“Bitch!” Bella said cheerfully, and laughed like a loon.
20
The minute she cleared her office, Eve started a run on Ann Elizabeth Smith, barked for Peabody.
Peabody came on the run. “Mavis said you—” She caught the face on-screen. “Yes!”
“Born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. DOB March 14, 2018. No sibs. Parents divorced in ’27. Father relocated the same year, remarried six months later. Already had a skirt on the side,” she deduced. “Mother, a seamstress, ran her own shop. Fit for You, established 2023.”
“She learned young,” Peabody said. “Her mother taught her to sew. That fits.”
“The mother remarried and relocated in ’36. It looks like Smith took over the management of the shop. Run a side search on that, the financials. It shut down two years ago—coordinating with her move to New York. I’ve got a Brooklyn address, and employment at Dobb’s.”
“Small, exclusive department store,” Peabody told her as she worked her PPC. “High-end clothing and accessories.”
“Carmichael and Santiago are already in Brooklyn.” Eve pulled out her communicator. “We’ll have them sit on her home address. Keep running that, and get us a conference room. Pull in Uniform Carmichael and … Officer Shelby. We’re going to work out the takedown.”
While Peabody went out, PPC in hand. Eve contacted her detectives, gave the order. Then contacted Feeney.
“Told you already. It’s going to take awhile,” he said stiffly.
“I may have her—don’t stop what you’re doing, and I don’t want to pull McNab off it. I need a geek. Can you spare one?”
“You can take Callendar.” His tone stayed as frosty as the day. “She knows how you work.”
“Perfect. I’m taking a conference room, working out the op.”
“I’ll get her moving.” Though still stiff, he added, “Good hunting.”
“One more thing. I’m sending you an address.”
He offered her a mournful stare. “You got any detectives in your own division?”
“Non-work-related. It’s Kincade’s recording studio. Avenue A—the band—is having—doing?—whatever, a session. They expect to start about fifteen hundred today, go through till maybe twenty-two, twenty-three hundred. It gives you a big window. You’re cleared for it.”
“Cleared for it?” Feeney said blankly.
“To, you know, go. To hang. Watch, listen. He didn’t have time to come back to Central, but you can go there. If you want.”
“I’m cleared to watch Avenue A record?” The frosty tone melted into the awed.
“Yeah. I said I’d fix it.”
When he didn’t speak for a full fifteen seconds, Eve worried he’d suffered a small stroke. “Feeney?”
“You didn’t fix it.” His voice came out raw, then went to booming. “You killed it! Holy shit, holy mother of shit! Best day of my life! Don’t tell my wife, my kids, my grandkids I said that. Ever. Holy hot, steaming shit.”
She wasn’t sure she could tell anyone—ever—that the cop she considered to be as steady, cynical, bullshit-free as any she’d ever known currently looked just a little insane.
That there might’ve been a tear in his baggy eye.
“Okay. So we’re good?”
“Good, my ass. Kid, this is how you rock it.”
“Okay then. I’ve got to get on this, you know, murder stuff.”
She clicked off fast because Feeney’s face reminded her of the big, sloppy dog at the vet clinic.