Roarke sat across from her, waited.
“You brought a ride?”
“I did.”
“Would you trust Peabody and McNab with it?”
“I would.”
“Peabody!”
“Sir!” Peabody gulped down the last of a fancy latte as she worked on her notes.
“I need you and McNab to take that box to Central, log it in. I want McNab to go over her ’link and any other electronics in there. I want a full report on same, asap. I want you to start running the names in her address book, or whatever she has. Send me a copy. You can take Roarke’s ride. Where is it?” she asked him.
“It’s in the alley, in the rear of the building.” He rattled off its codes.
“Park it in my slot. Roarke can have somebody pick it up. McNab, anything pertinent on the cams?”
“Nobody went in or out of the rear door.” He rubbed idly at his earlobe and its forest of hoops. “Numerous in and out the front during the pertinent time frame. I’m pretty sure I’ve got the guy—from the description given—she was sitting with. Only from the back, but it looks like he walked out at eighteen-forty. Five others, also only viewed from the back, left at eighteen-thirty-eight. Three males, two females, who appeared to be in a group. And two females left at eighteen-forty-one.”
“Shoot me a copy of that, and all the wit statements.”
“Are you coming into Central?” Peabody asked her.
“No, I’m going to go visit her drinking buddy, then I’ll work from home unless we break this. Morgue first stop in the morning, Peabody. Meet me there unless you hear otherwise.”
“There goes breakfast. ‘All the dish, served with a silver spoon.’”
“What?”
“Oh, her slogan—the vic’s. Larinda Mars’s Who’s Doing What show: ‘All the dish, served with a silver spoon.’ Not that I watch that sort of thing,” she added, a little too piously. “You just hear stuff.”
“Right. Get gone. Wait, how did you and McNab get here so fast? You were off nearly an hour before I called you in.”
“I stayed at
Central doing some paperwork until McNab cleared. He had one hanging. We were just walking out when you tagged me.”
“Handy. Appreciate the assist, McNab.”
“Where the She-Body goes, I go. I’m driving.”
“Nuh-uh.” Peabody leaped up, chased him out the back.
“I need to secure and lock the doors,” Eve told Roarke. “You’ve got a nice place here—on the fancy edge for me, but nice, and quality staff. It’ll be nice again.”
He glanced down at the pool of blood, the river of it running from pool to stairway.
“I thought very, very little of Larinda Mars, and what I did think was with sneering derision at best. But someone spilled her blood on my floor. I trust you to find justice for her. And I’ll find it for my place, and the people who make their livings working in it.”
He looked around again, then picked up Eve’s coat. “Let’s lock up, then you can begin to fill me in on the blanks I haven’t filled in myself.”
She put a hand on his arm, then, since they were alone, moved it to his cheek. “I know you’re pissed.”
“Bloody well right I am.”
“It happened in your place,” Eve said, framing his face firmly. “And it happened under my goddamn nose. Believe me when I say I’m as pissed as you are. Justice, yeah, it comes first and last for the victim. But it’s fucking personal for me, too. Under my nose, goddamn it.”