Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(68)

“On it.”

“She’s looking back – a little bit of profile. Sees somebody? Yeah, yeah, see how she glances back – signaling her partner. Here it comes. Oh yeah, she pulls the hat off, shakes her hair back, so he can see her – so Mulligan can see her. Long blond hair. Probably Caucasian.”

“Jesus, Dallas, can we make her from this?”

She kept her eyes on screen as she answered Banner. “We will make her. There’s Mulligan – hunter green coat, hood up, he’s blocking her from the camera, but we’ll make her. Give me a hand, could you?” Eve whispered. “I’m just not strong enough to get it inside. Aren’t you sweet to stop and help? And he bends his knees, like you do, gets a grip on the chair, starts to lift it.”

It was fast, shadows and jerks, flickering and blurs, but she caught enough. The sap – some sort of sap – coming down fast and hard, and the man, the woman, shoving Mulligan inside, the woman scrambling in behind him. The door slammed shut, and in seconds, the van pulled out and away.

“They weren’t there ten f*cking minutes. Their luck’s not going to hold, that kind of luck doesn’t hold. Get that in the lab, use this one,” she ordered McNab. “Get it as clean as you can, and send me every piece of the unsubs, every piece. I want an ID on the sticker on the back window, make and model of the vehicle.”

“Corner of the plate,” Peabody added.

“If you can do anything with it, do it.”

“I’ll give you a hand with it,” Roarke told him. “Load up a plate first. A man’s got to eat,” he said to Eve.

“Fine. Would Feeney make a difference?”

“Considerable.” Roarke got a plate for himself. “We could split up the identification and cleaning and enhancing.”

“I’m tagging him. Peabody, wake up Carmichael. I want her and Santiago working their angle now. Bring them up to speed.”

“Where do you want me? I feel like deadweight,” Banner admitted.

Eve brought up the map. “Those are the snatch points, and the dump site. My guess is Mulligan was impulse, so their hole’s close to that. I want a list of souvenir shops in that area.”

“Souvenirs?”

“Do you plan to go home without one?”

He smiled, sheepish. “Peabody said how she could score me an NYPSD sweatshirt, and maybe a hoodie. And my mama collects snowglobes. Don’t ask me why, she just likes them. I figured I’d find one before I left.”

He nodded. “We don’t see them as from here, so they’d want souvenirs.”

“And when we make them, we start showing their pictures around to the places you list. Takeout places, too, Banner, while you’re at it. Deliveries would be chancy, but you can get food, any kind of food, and cart it home with you. I’m betting neither of them is much of the domestic type. And like Roarke said, a man’s got to eat. Women, too.”

“I’ll get started.”

“Want one more?”

“I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

“Pawnshops, secondhand shops. They need money for food and souvenirs, right? Electronics would be the first and easiest. But we’ve got a file of what Kuper and Campbell were wearing when they were taken. And I’ve got one now on Mulligan. If they liked the clothes and they fit, they’d keep them. But if they didn’t, they’ll sell them.

“Get a plate,” she suggested. “Work and eat.”

She went to her desk, contacted Feeney.

His hangdog face seemed a little baggier, his explosion of silver-threaded ginger hair a bit more electrified. But since he hadn’t blocked video, she assumed he wasn’t still in bed.

“Wait,” he said, and glugged what she knew was coffee from a bright red mug. “What?”

“We’ve caught a break on the spree killers. I’ve got some security feed from a loading dock cam.”

“Those cams are crap.”

“Yeah, which is why I’m asking if you can give me some time on it. Roarke and McNab are already on it, at the home lab. We’ve got a decent image of the vehicle, some partials on the unsubs. Maybe part of a plate, and some sort of rear window sticker. We’ve got them taking out the latest vic.”

“The girl?”

“She’s not the latest. They got one last night. Male, just turned twenty-one. No word if they dumped Campbell’s body, but it’s early.”

“Tell me.” He rubbed one of his baggy eyes. “I can be there inside thirty. Put the coffee on.”

“You got it. Thanks. Peabody,” she said the minute she clicked off. “Status.”

“Carmichael and Santiago have a couple of lines to tug. One they’ve got a buzz over, but they crapped out on it last night. Hitting it again this morning.”

Peabody shoveled in some eggs. “Bubba’s Body Shop, Towing and Pies.”

Eve started to speak, thought again, then shook her head. “You’re making that up.”

“Hand to God.” Peabody took a moment to lay one hand over her heart, raise the other. “Carmichael says Bubba’s wife makes the pies, and Bubba and their son run the rest. She and Santiago got a guilt vibe off the son, but they aren’t giving it up.”