"Can we turn this on?" "Sure. Let me get it for you." He walked over to the d and c, booted it up.
"Peabody." Eve tipped her head toward the unit.
"She could make anything," Cabel continued, and wandered the room, touching fabrics. "The quilt on the bed, the folk art scattered around the apartment. The sofa out in the living area? She picked it up off the street, hauled it home, fixed it up, re-covered it. One day, she's going to start her own business, do home decorating, or maybe run her own craft school. Something." "Lieutenant? There's a transaction here for supplies, February 27, another March 14. Total Crafts." Eve nodded, continued to riffle through wide baskets, painted boxes. And lifted out three rolls of corded ribbon.
One in navy, one in gold. And one in red.
He trolls the craft shops." Again, Eve crossed the park, her focus on the castle. "Why does a guy like that troll the craft shops?" "He could have spotted them somewhere else, followed them there." "No. Two women, their only known connection a hobby.
One dead, one missing and presumed. I guarantee you when we finish with Nadine and go talk to Breen Merriweather's baby-sitter, we're going to find she did crafts. We're going to find she bought supplies, at one time or another, from Total Crafts, or one of the other locations either Maplewood or Kates used. He sees them there, they fit his requirements.
He stalks them, studies them."
She tucked her thumbs in her pockets. "Then he lays in wait, and takes them. If he did Kates, he almost certainly had to have his own transpo. There's nowhere between the restaurant and the apartment where he could have raped, murdered, mutilated her, then hid the body. He had to do a snatch and grab, then take her somewhere." "If we're right about Kates, then he changed his method for Maplewood." Eve shook her head. "Not changed. Perfected. Kates was one of his trial runs. Might have been more before her.
Sidewalk sleepers, runaways, junkies, whatever. Someone who wouldn't get reported missing, or was reported months before the grab. He had it down to a science when he killed Elisa Maplewood. He might have been working up to that for years." "Happy thought." "They represent somebody: mother, sister, lover, a woman who rejected him, refused him, abused him. Dominant female figure." Why, she wondered, did the twisted tree of a murderer so often go back to the mother root? Did the gestation and birthing process come with the power to nurture or destroy? "When we get him," Eve continued, "it's going to come out that she this symbol knocked him around or boooo broke his heart or made him feel weak and helpless. So his defense lawyers will come along saying: Oh, he was damaged, poor sick son of a bitch. He's not responsible. And that's a pile of shit, that's a big, smelly pile of bullshit. Because nobody's responsible for choking the life out of Elisa Maplewood but him. Nobody." Peabody let the rant run, waited until she was sure it was over. "Preaching to the choir." Eve drew it back in. "Yeah. Where the hell is Nadine? She doesn't show in five, we cancel. We need to follow up on Merriweather." "We're a couple minutes early." "I guess we are." Eve sat on the grass, drew her knees up, and studied the castle. "You ever skip around parks when you were a kid?" "Sure." Glad the storm had passed, Peabody sat beside her.
"Free-Agers, you know. I was a regular nature girl. You?" "No. Couple of stints in what you could call summer camp." Run by state-hired Nazis, Eve thought, who regulated every breath. "This one's not so bad. You know it's still in the city, so it's okay." "Not looking to make nature girl?" "Nature'll kill you, just for the hell of it." Eve glanced over and watched Nadine and her camera operator crossing to them. "Why would she wear those skinny heels when she knew she'd be hiking over grass?" "Because they're jazzed, and make her legs look mag." Eve supposed everything about Nadine looked mag, from her sweep of streaky blonde hair to the toes of her jazzed shoes. She had a foxy, angular face, observant green eyes, and a slim body that curved appropriately in her on-camera suit of power red.
She was smart, she was sneaky, she was cynical.
And for reasons Eve imagined neither of them fully understood, they'd become friends.
"Dallas. Peabody. Don't you two look relaxed and pastoral.
Why don't you set up there?" She gestured to the camera. "I want the castle in the background. You got any real juice," she said to Eve, "I can take this live." "No. And we're keeping it short. We could even say pithy." "Pithy it is." Nadine took out a small compact to check her face, lifted a paper-thin sponge and dabbed her nose. "Who's leading off?"
"She is." Eve jerked a thumb at Peabody.
"I am?" "Let's get to it." Nadine nodded to the camera, angled her body. Gave her shoulders a roll, her hair a little shake. And her easy smile turned into a cool, serious look.
"This is Nadine Furst, in Central Park with Lieutenant Eve Dallas and Detective Delia Peabody of the New York City Police and Security Department, Homicide Division. Behind us is Belvedere Castle, one of the city's most unique landmarks, and the site of a recent, violent murder. Elisa Maplewood, a woman who worked and lived only a short distance from here, a single mother of a four-year-old child, was assaulted near the very spot where we're standing. She was brutally raped and murdered. Detective Peabody, as a key member of the investigative team handling Elisa Maplewood's murder, can you tell us what progress you've made in finding her killer?" "We are actively pursuing all leads and utilizing all the resources at our disposal." "Are you confident you'll make an arrest?" Don't screw up, Peabody ordered herself. Don't screw up.
"The case remains open and active. Lieutenant Dallas and I will continue to work toward identifying Ms Maplewood's assailant, gathering evidence that will result in an arrest in order to bring this individual to justice." "Can you tell us what specific leads you are pursuing?" "I'm unable to discuss specific details of this investigation as such might taint the case we're building or affect the progress of said investigation." "As a woman, Detective, do you feel this particular crime more personally?" Peabody started to deny, then remembered part of the purpose of the interview. "As a cop, it's imperative to remain objective in every investigation. It's impossible not to feel, on a personal level, compassion and outrage for any victim of any crime, but that compassion and outrage can't be allowed to overcome objectivity and interfere. Because the victim must be our priority. As a woman, I feel that compassion and outrage on Elisa Maplewood's behalf. Like Lieutenant Dallas, I want the individual responsible for her suffering and pain for the suffering and pain of her family, her friends identified and punished." "Do you agree, Lieutenant Dallas?" "Yes, I do. A woman stepped out of her home, intending to walk her dog in the city's greatest park. Her life was taken from her, and that's enough for outrage. But it was taken viciously, violently, deliberately. As a cop, as a woman, I will pursue the man who took Elisa Maplewood's life, however long it takes, until he's brought to justice." "How was she mutilated?" "At this point, that detail of the crime and investigation is not for public consumption." "Don't you believe in the public's right to know, Lieutenant?" "I don't believe the public has a right to know everything.