Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(53)
“Neutral ground, Dallas. And since I’m going to be in the studio all afternoon, I’d like to soak up a little spring. See you there.”
She clicked off before Eve could argue.
Annoyed, but reminding herself what Nadine didn’t know she could usually find out, she left the search running. Since, knowing Nadine, she already had the tat for the tit, or the quo for the quid, she went to Peabody in the bullpen.
“I’m going out to meet Nadine, see what she knows or can find out about Natural Order. I’ll fill you in on that, on the Mira consult, and on my conversation with Billingsly when I get back. Keep running the cross-matches.”
“Where are you meeting her?”
“That dinky little park a couple blocks from the new house.”
“Oh, that’s such a sweet one, pretty green space and the playground. McNab and I can walk right by it on the way to work once the house is finished. Mavis buzzed me that demo’s starting tomorrow. I can’t believe it. We’re going to—”
“Run the matches,” Eve finished, firmly. “Full run on any. I’ll be back.”
She escaped from what she knew would be a daily spewing of bubbly and, rejecting the elevator, took the glides all the way down.
It gave her time to think, but what she wanted more was information. Information she could then sift through at her desk, with a cup of coffee.
She hadn’t considered Chad Billingsly as a viable suspect, but now she crossed him off the bottom of her list. And he’d given her a little more, a confirmation of what she’d already concluded for herself.
Gwen didn’t make friends. She selected tools.
And in the case of Billingsly, Gwen had—finally—told the truth.
On the main floor, she took one of the side exits out of the busy lobby and hit the busy sidewalk.
Apparently, everyone in New York wanted to soak up some spring. She saw business types with jackets hooked over their shoulders by a finger or draped over an arm. Tourists gawking. Shoppers hauling bags to the next place they could buy something else.
The corner glide-cart did a brisk business selling water, soft drinks, dogs, and pretzels. The smoke pumping off the cart smelled of meat and onions. Concrete planters—too cumbersome to steal—burst with flowers.
Vehicles streaming by had their windows open to the air so the sound of traffic, of horns and curses, mixed with music—from trash rock to opera.
A woman in tiny red shorts, two white bags over her arm, glittery framed sunglasses obscuring half her face, minced along on red-and-white-striped ankle boots. She had to mince, Eve figured, as the boots had tall needles for heels.
She, very casually, held the leash of a black-and-white dog as big as a pony.
She minced right into a deli with the dog, in violation of several health laws.
Eve kept walking.
She saw a woman dressed like the Statue of Liberty hyping some joint called Lady Liberty, a guy with a moustache that drooped a good three inches below his chin passing out flyers for a fortune-teller. She spotted a woman sunbathing on a fire escape in a bikini barely big enough to avoid the indecent exposure laws.
And the several people who paused to take pictures or vids as she, well, soaked up some spring.
New York had it all.
The little park did have some green space with some short flowers running along its borders. Beside it, twice as much space held the playground with its spongy checkerboard of primary colors covering the ground.
Kids sent up a din as they swung on swings, climbed on climbing things, slid down sliding things, tunneled through tunnel things.
Parents, grandparents, nannies watched indulgently.
Strollers, carriage things lined up like cars in a lot. Some still held the bags and backpacks she assumed carried kid and baby paraphernalia.
Nadine had already claimed a short bench and sat in her off-air jeans, a blousy white shirt, and white kicks. Her sunshades neither glittered nor obscured half her face.
Eve sat next to her. “It sounds like a war.”
“I was just sitting here wondering how the adults know if the scream is a happy one or an I-just-broke-my-arm one. God, I love those boots!”
“They got me here. What do you know about Natural Order?”
“You might be interested to know that when I was just starting out at Seventy-Five, I planned to do an exposé on them.”
“Planned to?”
“It didn’t work out. But I did many man-hours of research, conducted interviews. I even dug up the names of three former members. It cost me fifteen hundred dollars, and got me next to nothing, as none of them—not one—would talk to me. Even off the record. I signed up for an introductory seminar, which cost me two-fifty—and that didn’t include the two grand I spent on fake ID and background to get through their security.”
Nadine tipped down her sunshades. “That’s out of pocket for a young, struggling reporter who wasn’t on expense account. I got through the first session, the break—refreshments and chitchat—before they broke through the fake ID and booted me.”
“You’re better now, richer now, and have an expense account.”
Nadine beamed a cheerful smile. “All true, but you’d better believe they know me. I wouldn’t get through the door now. I’ve invited Wilkey, and his three sons, his daughter, to come on Now—or to give me an interview.