Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(61)

“If you become afraid, or if you need help, if you think of anything that might aid our investigation, contact me.” Eve drew out a card.

Idina studied it. “Was the person who died a member?”

“No.”

“Is it terrible I’m relieved to hear that?”

“No,” Eve said again. “Talk to your husband, and if he has any information that may help, any small detail, please contact me.”

“We’ll talk tonight, after the kids are in bed.”

“You have a beautiful family, Ms. Frank,” Peabody told her.

“They’re a mess,” she said cheerfully. “But they’re my mess.”

They let themselves out so Idina could deal with her mess.

“Can’t see it.” Peabody shook her head. “Can’t see any pertinent connection there. She’s so normal.”

“People who join cults or do the weird often seem normal. But I agree. The thing with Gwen was a sad and needy teenage thing. Anson might have looked at her due to the order, and she might have looked at him as a kind of stable father figure. But that’s not the whys now.”

“I hope they get out without any trouble. That’s a happy house.” Peabody glanced back at it as she got in the car. “You can tell. Just like you could tell the one in Tribeca was anything but.”

“We’ll see what the potter in SoHo has to tell us.”





13


“Savannah Grimsley,” Peabody read as they pushed through traffic. “She’s twenty-six, a potter who works at the Village Scene—one of the places Ariel Byrd sold her art. She also works as an art model. Shares her loft with Vance Bloot—another artist. Roommates, not cohabs.”

“The brother?”

“Keene Grimsley, age twenty-four—twenty-two at the time of his disappearance. He joined Natural Order at eighteen, while at college, dropped out of college at twenty to work for the order in IT. He’s been missing since June 12, 2059. His sister filed the MP on June 15.”

“Other family?”

“Parents, divorced. Mother, remarried, living in Jersey City; father, remarried, living in Delaware. Maternal grandparents, Sag Harbor; paternal, divorced, both living out of state.”

“No connection to Natural Order with the other family?”

“None that shows.”

As she drove, Eve rolled it around and around. “Tribeca, the Pipers—he’s higher up, and she’s shaky. So they’re planted on that strange block where wives are kept under control. The Franks, not so high up, have more space. I’m betting there are other quiet little enclaves where the equivalent of upper middle management get planted.”

“I have to say again, creepy. Add that an IT guy—like the missing brother—works with data. You wouldn’t have to be especially high up to find a way to access sensitive data, or data you’re not supposed to have.”

“Or having worked with said data, have a change of heart.”

“Or that.”

Spring in the Village brought out the street artists, and the tourists who occasionally shelled out enough for an artistic souvenir of New York.

Since the parking sucked, Eve considered a lot, then opted for a loading zone and her On Duty light.

Instead of trying the buzzer on the door between Café Vegan and a place called the Modern Witch, she mastered through, and walked with Peabody up the narrow stairs.

“Fun neighborhood.” Peabody admired the chalk mural of flowers and vines running up the staircase walls.

“If you like tofu and witches.”

“I like good witches, and tofu’s not horrible if you know how to cook it. She’s 2A.”

And straight off the stairs to the left.

The same artist, Eve assumed, had painted figures of a man and a woman on the door. The woman at a potter’s wheel, the man at an easel.

Music pumped against the door from the inside.

Eve buzzed. Buzzed again. On the third try, she distinctly heard someone yell, “Fuck!”

But the door opened a couple minutes later.

The woman who opened it said, “Fuck,” again. Then added, “What the hell?”

Eve held up her badge. “Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody. We’d like to talk to you about your brother.”

Irritation leaped to hope. “You found Keene.”

“No, I’m sorry. We’re investigating another matter. We’re looking for connections.”

“Two years, two years of nothing. Goddamn it. Is this Natural Order crap?”

“We’d like to talk to you,” Eve repeated.

“Screw it.” She gestured them into a tiny living area. Tiny because a double art studio took the bulk. She had her potter’s wheel, tools, worktable on one side. The other held easels, canvases, painter’s tools.

She plopped down on a sofa.

She hit about five-three, Eve gauged, though the pink-streaked blond hair bundled and twisted on her head added another couple inches.

She wore a splattered apron, a sleeveless shirt, and shorts cut off at the knees with a pair of work boots as splattered as the apron.

She had long hazel eyes, a long thin nose, a wide mouth, and managed to look exotically bohemian.

She pulled a tube of water out of her apron pocket as she eyed them.