Obsession in Death (In Death #40)(51)

“You said deliveryman. Are you certain the individual was male?”

“I… That’s inaccurate, Lieutenant. I assumed.” Distress clouded his eyes. “I didn’t accurately report.”

“It’s okay. Did you see this person’s face?”

“I saw a portion of the face. The individual was wearing brown pants, a brown coat and ski cap, wraparound sunshades, and a lighter brown scarf around the lower portion of the face. Also gloves. The individual carried a shipping box.”

Deflated, Eve nodded. “Okay, Mason, good work.”

“The individual removed the sunshades in order to – I believe – take a picture of the building across the street.”

Eve held her breath. “Describe what you saw.”

“The individual appeared to be mixed race. This I observed from the tone of the skin, which was like coffee regular. The cap was pulled to the eyebrows, but what I could see of the eyebrows were brown. Dark brown. I wasn’t close enough to see his eyes, or the color, I mean. When I approached, he put the shades back on. So I didn’t see the eyes. I’m sorry.”

“Did you get any sense of the shape of the face?”

On screen, Mason’s forehead creased in thought. “I would say on the narrow side. I would judge this person to be about five feet, ten inches in height and one hundred and fifty pounds.

“Is this a person of interest, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, I’m very interested.”

“I could go back and surveil.”

“No, that’s a negative, Mason. I’d like you to work with a police artist. I’m going to send him to you. A Detective Yancy. You’ll be at the diner?”

“I have deliveries, and I have dishes.”

“I’m going to fix it, Mason. This is official police business. Make your delivery and go back. Just do your job, and I’ll send Detective Yancy to you. I’ll fix it with your boss.”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant. Is this the bad guy?”

“Yes, this is the bad guy. You’re helping me out. I’m going to talk to your boss now. Get your delivery done.”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant. Mason Tobias, out.”

On a half laugh for blind luck, Eve tagged the diner, and had a short, firm, no-bullshit talk with Mason’s boss. She made the tag to Yancy, gave him the particulars.

Then she sat back, studied her board again.

“Maybe a little break,” she muttered. “Just maybe.”

She’d lucked out with Mason Tobias. He might’ve been a little dingy, but he had exceptional observation skills, a good eye for detail.

And as Peabody had said, was puppy-dog earnest.

Maybe she could get him in a mentoring program. If he kept going out on “patrol” he was going to end up hurt or dead.

She zinged off a quick e-mail to the civilian liaison, then put Mason aside to work.

She brought up the next batch of names, and taking Mira’s advice, ran them with the profile. She eliminated two, then one more out-of-towner when she checked the travel and employment.

Two potentials, one in the city, the other in Hoboken – with employment in Midtown. Five minutes with a supervisor over the ’link eliminated Hoboken. He’d been in a meeting with the supervisor and two other software developers from four-thirty to just before six on the day of Bastwick’s murder – then had joined his coworkers for an after-work drink until after seven.

That left a forty-year-old criminology instructor – and she liked that connection. Only five-eight, but he could’ve worn lifts. On the thin side at 148, but padding would take care of that. Brown eyes, mixed race.

The syntax of his correspondence didn’t jibe with the written messages for her, but since everything else did – and it would get her the hell out in the field – she grabbed her coat.

“Peabody, with me.”

“LT.” Jenkinson started toward her as she swung on her coat. “We got ’em. Stupid f*cks were riding the airboards. We’ve got two of them in separate interview rooms, sweating it, and the third…”

He glanced over toward his desk.

Eve saw the third slumped in a chair, wearing restraints and a sneer.

“What is he? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

“He’s twelve.”

“Oh f*ck me.”

“What I said. Big for his age, and mean as a rattler. His older brother took him along, I figure like an initiation. We’ve got him here waiting on his grandmother – she’s custodial – and a child advocate. I took a six-inch sticker off that kid, boss. It had dried blood on it, and I’m damn sure it’s going to belong to one of those kids.”

“Twelve,” Eve mumbled.

She thought of Tiko – junior entrepreneur. Smart as they came and canny with it.

He only had a grandmother, too. One who gave him room to be himself, and rules to live by. And a foundation that meant he’d never find himself in a cop shop with a bloodstained sticker in evidence.

What made the difference, she wondered, between a kid who did things right, and one who killed for a board?

“He won’t flip,” she said, studying the boy and his defiant, self-satisfied smirk. “He likes being here, thinks it makes him a man. Thinks he’ll cruise through juvie with a bad-ass rep.”