Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(25)

She talked to the bartender, the lone waitress, the old man and the young siren. She got fresh grief and shock, but no new information.

“They really liked him,” Peabody commented when they walked from the blue warmth to the gray cold.

“He seemed to have that effect on most people. What did we learn?”

“Well, that he went there at least three or four times a month, and they liked him.”

“That, and his killers never went in there. It’s small, it’s intimate, and while they get people who just go in, a tourist who’s heard of it, they mostly have regulars. A couple who’d been in there around the time the vic went missing, they’d be noticed. And that leads more weight to random. Wrong place, wrong time.”

“Okay, yeah. Yeah, I see that. Everybody remembered Earnestina – in detail.”

“And speaking of.” Eve checked the time. “I’m going to drop you back at Central. Any progress Baxter and Trueheart have made, I want to know. Check in with EDD in case they found something on the vic’s electronics we missed. Unless something else pops, go home after that. I’ll go by and talk to Earnestina on my way home – both her work and residence are on the way. She doesn’t play in, but we’ll cross her off anyway.”

“She should be home. I checked her schedule.” Peabody climbed in the car. “Her last class should have ended about a half hour ago. Even if she hangs around the school for whatever, she should be home by the time you get uptown. You might want to check there first. Traffic’s going to be a bitch.”

6

Traffic was a bitch, but, then again, Eve thought, so was she. She shoved, bullied and smashed her way uptown. In her own way, she enjoyed snarling at a lumbering maxibus or thinking bitter thoughts about the driver of a single-passenger Mini who wove through the narrow spaces between vehicles like a needle and thread.

She could sneer at the ad blimps cheerfully blasting out news about NEW SPRING LINES! at the fricking SkyMall when the temperature hovered at twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

In the time it took her to travel north, she updated her notes, reviewed Trueheart’s on three interviews conducted and contacted Juilliard.

Tina R. Denton had indeed left for the day.

She found the building easily enough – a whitewashed row house she could see had been converted into four units.

Finding parking was another matter. She considered double-parking, but recalling her own traffic fight couldn’t justify it. Some of the drivers and passengers out there were innocents.

But when she spotted a space on the other side of the street, she had no compunction against hitting the sirens, boosting into vertical and crossing over above car roofs to drop into the opening.

The blast of horns didn’t bother her in the least.

She walked down to the corner, crossed over, walked up, and with a glance at the numbers on the doors, pushed the buzzer on Earnestina’s apartment.

“What do you want?”

At the impatient voice, Eve held up her badge for scanning. “Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. I need to speak with Tina R. Denton.”

“This isn’t a convenient time. I’m working.”

“Hey, me too. If this isn’t convenient we’ll arrange to have you brought down to Central in the morning for questioning.”

“You can’t make me do that!”

Eve just smiled. “Watch me.”

There was an angry hiss, then the clunk of locks being disengaged.

Earnestina showed more flatteringly in her ID shot. In person, at the moment, her brown hair was scraped back from her long, edging toward horsey, face. She hadn’t bothered with facial enhancement, but obviously had enhancements of another sort.

Eve could smell the Zoner, could see its effects in the just-going-glassy look of her pale and narrow blue eyes.

“This is harassment.”

“File a complaint. Then I won’t feel obliged to ignore the illegals I can smell – along with the faint haze of Zoner smoke that’s not yet dissipated. Or you can let me in, we’ll have a conversation, then we can both go about our business.”

“A person is entitled to do as she likes in her own home.”

“No, a person isn’t entitled to engage in illegal activities, anywhere.” Feet planted, Eve met those just-getting-high eyes with cool contempt. “You want to push this one, Ms. Denton?”

“Oh, come in, then. Believe me, I’ve made a note of your name and badge number.”

“And I’ve made a note you’re uncooperative.”

The living area in the apartment showed a tendency for compulsive neatness. Nothing out of place, and a minimalist style that included no personal photos, no flowers or plants. A single sofa in dark gray faced a wall screen. A single chair in the same tone angled under a floor lamp.

Earnestina – as Eve would forever think of her – didn’t suggest they sit down, and Eve didn’t ask.

“You were acquainted with Dorian Kuper, and in fact, had an argument with him at a club called After Midnight.”

“I knew Dorian, yes. I heard today he’d been killed. That’s a great loss for opera, but has nothing else to do with me.”

“You were pretty angry with him.”

“Disgusted is a more accurate term, that a man of his considerable talents would waste them on the lowbrow.”