Holiday in Death (In Death #7)(26)

“Could you give me three of her strongest personality traits? As in bold or shy or romantic.”

“Intelligent,” Eve said, thinking of Dr. Mira. “Compassionate. Thorough.”

“Very good. Now something of the physical?”

“Medium height, slender, brown hair, blue eyes, light complexion.”

“That’s very nice,” Yvette said. For a police report, she thought in disgust. “What color brown is her hair? How does she wear it?”

Eve hissed between her teeth. This Christmas shopping was tough stuff. Doing her best, she focused and described the city’s top profiler and shrink.

By the time Peabody walked in, she was choosing the bottle and waiting for Simon to generate hard copy and disc.

“You shopped again.”

“No, I bought again.”

“Should we have this delivered to your home or office, Lieutenant?”

“Home.”

“Would you like it gift wrapped?”

“Hell. Yeah, yeah, wrap it up. Simon, how about that data?”

“Just coming, Lieutenant dear.” He looked up, beamed at her. “I’m so happy we could help you in that matter.” He slipped the papers and disc into a gold foil shopping bag. “I added some samples. I think you’ll find them perfect. Naturally.” He chuckled at his own joke as he passed the bag to Eve. “And I hope you’ll keep me informed. Please come back, any time, any time at all. I’d love to work on you.”

CHAPTER SIX

An ocean of humanity swamped Fifth Avenue. People swarmed on the sidewalks, the people glides, clogged the intersections and crowded at display windows, all in a flurry to get into stores and buy.

Some, already burdened like pack mules with shopping bags, elbowed and shoved their way through the waves of pedestrians to fight the hopeless fight for a cab.

Overhead advertising blimps encouraged the masses toward a shopping frenzy with competing announcements of sales and products no consumer could live without.

“They’re all insane,” Eve decided as she watched a mini-stampede toward a maxibus heading downtown. “Every one of them.”

“You bought something twenty minutes ago.”

“In a civilized and dignified manner.”

Peabody shrugged. “I like crowds at Christmastime.”

“Then I’m about to make you very happy. We’re getting out.”

“Here?”

“It’s as close as we’re going to get in a vehicle.” Eve nosed her car through the stream of people and inched it toward the curb at Fifth and Fifty-first. “The jeweler’s just a few blocks down. We’ll make better time on foot.”

Peabody shoe-horned her way out, and caught up with Eve’s long strides on the corner. The wind rushed down the street like a river through a canyon and turned the tip of her nose pink before they’d managed a block.

“I hate this shit,” Eve muttered. “Half these people don’t even live here. They come in from all over hell and back to clog the streets every damn December.”

“And drop a nice ton of money in our economy.”

“Cause delays, petty crime, traffic accidents. You try to get uptown at six o’clock some night. It’s ugly.” Scowling, she walked through the roasting meat-scented steam of a corner glide-cart.

A shout had her flicking her glance to the left in time to see a scuffle. She lifted a brow in mild interest as a street thief on airskates toppled a pair of women, snatched what bags he could reach, snagged both purses, and skimmed away through the crowd.

“Sir?”

“Yeah, I’ve got him.” Eve noted his grin of triumph as he weaved through the crowds of people, gaining speed as they leaped out of his path.

He ducked, swiveled, dodged, then veered around toward Eve’s right. Their eyes met for one brief second, his bright with excitement, hers flat and level. She pivoted and took him out with one short-armed, back-fisted punch. Had there been less of a crowd, she thought he would have sailed nicely for ten feet or so. Instead he barreled back into a group of people, upended with his skates still humming and facing the sky.

Blood gushed out of his nose. His eyes rolled back white.

“See if you can get a beat cop in here to take care of this jerk.” Eve flexed her fingers, rolled her shoulder, then absently put one booted foot on the thief’s midriff as he began to moan and squirm. “You know what, Peabody? I feel a lot better now.”

Later, Eve thought busting the thief had been the high point of her day. She didn’t learn squat from the jeweler. Neither he nor his sour-faced clerk remembered anything about the customer who’d paid cash for the partridge pin. It was Christmas, the jeweler had complained, even while his clerk rang up sales with the speed and precision of an accounting droid. How was he supposed to remember one transaction?

Eve suggested he think harder, and contact her when his memory cleared. Then ended up buying a copper ear chain for Mavis’s lover, Leonardo — much to Peabody’s disgust.

“You catch some transpo, go back to the house, and work with McNab.”

“Why don’t you just punch me in the face with a bare fist?”

“Handle it, Peabody. I’m going into Central. I’ll need to give Whitney an update, and I want to see Mira, start her working on a profile.”