Calculated in Death (In Death #36)(81)

“Like you said, he’s a big guy. Big white guy.”

“Hair? Short, long, dark, light.”

“Short, buzzed, kinda medium.”

“Eyes? The color of his eyes?”

“Ah, brown. Maybe brown. I think brown.”

“Any scars, tats, piercings, anything that stood out?”

“No, can’t say there was. Had a kinda squared-off jaw, I guess. Hard-looking guy. Tough-looking.”

Yancy would get more, she thought. “What did he say to you?”

“He comes in—”

“Alone?”

“Yeah, just him. And he says he wants to buy a hammer. So I say, what kind? He just walks over there, takes the curved claw off the wall. He said, ‘This one.’ Pretty sure about that, how he just walked over and picked the hammer. I asked if he needed anything else, and he said he wanted a coverall. I asked what kind. He got a little irritated, I guess you could say, but you gotta know what kind. I showed him the stock in XXL, being he was big. He took one of the clear, full-body styles. I said something about what kind of project he had going, and he just said, ‘What’s the price.’ So I rang it up, he paid cash, and that’s that.”

“Do you have the money?”

“Course I got the money. You think I ate it?”

“I’m going to need it. You’ll get a receipt, and it will be returned to you in full.”

“Yancy’s on his way,” Peabody told her.

“Get some sweepers in here. Maybe we can get some prints. That wall, the counter. I need the money, Ernie.”

“It’s all together.” He unlocked the under-counter safe, took out a red zipper pouch. “Most people use credit or debit, but we get cash sales. I put the money in with the cash from yesterday and the day before. I don’t know which was his money.”

“All right, count it up. I’ll give you a receipt.”

“It’s over five hundred dollars!” He clutched the envelope to his breast like a beloved child she meant to kidnap.

“And you’ll get every dollar of it back. The man who came in here, bought the hammer, is suspected of killing two people this morning.”

Ernie’s jaw dropped. “With my hammer?”

“One of them. Ernie, your money’s going to be safe. I’m going to put in for you to get a ten percent use fee.”

His grip loosened. “Ten percent?”

“Yeah, and if you work with the artist, and your description and cooperation aids in the arrest of this individual, I’ll put in for another fifty.”

“A hundred bucks?”

“That’s right.”

He held out the envelope. “I still want the receipt.”

After he’d carefully counted the cash twice, Eve printed out a receipt, added her card.

“What do I do if he comes back? Maybe he wants a skill saw.”

Jesus, Eve hoped not. “I don’t think he’ll be back, but if he comes in, sell him whatever he wants. Contact me when he leaves. Did you notice which way he went, if he got into a car?”

“He went out the door. That’s all I know.”

“Okay, thanks for your cooperation.” Eve went out the door as well.

“I’m going to drop you off at the lab,” Eve began as she got behind the wheel. “I want you to take the money straight to Dickhead. He needs to run any prints he finds against military databases, police, private security. Eliminate females, anyone out of the suspect’s age range and race.”

“You want me to tell Berenski to run five hundred dollars in small bills, which have surely been passed through many fingers, for a set of prints. A set belonging to we don’t know who.”

“That’s right. If we get a decent likeness, we can run a secondary search. He’s Alexander’s, we know that, but he’s not his head of security. The head of security doesn’t match the description. I think this is personal security, and not necessarily on the company payroll. Not that it shows. He’s Alexander’s strong-arm, probably travels with him, or travels ahead to clear the road. We’re not going to find him on the company directory. I already tried that. So we’ll try this.”

“He’s going to want a bribe. Dickhead, I mean.”

“Tell him to go . . .” Eve reconsidered. “No, tell him I’ll clear him for two tickets to the premiere deal tomorrow. VIP section. I think I can do that.”

“That’s a good one.”

“Don’t toss it out until he wheedles, and make it like you’re going to have to pry it out of me. He’ll think it’s a bigger deal. I’ll check with Morris, then meet with Mira. If we’re lucky either Yancy or Dickhead will hit, and we can go after this bastard before he buys a skill saw.”

“Eeww.”

Eve couldn’t argue.

“Feeney and I caught a hacksaw job a few years back, before you. Before he took over EDD. This guy killed his wife—she threatened divorce, and she was the money train. So he bashed her with this brass statue of a mermaid, then oh shit, she’s dead, what do I do? He sawed her up into small pieces with a hacksaw he had in his little workshop, put it all in big waste bags, then dumped her in the river.”

“I repeat. Eeww.”