful.”
“I don’t like accusing anybody—even her—of something, but the FBI, for heaven’s sake. Now the police. Well . . . I think she was on something. At least sometimes.”
“Illegals.”
“Yeah. I think. I had a cousin who got sucked into that scene, so I know the signs. Her eyes, the jittery moves. I know I smelled zoner on her, more than once. When we got into it about the kids, I said she oughta take a little more of whatever she was popping or smoking so she’d pass out and wouldn’t hear them. I shouldn’t have said it, but I was riled up.
“She gave me such a look. I have to say, it scared me some. She shut the door in my face, and I went home. The next morning, I go out to my car to go to work. My husband’s rig’s parked next to me. Every one of his tires is slashed. I know she did it. I know I’m accusing her again, but I just know it. But how’re you going to prove that? Besides I’m the one had words with her, not Jake. He doesn’t get riled up like I do. If she’d slashed my tires maybe I could’ve gotten the cops on her.
“Jake, he needs that rig to get to work. He lost a whole day getting new tires.”
“Did you report it?”
“Sure. You’ve got to for the insurance, though it didn’t cover it all. Jake didn’t want me to say anything about her, so I didn’t. She’d have denied it anyway, and maybe done something worse. I stayed clear of her the best I could after that. So I wasn’t sorry when she took off.”