Promises in Death (In Death #28)(12)

“Then we’ll talk to everyone in her unit. Let’s go get started.”

Peabody glanced at the board, and Coltraine’s ID shot. “She was really beautiful.” She turned away, followed Eve. “I started runs on the other tenants, and Jenkinson said he had some time, so he’s helping on that. I checked in with EDD. McNab said they’re on top of it. And they’ve already sent somebody down to pick up her unit at her house. Her cop house.”

“I know what you mean.”

“He told me she’d saved, on her home unit, she kept e-mails from Morris. Funny ones, romantic ones, sexy ones.” She let out a sigh as they went down the glides. “And some from her parents, her brother, some from friends back in Atlanta. She had them all in different files. There was job stuff on there, too. He’s sorting it out. Her last transmission on her home ’link was about eight last night. From Morris. He talked to her while he took a dinner break. Nothing else on her home unit yesterday. She worked an eight-to-four shift.”

“We need to know when she got the Chinese, if it was pickup or delivery.”

“Chinese?”

“Leftovers in her kitchen. She had a take-out bag with her when she came in, security discs. When did she order it, did she stop on the way home, bring it from work? Start checking take-out and delivery places near her building.”

“Okay.”

“ME’s report said she ate about seven-thirty, drank a glass of wine. She ran the recycler, so there’s not much left for the crime lab. Let’s find out if she ate alone. We’re going to put together every step she took, from the time she got up yesterday morning.”

“Did you ask Morris if they were together the night before she died?”

“No. Shit. No. I should have. Damn it.” She stopped in the garage, took out her pocket ’link. “Give me some room, Peabody.” She keyed in Morris’s number. She didn’t expect him to answer, and was dumped straight to voice mail. “Morris, it’s Dallas. I’m very sorry to disturb you. I need to put a time line together for yesterday. When you can, if you can let me know if you and Detective Coltraine were together yesterday morning, it would—”

“Yes.” His face came on-screen. His eyes were dull, dark, and empty. “She stayed here the night before. We had dinner around the corner, a bistro. Jaq’s. About eight, I think. And we came back here. She left yesterday morning, about seven. A little after seven. She had an eight-to-four shift.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“I spoke with her twice yesterday. She called me sometime in the afternoon, and I called her, at home, on my dinner break. She was fine. I can’t remember the last thing I said to her, or her to me. I’ve tried, but I can’t.”

“It doesn’t matter what the last thing was. Everything else you said to each other over these past months, that’s what adds up. That’s what counts. I’ll come by later if you—”

“No, but thank you. I’m better off alone for a while.”

“That was a good thing you said to him,” Peabody commented when Eve shoved the ’link back in her pocket. “About all the things they said to each other.”

“I don’t know if it was right, or bullshit. I’m winging it.”

Coltraine’s cop shop squatted between a Korean market and a Jewish deli in post-Urban Wars ugliness. The concrete box would probably withstand a bomb, but it wouldn’t win any beauty prizes.

Inside, it smelled of cop. Foul coffee, sweat, starch, and cheap soap. Uniforms milled around in their hard shoes, coming in from details or heading out again while civilians shuffled their way through security. Eve held her badge to a scanner, had it and her prints verified with Peabody’s, and passed through.

She moved straight to the sergeant’s desk, badged him. He was a hard-eyed, craggy-faced vet who looked like he enjoyed a nice bowl of nails for breakfast.

“Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody, out of Central, to see Lieutenant Delong.”

Those hard eyes trained on Eve’s face. “You the ones who caught the case?”

He didn’t have to specify which case—not for Eve, or for the cops within hearing distance. “That’s right.”

“Eighteenth squad’s one floor up. Stairs there, elevator there. You got any juice on it?”

“We’ve just started to squeeze. Has anyone off been in to see her, anyone we might want to talk to, the last few days?”

“Nobody comes to mind. If you need to see my log, I’ll make sure you get it. The rest of the desk shift’s, too.”

“Appreciate that, Sergeant.”

“I don’t know what kinda cop she was, but she never passed this desk without saying good morning. It says something about a person, they take a minute to say good morning.”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

They took the open, metal stairs, and Eve felt cop eyes follow her to the second floor. The squad room was smaller than her bullpen—and quieter. Six desks jammed into the room, four of them manned. Two detectives worked their comps, two others their ’links. The Public Administrative Assistant sat at a short counter. His eyes were red, Eve noted, his white, white skin blotchy as if from a recent crying jag. He looked, to her, very young.

“Lieutenent Dallas and Detective Peabody to see Lieutenant Delong.”