Imitation in Death (In Death #17)(49)

"She'd have expected me to handle this, the way she would've handled it. So I will."

" Think carefully then. Any mention of anyone she might've met or seen in the last few weeks."

"She was friendly, the sort who talks to strangers on line at the market or strikes up conversations in the subway. So she wouldn't have mentioned anything like that unless it was out of the ordinary for her."

"Take me through the places she'd go, the routes she'd taker Daily business sort of thing. I'm looking for repetition and habit, the kind of thing someone who was tracking her could use to determine she'd have been alone in the apartment Sunday morning."

"Okay. Leah began to outline Lois's basic routines as Eve took notes.

It was a simple life, if an active one. Fitness classes three times a week, bi-weekly sessions at a salon, market on Fridays, Thursday evenings out with friends for a meal and a vid or play, volunteer work Monday afternoons at a local day-care center, her part-time job. at a lady's boutique on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.

"She dated once in a while," Leah added. "But not so much recently, and nothing serious. As I said, Sam was it for her. If she'd been seeing anyone, even very casually, I'd have known about it."

"Customers in the shop? Men?"

"Sure, she'd tell-us about some of the guys who'd come in and throw themselves on her mercy, looking for something for a spouse or girlfriend. Nothing lately, not that, she mentioned. Wait." Her back went steel straight. "Wait. I-remember her saying something about a man she ran into when she was shopping for produce. A couple of weeks ago. Said he looked sort of lost over the tomatoes or something."

As if to nudge the memory clear, Leah rubbed her temples. "She helped him pick out some vegetables and fruit, that was just like her. She said he was a single father, just moved to New York with his little boy. He was -worried about finding good day care, so she told him about Kid Time, that's the place she volunteers, gave him all the information. Being Lois, she pumped him for personal information. She said he was a good-looking guy, concerned father, looked lonely, and she was hoping he checked out Kid Time so she could maybe fix him up with a woman: she knew who worked there. God, what did she say his name was? Ed, Earl, no, no, Al. That's it."

"Al," Eve repeated and felt it hit her gut.

"She said he walked her part of the way home,. carried her bags. Said they talked kids for a few blocks. I didn't pay much attention, it was the kind of thing she did all the time. And knowing Lois, if they talked kids, she talked about hers, about us. She probably said how we got together Sunday afternoons, and how she looked forward- to-it. About how she knew what it was like to raise kids alone."

"Did she tell you what he looked like?"

"She-just said he was a good-looking boy. That doesn't mean anything. Damn it! She'd call any guy under forty a boy, so that's no help."

Yes, it was, Eve thought. It eliminated Elliot Hawthorne, as her own instincts already had.

"She was a born mother, so if she saw this guy puzzling over tomatoes, she'd have automatically stepped up to give him a hand.and talk to him, try to help him out with his problems. Southern," Leah said on a rise of excitement. "That's what she said. A good-looking Southern boy."

"She was a jewel. You know what I'm saying?"

Rico Vincenti, proprietor of the family-run market where Lois Gregg did her weekly shopping, unashamedly wiped his tears with a red bandanna, then stuffed it away in the back pocket: of khakis that bagged over his skinny butt. He went back to. stacking a fresh supply of peaches in his sidewalk bin.

"That's what I'm hearing," Eve said. "She came in here regularly."

"Every Friday. Sometimes she'd -come by other times, pick up a couple things, but she was in every Friday morning. Ask me about my family, give me grief about prices-not bitchy," he said quickly. "Friendly like. Some people they come in here, never say a word to you, but not Mrs. Gregg. I find' the bastard..." He made an obscene gesture. "Finito. "

"You can leave that part to me. You ever notice anybody hanging around, look like he was watching her?"

"I see somebody bothering one of my customers, even if it ain't a regular, I move 'em along." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder like an umpire calling out a base runner. "I been here fifteen years. This is my place."

"There was 'a man, a couple of weeks ago. She helped him pick out some produce, struck up, a conversation."

"Just -like her." He pulled out the bandanna once more.

"He went out with her, carried her bags. Nice-looking guy, probably under forty."

"Mrs. Gregg, she was always talking to somebody in here. Let me think." He raked his hands though his thatch of salt-and-pepper hair, screwed up his narrow face. "Yeah, couple Fridays back, she took this guy udder her wing, picked out some nice grapes for him, some tomatoes, head of romaine, radishes, carrots, got a pound of peaches."

"Can you tell me as much about him as what he bought?"

Vincenti cracked his first smile. "Not so much. She brought him up with her-I always checked Mrs. Gregg out-and she says: `Now, Mr. Vincenti, I want you to take good care of my new friend, Al, when. he comes in here by himself. He's got a little boy who needs your best produce,' I say something like, `I got nothing but the best.'"