Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(5)

Just pretending, baby darling, she’d told him. Just playing dress-up.

So he slipped her feet into ones she’d have wished for. A little tight, but it didn’t matter.

And as a final tribute, spritzed her body with Party Girl, her favorite scent.

When he was done, when he’d done his very best, he took a picture of her. He’d frame it, keep it to remind him.

“You’re not Mommy, but I wanted you to be. You shouldn’t have lied, so you have to leave. If you hadn’t, we could’ve been happy.”

Number two and number three were sleeping. He hoped number two had learned a lesson—you had to learn your lessons—when he’d made her clean up the mess.

Tomorrow, he’d cut her hair the right way and give her the tattoo and the piercings. And she’d see all she had to do was be a good mommy, and stay with him always, take care of him always.

And they’d be happy forever.

But the Fake Mommy had to leave.

He rolled her out on the gurney—a man with a plan—out through the door and into the garage. After opening the cargo doors, he rolled her—with some effort—up the ramp and into the van.

He secured the gurney—couldn’t have it rolling around!—then got behind the wheel. Though it was disappointing, he’d known he would probably go through more than one before finding the right one, so he already knew where to take her.

He drove carefully out of the garage and waited until the doors rumbled down closed behind him.

It had to be far enough away from the home he and Mommy would make so the police didn’t come knocking to ask questions. But not so far away he had to take too much time getting there.

Accidents happened.

It had to be quiet, with no one to see. Even at this time of night in New York, you had to know where to find quiet. So the little playground seemed perfect.

Children didn’t play at three in the morning. No, they did not! Even if they had to sleep in the car because the mean landlord kicked them out, they didn’t play so late.

He parked as close as he could, and worked quickly. He wore black coveralls and booties over his shoes. A cap that covered his hair. He’d sealed his hands, but wore gloves, too. Nothing showed. Nothing at all.

He rolled the gurney right up to the bench where good mommies would watch their children play in the sunshine.

He laid her on it like she was sleeping, and put the sign he’d made with construction paper and black crayon over her folded hands.

It said what she was.

Bad Mommy!



He went back to the van and drove away. Drove back and into the garage, into the house.

He had the house because she’d left him. He had the house because she’d given him the deed and the keys and the codes and everything.

But he didn’t want everything. He only wanted one thing.

His mommy.

In the quiet house he changed into his pajamas. He washed his hands and face and brushed his teeth like a good boy.

In the glow of the night-light, he climbed into bed.

He fell asleep with a smile on his face and dreamed the dreams of the young and innocent.





2





In the shallow light just beyond dawn, Lieutenant Eve Dallas badged through the police barriers to study the body on the bench.

A tall woman, and lean with it, Eve took in the details. The position and condition of the body, the distance of the bench from the street, from buildings.

A faint breeze stirred air that, while morning cool, teased of summer. It fluttered around Eve’s cap of choppy brown hair and stirred some cheerful scent from a concrete barrel of flowers by the bench.

For once her partner had beaten her to the scene, but then Detective Peabody lived only blocks away. Peabody, in her pink coat and cowboy boots, heaved out a sigh.

“Really close to home.”

“Yeah.” Eve judged the victim as mid-twenties, Caucasian female. She lay peacefully and fully dressed with her hands folded over a childish sign that deemed her a Bad Mommy.

“Run it down for me,” Eve said.

“First on scene responded to a flag-down at approximately zero-six-forty-five. A female licensed companion got out of a cab on the corner, walked down toward her apartment.” Peabody pointed west. “When she passed the bench, she saw the victim. She assumed sidewalk sleeper, and states that since she had a really good night, she was going to leave a few bucks on the bench. And when she started to, realized, not sleeping. Started to tag nine-one-one, then saw the cruiser make the turn, so she flagged the cops down. We’ve got all her info, so Officer Steppe escorted her home.”

“Did you ID the vic?”

“Lauren Elder, age twenty-six. She lived on West Seventeenth. Cohab, Roy Mardsten, filed a missing persons on her ten days ago. She tended bar at Arnold’s—upper-class bar on West Fourteenth Street—I’ve been there. She didn’t come home from work the night of May twenty-eighth. Detective Norman, out of the four-three, caught it.”

“TOD, COD?”

“Hadn’t gotten that far. McNab—here he comes.”

Eve glanced over to see Peabody’s main dish, Electronic Detectives Division’s hotshot, jog toward them.

The strengthening sun couldn’t hold a candle to the orange-glow tee under a floppy knee-length jacket the color of irradiated plums matched with baggies of mad colors that might have been spray-painted by insane toddlers.