Vendetta in Death (In Death #49)(79)

Before she could walk out, he picked up the egg pocket, smiled. “You do, don’t you?”

She rolled her eyes, but ate it as they went downstairs. She contacted Baxter, set that in motion.

When she stepped outside, she realized spring had definitely broken winter’s back. She felt the change in the air, a softness to it.

She got in the car—hers this time, not the slick one—waited while Roarke programmed the address.

“I had this dream.”

“Yes. I was about to bring you out of it when your comm signaled. You didn’t seem upset so much as … pissed.”

“I was pissed.”

She told him about it as he drove.

“I get the dumb-ass subconscious symbolism. The whole black-and-white thing. I think in black-and-white.”

“Not at all,” he disagreed. “Your scope of gray may be limited—from my view—but you have a scope. It’s your killer who sees in black-and-white.”

“Huh. I guess I like that better. She also sees men, as a sex, as a species, as just evil. I felt that before, but it feels more right now. She may have started with a list, from the support group, but she’d never stop there. She’s a serial killer now,” Eve stated. “And she wants to rack up as many as she can.”

“One who wants to be seen as a hero,” Roarke added. “And that’s something you obviously believe matters or you wouldn’t have dreamed of it.”

“I do think it matters. How she sees herself, and how she wants others to see her.”

Not yet dawn, too early for ad blimps or the smoking carts, for the angry snarls and snags of traffic, New York seemed almost peaceful.

“I forgot to ask you. Mavis said you were meeting with Jake on something yesterday.”

“I was, yes. He’s volunteered to teach now and again at An Didean. To teach music, songwriting—and so would his bandmates.”

“That’s … That’s seriously good of him, them.”

“It is. But then, he’s a good man and one who appears to be geared toward giving back. I took him up on the offer right quick.”

Roarke pulled up behind the barricades where early-rising gawkers gathered. It was never too early, Eve thought, or too late to take some time to view someone else’s tragedy.

She hooked on her badge, turned on her recorder, and ignored the crowd as she strode through the barricade.

Eve spotted the officers on scene, moved to them.

“Officers.”

“Keller and Andrew, Lieutenant.”

“We’re here with Brigg Cohen,” Keller put in, tapping the burly, balding man between them. “Brigg used to be on the job. He called it in.”

“Cashed in my twenty ten years ago,” Cohen told her. “Had this beat before these greenies moved in. Lived right here.” He gestured to the building behind them. “Sixteen years.”

“Why don’t you run it through for me?”

“I work night security, eight to four for Lisbon Corp. Clocked out, had some breakfast at my usual place, walked home. The DB’s laid out just like you see him. That would be four-fifty-eight.”

He may have cashed out, but he still reported like a cop. Advantage us, Eve thought.

“I still pay attention to what’s what,” he continued, “so I see he’s gone like the two other DBs I heard about. Naked, beat to shit, missing his works. Got that message on him. Nobody reported, like, a poem, but I figure you held that back. I know the greenies here had to be close by, probably scratching their butts, so I called it in, stood by until they meandered along.”

Andrew rolled her eyes; Keller just grinned.

Eve spotted Peabody and McNab trotting up. She signaled for McNab to stand with Roarke, gestured Peabody forward.

“DB’s pretty beat up,” Cohen continued. “But from the build and what I can see of his face, I’d say it’s the asshole lives down the hall from me. Name’s Kagen, Arlo Kagen. He’s got a sheet, not surprising, as he’s a mean drunk.”

“When’s the last time you saw Kagen?” Eve asked him.

“Tonight, when I was heading to work. That’d be about nineteen hundred, seeing as I grab a bite on the way. He was heading out about the same time. Likely to go get his drunk on. He generally gets it on at Nowhere, a dive bar just a couple blocks from here.”

“Have you noticed anyone in or around the building who doesn’t belong? Somebody who set off your buzzer?”

He shook his head. “I sleep till fourteen hundred most days, maybe walk around in good weather. We got the tat parlor, the hair place, a couple cheap eats, and get some of the street levels off the stroll who patronize ’em. I head out for work pretty much the same time every day, so I’m not here all that much, and when I am, I’m sleeping.”

“Okay, appreciate the help.”

“Don’t much like finding a DB at my door. Hope you close this down sooner than later. I’m gonna go get some rack time. You know where I am.”

Eve waited until Cohen went in the building. “Any chance he touched the body, compromised the scene?”

“Not one in a million,” Keller told her. “Brigg likes to rag on us, but he’s solid.”

“He’s a grizzled old fart,” Andrew put in, but with affection. “And he’s got a rep as a good cop for a reason. We caught a break with him finding the DB.”