Calculated in Death (In Death #36)(80)

“We’re on it,” he assured her. “That was some serious overkill in there. Not like the first vic. It doesn’t seem like it could be the same guy.”

“If it’s not, we’ve got a bigger problem. Run those electronics, McNab. Find me that damn fingerprint you told me about. I want the hacker, hopefully before he ends up in a body bag, too. Peabody, with me.”

Eve ignored the fact that Peabody and McNab did a quick pucker-up behind her back. She didn’t have time to dress them down.

“Get Mira the preliminary data, the crime scene record on this and on Parzarri. I want her familiar with the details before I meet with her. Let’s find out where Ingersol stayed when he went to Miami. I want to dig into where he went, who he met with. I don’t know if there’s a reason Parzarri would’ve traveled, same time, same place, but we need to find out.”

“Got it. I figured we were heading back to Central.”

“We are. I want to backtrack to the underpass. Try to calculate our killer’s route. Where’d he get the hammer? Was it impulse? Did he stop along the route, buy it? Does he have his own little woodshed/toolshed?”

“The sweeper who bagged it said it looked new. It has to be processed, but that’s an on-site observation.”

“I had the same one. I have to go with probabilities. They’re going to deal with two people in one morning, then they’d take the most direct and quickest route from the first killing to the second.”

“They sure didn’t stop for coffee and donuts,” Peabody put in.

“Maybe after the morning’s work. So if the hammer was impulse and new, he got the idea en route, stopped, made the buy. He had to see somewhere that sells tools.”

“Okay. One minute.”

“What are you doing?” Eve asked as Peabody went to work on her PPC.

“I’m plotting out the route, then I’m going to do a search for anywhere I can buy myself a hammer.”

“Good thinking.” Meanwhile, Eve kept her eye out.

“I’ve got two places,” Peabody announced. “One’s—”

“Big Apple Hardware.” Eve pulled over, once again double-parking and raising the ire of fellow drivers. As she flipped on the On Duty light, she wondered just how many “f*ck offs” she’d amassed just that morning.

She might’ve been approaching a record.

She stepped into the tiny shop with its myriad shelves and Peg-Boards holding various tools, bins full of screws, nails, bolts, stacks of tarps, protective gear, goggles, earplugs. Cans of paint, brushes, rollers, sprayers, toothy blades all crowded into the space.

She wondered how anything got built if the process required so many implements and choices.

A husky guy sat on a stool behind a jumbled counter watching some kind of action vid on a portable screen.

“Help ya?”

“Maybe.” She pulled out her badge.

“Can’t do no cop discounts. Sorry.”

“No problem. I’m looking for a man with a hammer. Big guy, easy six four, two-fifty. Did somebody like that come in and buy a hammer this morning?”

“What kinda hammer?”

“The kind that bangs.”

“You got your claw hammer, your ball-peen hammer, your sledgehammer, your—”

“Claw,” Peabody said before he continued his litany.

“Curved claw, ripped claw or framing?”

“Mister,” Eve said, “did an individual matching that description come in this morning and buy any damn kind and size of hammer?”

“Yeah, okay, I’m just trying to get the details. Yeah, I sold a thirteen-inch, high-carbon steel, smooth face, curved claw to a guy like that a couple hours ago.”

Bingo.

Peabody stepped over, lifted down a hammer from a congregation of others. “One of these?”

“Yeah, that one. You know your hammers, girlie.”

“I’ve got a brother who’s a carpenter, and my father does some.”

“I can give discounts to people in the trade,” he began.

“We don’t want to buy anything, and we don’t need a discount,” Eve interrupted. “We need to see your security disc.”

The man glanced up to the camera. “Ain’t nothing to see. We can’t afford a real camera. That’s just what you call a deterrent. Not that anybody bothers us. They gonna rob somebody, there’s the liquor store down the block. People buy more booze than screws.”

“How’d he pay?”

“Cash.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“Nothing wrong with my eyes. He was standing right there where you’re standing.”

“I need you to come down to Central, work with a sketch artist.”

“I can’t close this place down to go work with no artist. I gotta make a living here.”

“I’ll send someone to you, Mister . . .”

“Burnbaum. Ernie. What the guy do, hit somebody over the head with the hammer?”

“Something like that. Peabody, I want Yancy.”

“I’ll get him.”

“Now, Ernie, why don’t you describe the hammer guy for me, and tell me what the two of you talked about.”