Desperation in Death (In Death #55)(47)

She put more weight on cop. Wouldn’t a kid tend to go with a cop—and not tend to go with some random stranger?

An authority figure anyway.

Or.

She let it roll around a little more as she dealt with the stop-and-go. Why not use another kid—or someone younger? Not so threatening, as Willowby suggested.

She played around with the idea. A teenager, or someone who looked like one. Nonthreatening.

Hadn’t she recently used Jamie Lingstrom—college boy—in a ruse to get a murderer to open the door?

So maybe at least some of the scouts were young—or some worked in pairs.

The runaways or troubled kids made easier targets. You spotted them on the street and grabbed them up. Maybe offer them some Zoner, or a place to flop, whatever. They might possess more canniness than the Mina type, but they wouldn’t stand a chance against an experienced abductor.

Transportation. Had to have it.

A closed van, a fake (or not) cop car. A vehicle trunk if you could work fast enough.

She had dozens of angles, questions, possible answers circling in her head as she battled her way uptown.

On impulse, she detoured, and after a hunt for parking, doubled it on Forty-Ninth off Fifth.

She hiked her way to a stall selling I HEART NY caps and T-shirts and other tourist paraphernalia.

The kid had had one of those growth spurts, she realized as she watched Tiko make a sale. The young entrepreneur still had a baby face, but he now wore his hair in short dreads and sported a pair of the wraparound shades on sale in his stall.

He shot Eve a grin when he spotted her.

“You need these.” He plucked up a pair of the shades—mirrored lenses and black frames.

“I’ve got shades.”

“Why’n you wearing them?”

She’d probably lost them again. No, left them in her desk.

No, in the car.

Shit, who knew?

“I want to show you a couple pictures.”

His grin faded. “You got trouble.”

“Someone does. I’m going to show you, then I’m going to send copies to your ’link so you can show them around.”

“Hold it. Buy three,” he told a potential customer, “you get the third half price. Shorthanded today,” he said to Eve. “Girl who helps me went and sassed her mama, and she got herself house arrested.”

He made the sale, turned back to Eve.

Then studied the photo of Mina Cabot.

“That’s the girl got dead. Saw about it on-screen. It’s sad.”

“Did you ever see her before that? Before on-screen?”

“Uh-uh. Hard to miss that hair, check it? And the looks with it.”

“Right. How about this one?” Eve swiped to the photo of Dorian Gregg.

Tiko frowned, turned his head side to side. “I remember her.”

Eve felt a lurch in her gut. “Don’t tell me what I want to hear because I want to hear it.”

“Why’d I lie to you? You’re the good cops. I took my granny to see your vid, about the clones? Frosted supreme. I remember her, but it’s back during holiday sale time. Maybe December, maybe November—but late in that, ’cause I had turkey stuff on clearance.”

“Turkey stuff. So after Thanksgiving.”

“For sure after.”

He held up a finger, walked over to a couple fiddling with the shirts and caps, made his pitch.

Damn good pitch, Eve decided, as he sold and bagged three shirts, two caps, some sort of purse thing, and sunshades.

“For sure after,” he said again when he stepped back over to Eve. “And not here. I got a second stall downtown. I expanded.” The grin popped back. “I got five em-ploy-ees.”

Two stalls, five employees, Eve thought, and he was younger than the child in the morgue.

“Do you have any trouble, anyone trying to hassle or hustle you?”

He married a snort with a shrug. “Maybe they try, but I handle that. Plus, I made friends with the beat cops, even the droids. I just show them the card you give me, say Dallas is a friend of mine. They look out for me and my staff.”

She decided the kid would likely give Roarke a run at owning half of New York one of these days.

“Okay. Tell me how you remember the girl from months ago.”

“She is fine,” he said simply. “Gotta look twice at that kind of fine. And she’s staking out the stall. I got scarves and hats—good quality, good prices—gloves and bags. I know a street thief when I see one, check it?”

“Yeah, I check it.”

“So, even if she’s fine, I give her a look that lets her know I know, and she better not try lifting from me. And I think might be she’s cold, so I tell her if she’s got five, I’ve got a few scarves under my table got some flaws, and she can take one for five. I think she’s pissed I made her so easy, but she dug up the five, and took a scarf—an orange-and-black one.”

“Jesus, you remember all that? You’re absolutely sure?”

“Hundred percent. Hold it.”

He dealt with a trio of customers already loaded with shopping bags.

“After Thanksgiving,” Eve said the moment he freed up again. “But before Christmas.”

“Had to be. Scarf she took was like Halloween and Thanksgiving stock, and already on discount, so I could break even selling it to her so low. I had the Santa stuff, and snowflakes, and the good-quality gift scarves and hats and all.”