“I got it. Heather’s fast. Really fast. She’s lettered in track and field, and cross-country. Running’s a defense, too.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“We’ll stick together, right, Mom? Right, Grand?” Heather took her mother’s hand, her sister’s. “It’s what we do.”
“Meanwhile, I want your fan mail as soon as possible.”
“Oh, I’ve got that for you.” Audrey stood up. “I’ve got all the e-mail on a disc—most comes that way. But I made copies of everything else. I’ll get it for you now.”
Outside, Peabody glanced back at the house as they walked to the car. “It’s a solid family. Serious girl power.”
“Not a pushover among them. Contact local PSD, walk them through it. We’ll go show the photos through these shops the kid talked about. Not much chance anybody’s going to remember like she did, but we could hit a streak of luck.?
?
Eve got behind the wheel. “That’s not the household of a woman who let herself be bullied, let herself be subjugated.”
“I guess sometimes it takes a punch in the face to shake out the inner strength.”
“I guess it does. After the shops, I’m going to dump you at Central. You can take the photos to Yancy, though I don’t know what even the genius of police artists can do with them. There’s no point in you going all the way to Queens to interview Jefferson, and I’ll work at home after that.”
They not only didn’t have a streak of luck, they didn’t manage so much as a sputter—and no store security that kept the feed longer than forty-eight hours.
As traffic thickened on the drive back to Manhattan, Eve braced herself for a long, ugly slog to Queens.
She passed the disc from Audrey to Peabody, ordered her partner to copy and send to her home unit, and started the slog.
Blasting ad blimps, farting maxibuses, a bike messenger with an obvious death wish, cross streets clogged with delivery vans, crosswalks clogged with pedestrians who appeared oblivious to the meaning of Walk/Don’t Walk signals, cabs, cars, blaring horns, and an underlying rumble of simmering anger slapped together to form New York at rush hour.
Though why some idiot termed it rush hour when it was crawl hour, Eve would never know.
A waste of time talking to Craig Jefferson, she knew it in her bones, but it had to be done. And though she was tempted to wait—to just go home to the quiet—and come up with a ploy to get him into Central the next day, she wanted to see him at home. She wanted to observe his dynamic with his wife.
She soothed herself with coffee from the in-dash AC, and finished the slog.
Another decent neighborhood, she noted, maybe glossier than Blaine’s, but Jefferson’s house couldn’t boast a corner lot. A newer structure, she noticed. Smaller, but … shinier, a two-story painted sleek white, with a short, one-story leg of nearly all glass.
Decent security, she judged, and this time the computer answered her buzz.
Good evening. Please state your name and the purpose of your visit.
“Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, NYPSD.” She held up her badge for scanning and verification. “I need to speak with Craig Jefferson.”
One moment please …
It took more than a moment—long enough Eve considered buzzing again. Then the door opened.
She recognized Jefferson’s wife from her ID shot, just as she recognized the anxious look in her eyes. She wore a dark blue sweater with subtle swirls of silver threads worked through and pants that matched the threading. She’d swept her hair back with some sort of blue and silver clips. Maybe to show off the silver studs in her ears.
The coordinated outfit—down to the short silver boots with the little navy heels—the carefully made-up face, the perfectly groomed hair made Eve think: Camera ready.
Or demanding, overbearing-husband ready.
“Mrs. Jefferson.”
“Yes, I’m Mattie Jefferson. How can I help you?”
“Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. I’d like to speak with Craig Jefferson.”