Thankless in Death (In Death #37)(55)

“Good to know.”

“Sweepers sent in some fibers from the body, but you said no rush on them.”

“We know what he was wearing, and where he bought it. I needed to know if he took the trophy.”

“Definitely. My money-back guarantee on it.”

“And I could use the list of knives when you have it.”

“No prob. I’ll have Birdman take a look. He may be able to cut it down some.”

“Speaking of birds.” Eve glanced down at the one visible through the boot.

“You like? I crush on flamingos, but I’m not sure this is it. It’s a temp ’cause you gotta be sure.”

Eve couldn’t argue with that. “Thanks, Harpo. Good, quick work.”

“Our house specialty.”

She went back to it as Eve walked out.

Two steps into her bullpen, she stopped dead, pinned to the spot by Sanchez’s tie. She looked away from it, fearing, like staring at the sun, she might go blind.

It was the virulent color of an orange repeatedly exposed to excess radiation. On it floated searing yellow dots—unless they just floated in front of her eyes due to the five seconds she’d exposed her corneas.

“For God’s sake, Sanchez. What is that thing?”

“Retribution.” He glanced behind him, checked Jenkinson’s currently empty desk. “Don’t worry, boss, I’m not going to wear it out in the field. I mean, come on. I could blind people.”

“We’re people, too,” Baxter said behind the safety of his sunshades.

With a shake of her head she started toward Peabody’s desk, then changed her mind, signaled her partner to follow her. Maybe you didn’t have to actually look at it to go blind or start bleeding from the ears.

Her office was safer.

Peabody clumped after her. “The crib is a crap place to sleep. I feel like I rolled around on sticks and rocks all night.”

“I told McNab you weren’t supposed to have sex.”

“Ha-ha. As if you can even think about it in there. Plus he may be bony, but he’s got more padding than the cots up there. Anyway, I’m going to start calling the stores we ID’d, but in the meantime, I got a couple hits on items from the Reinhold apartment.”

“What and where?”

“I could think more clearly if I had real coffee.”

“For Christ’s sake get some then. What and where?”

“The crystal bowl, a shop just around the corner from the Grandline. The thing with that—oh mama!” she added after the first big gulp of caffeine laced with milk and sugar. “The thing with that is he didn’t think it was worth all that much. Pawnbroker had a good eye, played him. That’s my take from the way the guy danced around things when I pushed him on it.”

“Try for coherency or I’m taking that coffee and pouring what’s left over your head.”

“Right. I started making contacts, and when I hit this place the guy got nervous. I got the ‘didn’t see the alert until a few minutes ago’ bullshit, but he came clean mostly, I think, because he heard enough media reports on the murders to get edgy.”

“He hit that shop in the morning, not long after he hit the banks. About ten.”

“Yeah, right about ten, with the bowl and the diamond star earrings, the bangles in one of the suitcases. He grabbed the first offer of nine hundred on the bowl, and six hundred fifty on the earrings, three hundred and a quarter on the gold bangles. Turns out the bowl is worth about ten times what Reinhold took for it.”

“Small satisfaction on that. We need that evidence picked up.”

“I sent out Uniform Carmichael,” Peabody confirmed. “And right after I did, another shop contacted me. I don’t know, maybe the word went out or it was just good timing. Reinhold sold the rest of the jewelry there, got another twenty-two hundred for that, then another fifteen for the menorah, and twenty-six hundred for the silver—the flatware.”

“Adding to his pile.”

“Yeah, not a lot, but decent when you add it up. The second shop is in the same area, about five blocks from the hotel.”

“He kept it close in, easy for walking. But he went out of his comfort zone for the big-ticket items. The watches and the pearls.”

“I tagged Cardininni,” Peabody added. “She got the list from the neighbor. So she’s hooking up with Carmichael, and they’ll hit both shops to pick up the evidence.”

“That works,” Eve answered absently, her mind still on the route, the choices of liquidation sites. “He sold the bowl for a fraction of the worth, but he probably got more than he’d figured on.”

To confirm, Peabody pulled out her PPC, brought up her notes. “Kevin Quint—pawnbroker—stated: ‘I could see he didn’t know what he had, so I lowballed it to get a sense, you know? And he snapped up the first offer like some rube from Kansas or somewhere. I figured him to negotiate some, or whine how it was his dead old granny’s, but he just said, Pay me, like that. So I did.’”

“Almost a thousand for a stupid bowl—that’s what he thought. His lucky day. But when he gets more than he figured for all the rest, it’s a pattern even he can see so he picks a classier place for the pieces he knows have real value.”