Obsession in Death(112)

“Yeah, thanks, it was good. So was the pie. Maybe she’s been in when you’re off shift.”

Lolo snorted. “Not likely. I’m here damn near round the clock. Go ahead, show it around, but she ain’t been in here, not more’n once anyway.”

Once they’d gotten the same reaction from the rest of the staff, Eve walked back out.

“You got pie?” Peabody demanded.

“Save it. Maybe she just got lucky, jumped into the place on instinct. I’m gaining, she’s looking for cover.”

But it went against the grain.

“Or she just looks different enough, made herself look different enough,” Peabody suggested. “What kind of pie?”

“Apple,” Eve said absently. “Let’s show her around in a few other places. If we can put her in this area, we’ve got more weight.”

But waiters, shopkeepers, the guy on the cart, all gave them thumbs-down.

Going with what they had, they tracked Messner down at the courthouse, had to cool their heels until the lunch recess.

“Flank her,” Eve ordered Peabody as they approached. “In case she tries to rabbit. Loreen Messner.”

“That’s right. Oh, hey, Lieutenant Dallas. Didn’t see you on the docket.”

It took only that, the casual acknowledgment, the relaxed shoulders, to tell Eve they were on the wrong path. But they had to follow it through.

“We’re here on another matter. You knew Bastwick.”

“Anybody works this courtroom knew Bastwick. Slick one. Sorry about what happened to her.” Messner snuck a glance at her wrist unit, reminding Eve she was on lunch break. “What can I help you with?”

“You popped up on a search in the course of our investigation.”

“Me? On Bastwick?” Messner started to laugh, then sobered quickly. “No shit?”

“None. Make it easy all around, give me your whereabouts for December twenty-seventh, between seventeen hundred and nineteen hundred hours.”

“Easy. I was in Disney World with a couple friends. None of us have much in the way of family, so we took a few days, picked a spot, and went. Road trip. We headed out early Christmas Eve, came back on the twenty-seventh – didn’t get back to New York until about seven that night, took turns at the wheel, then caught dinner. I’ll give you the names and contacts, the hotel we booked, whatever.”

“I’d appreciate it. Cover it all, will you? The morning of December twenty-ninth around six hundred hours.”

Now two high red flags bloomed on her olive-toned cheeks. “Crap. We polished off the mini-vaca with some clubbing the next night. I met somebody, and she came home with me. She didn’t leave until about eight the next morning. Look, I’ve got her name and contact, but if she gets a call from the cops on me, it might screw things up. I really like her.”

“How about the evening of the twenty-ninth? About nineteen hundred?”

“I took her out to dinner. The Olive Branch, on Reade. Seven o’clock reservations. I’ve got the receipt on that, and they’d have the booking. Jesus, Lieutenant.”

“Just elimination, Messner. We’ll check the first, the last, and when they check out, we’ll leave out the middle.”

“I’d appreciate it. I don’t get how I popped in this.”

“It’s a broad search, and we’re following every lead. Give the contact information to Detective Peabody. And Messner, I’m sorry about your father.”

“He was a good cop. A great dad. Miss him every day. Okay, you want to talk to Marisol Butler,” Messner began.



“That bombed,” Peabody said as they exited the courthouse.

“We can cross her off, and that’s something. The alibis are going to hold, but check them anyway.”

She listened with half an ear as she drove and Peabody spoke with Messner’s alibis.

The check on health clinics had tanked, the first really promising lead, another tank.

She’d try again, Eve thought. She had to. Bigger this time? More violent, more bloody? Or would she go the other way, with the misses shaking her confidence? Go smaller, simpler. Go back to someone like Ledo, which was like stepping on an ant.

“That’s not what I’d do.”

“What?”

Eve shook her head. “I’d go bigger on my next target. Make a statement. She has to prove herself, to me, to herself. I let her down, right? I wasn’t who she thought I was, who she wanted me to be. All that time and emotion invested, and I screw with her. She should come after me now.”

“It’s a big jump to you. She profiles as a coward.”

“People evolve.”

And things change, she remembered, no matter how hard you try to hold them in place.

“She didn’t run from Nadine – not until she was hurt. Now she’s been wounded in battle. She didn’t go crawling away, and I’d say that’s some evolution, but headed straight over to Jamie’s, tried for another. She’s found her passion, her courage. She should come after me.”

Eve pulled into Central. “Keep running the search. Pull anybody who looks good. We follow up. We’ll take the top five, say, from everybody’s results. Scattershot, but we’ll cover it.

“We’re not wrong on this,” she added as they rode up the elevator. “I can almost see her.”