Taken in Death (In Death #37.5)(8)

“Well now, I sure want to cooperate with the police.” Still smiling broadly, he spread his big hands. “But I gotta ask why.”

“You haven’t had the screen on this morning, Mr. Francis?”

“Can’t say I have. Had my music going. Why?”

Eve drew out Tosha’s ID photo. “You know this woman?”

“Sure I do. Ms. MacDermit. Come on now.” He added a quick laugh. “She can’t be in trouble.”

“She’s in serious trouble, and the person causing it got into this garage last night and took her car.”

“Now, that can’t be. Ms. MacDermit took the car her own self.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, she forgot her swipe, and couldn’t remember her code. Just flustered, she was. So she asked me to let her in. People forget sometimes, it’s not a crime.”

“No, it’s not. But it wasn’t Ms. MacDermit.”

“I was looking right at her.” He tapped under his eyes with split index and middle fingers. “Close as I am to you.”

“Did you ask her for ID?”

“I know her.” Irritation pinked up in his face. “She and Mr. MacDermit have kept their car here for more than five years now.”

“Did she ever forget her swipe and code before?”

“No, but—”

“It wasn’t Ms. MacDermit. It looked like her, but Ms. MacDermit was in New Zealand. That’s verified. And the person you let in killed Darcia Jordan and abducted Henry and Gala MacDermit.”

“What are you talking about?” The pink faded to dead white. “Darcia? She’s dead? Somebody took those kids? I’m telling you it was Ms. . . . Oh sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus, was it a clone—that Icove thing? I saw the vid, and . . . you’re that cop! You’re those cops. The Icove cops.”

“We’re New York City cops,” Eve corrected. “And no, she isn’t a clone. She’s Tosha MacDermit’s twin sister, and she’s dangerous. What time did she take the car?”

“God almighty. I didn’t know she had a sister, much less a twin. If I had, I . . . I don’t know. This is awful. Those are the damnedest cutest kids. And polite, too. And Darcia . . .”

“I know it’s a shock, Mr. Francis, but we need to know what time the woman posing as Tosha MacDermit got the car.”

“I guess, yeah, yeah, it was just before seven last night. And now that I know, I see she was off.” Francis pulled a bandanna out of his back pocket, swiped it over his face. “Didn’t sound like Ms. MacDermit so much.”

“What do you mean?”

“The accent. The real one hardly has one, you don’t much notice. But the one yesterday, it was a little heavier. And she laughed different.” He rubbed his face again. “I gave her the start code for the car. She said how she just couldn’t remember a thing—long day at work. I didn’t think twice about it. If I had . . .”

“It’s not your fault,” Peabody told him. “You thought you were helping a client.”

“Hand to God, I did, but those kids . . . Anything happens to them, I don’t know how I’ll live with it.”

“I’d still like access.”

With a nod at Eve, he used his own master swipe, coded in. “Anything I can do. Anything. She didn’t get the boosters out of the trunk.”

“The boosters?” Eve asked as the big door slowly grumbled open.

“Kid seats,” Peabody told her. “They’re young enough to need them.”

“I figured maybe her and the mister were headed out for the night. Their slot’s right over . . . The car. She brought it back.”

“I can see that.” Eve moved into the garage, and to the black sedan tidily parked between two others. “Do you have a log-in?”

“Absolutely. Just give me a minute.”

He hustled over to a wall comp.

“Didn’t bother to lock it,” Eve observed as she opened the driver’s door. “Get the code, Peabody, let’s open the trunk.”

She’d have sweepers process the car, but she wanted to take a first pass.

“She brought it back at twelve forty-six this morning,” Bing announced, and shut his eyes as Peabody started to open the trunk. “Please, God, don’t let those babies be in there.”

“Booster seats—one pink, one blue. Maintenance kit, spare, first-aid kit.” Peabody scanned the inside with a wand, then stepped back. “No sign of blood.”

“She put them in the backseat.” Picturing it, Eve moved to search through the back. “She either doesn’t think she’ll need the car or didn’t have a secure place to keep it out of sight. But she’s got them somewhere reasonably close, somewhere she can drive to, secure the kids, and drive back in under a half hour. That’s good to know. Got a mini-disc here, sticking out of the backseat.”

She drew it out carefully, frowned at it. “What the hell kind of disc is this? It’s got a monkey on it. A monkey in a bathing suit.”

“For a kid’s toy. Like a kid’s PPC, sort of. Plays games, does some limited communication, like an old-style walkie-talkie sort of. Also limited Internet access, depending on parental guidelines.” Peabody shrugged. “Lots of kids have them. He probably lost the disc back there when he was playing with it.”