Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(19)

“Works.” As she turned into the bullpen, Jenkinson and his eye-watering tie crossed to her.

“We maybe got a break in the DeBois hit. Got a woman coming in says she saw the whole thing, and she’ll spill it for protection and immunity.”

“Where’s she been for the last three days?”

“She says hiding out. Reineke ran her. She’s a former high-rent LC who got booted when she failed the standard illegals screening.”

“See what she’s got. You better get a prosecutor on tap in case.”

“Got that covered. His brother did him, Dallas, I know it in my bones. But he’s a slippery bastard. She sounded scared enough, so maybe she’s got something that’ll give us a better grip. If she does, we’ll need a safe house for her.”

“I’ll clear it. Keep me up.”

She led the way into her office. “Rich wheeler-dealer ends up stabbed a couple dozen times in his fancy penthouse—private entrance and elevator. Security feed’s taken. Set up to look like a botched burglary, but it comes off as a botched botch, and Jenkinson liked the brother for it from the jump. Only he’s alibied tight—smug with it. Alibi’s his wife and a couple of other assholes. Anyway.”

She shoved her hands through her hair. “Peabody, coffee.”

“How do you want it, Yancy?” Peabody asked him.

“If it’s the real stuff, black’s good.”

“Here’s our vic.” Eve gestured to her board. “You can see the killer went heavy on the hair and facial enhancements—that’s postmortem. Our angle is he picked her, and, after holding her for ten days, killed her, then made her up to represent someone else. His or her mother or mother figure.”

“Pretty young for it.”

“Yeah, so mother from back a ways. Mira dated her outfit to around the turn of the century, or a few years after. That confirms Peabody and Morris’s fashion take.”

“Okay. Thanks,” he added when Peabody handed him a mug of coffee. “So, with this line, Mom could be hitting eighty or so.”

“If she’s still alive, yeah. To pursue this angle, we need a better fix on the mother figure. ID her, we have a strong shot at IDing the killer.”

“You want me to use the victim as the base, age her to around eighty, give you the most likely image. I’m not going to promise face recognition on it. All kinds of variables, Dallas. She could’ve had work done, or lived the kind of life that leaves marks.”

“Or she could’ve died sixty years ago,” Eve put in. “Or any time between then and now. I’m using the current image to try to match the potential subject at this age range—but that’s before universal ID. We’ve got to use driver’s licenses, passports—and it’s going to be a slog. She might have had neither.”

“There’s a tat.”

“Also inked after abduction, so we have that identifying mark on the mother figure. What I want, if you can do it, is age reproduction analyses, a decade-by-decade, from this point to now. Best probable.”

“Huh.” Sipping coffee, he moved closer to the board. “Interesting. I need more photos. Different angles. Vids would be good. It wouldn’t hurt to get some of the victim younger, too. Even with that, it’ll take awhile. I can comp-generate a lot of it, work with a holo for a three-sixty, but I’ll need to finesse that, punch it up for any chance at facial recognition. Even then … But I can give you the best approximation.”

“We’ll get more pictures, some vids. Peabody.”

“I’ll contact her family, her cohab.”

“Whatever they’ve got have them send to me and to Yancy.”

“On it.”

“How long’s awhile?” Eve asked Yancy when Peabody went out.

“I’ve got a couple things to clear up, but I can probably start on it before end of shift. I’ve got to figure a week—three days in a squeeze—to give you everything you want, and that’s if I don’t have too much else land on my desk.”

“How about you start at the high end, the oldest version, first. I haven’t yet found any like crimes, nothing that matches this. Mira figures a trigger. The mother figure let him down, crossed him, or maybe died on him, and he’s trying to replace her with this image.”

“Young, kind of glamorous.”

“Glamorous?”

“To a kid, right? He’d have been a kid if this was his actual mom—given her age, and how long ago. All the sparkly stuff—top, shoes, the makeup and all. Seems like a kid might think of that as glamour. Fancy. Shiny.”

She flashed back to playing with her mother’s makeup—pretty colors, shiny—and getting knocked on her ass for it.

“Yeah, I get that. I’ll keep working the lower age range, you start with the high. And I appreciate anything you can get me.”

“Frosty assignment. Never tried anything quite like it.” He handed her the empty coffee mug with his dreamy smile. “I’ll go clear up my currents and get started.”

When Yancy left, she sat down and considered that memory flash. What had she been—four, five, six when Stella walked out on Richard Troy the last time? She couldn’t be sure, those memories remained vague. But had she thought Stella pretty, even glamorous?