Visions in Death (In Death #19)(37)

"For about eight months." He rubbed his hands on his thighs as if he didn't know what else to do with them. "It was okay. She liked the work, and the restaurant's only a couple blocks away. I'd go in and have dinner at least once a week. And having her days free gave her lots of time to handle the wedding stuff. She was doing almost everything herself. Marjie loves planning."

"Did the two of you have any problems?"

"We didn't. I mean we did—everybody does—but we were in a real up phase. The wedding. Hell, I didn't have to do anything but show up because she had everything organized. We talked about starting a family."

His voice shook, and he cleared his throat, stared hard at the wall.

"Did she ever mention anyone coming into the restaurant who disturbed her? Anyone coming by here, or anywhere else?"

"No. I told the other detectives. If somebody'd been bothering Marjie, she'd have told me. If somebody'd pissed her off at work, she'd have told me. We talked all the time. I always waited up for her, and we'd hash out the day. She just didn't come home."

"Mr. Cabel —"

"I wish she'd just walked off." Emotions pitched into his voice. Traces of anger now, anger circling around the fear. "I wish she'd gotten freaked or fallen out of love with me or found somebody else or just got a goddamn wild hair. But she didn't. It's not Marjie. Something happened to her, something terrible. And I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Mr. Cabel, do you or Marjie belong to a health club or gym?"

"Huh?" He blinked, sucked in a breath. "Yeah, who doesn't? We, ah, we go to Able Bodies. We try to make it two, three times a week. Sundays for sure since we're both off. We'd do a couple hours, maybe, then have brunch in their juice bar."

Brunch in the juice bar didn't fit, Eve thought, and decided on another tack. Before she could speak, Peabody lifted one of the couch pillows.

"These are really beautiful. Unique. They look handcrafted."

" Marjiemade them. She was always making something." He ran his hand over one of the pillows. "Used to call herself a craft addict."

Pop, Eve thought. "Would you know where she bought her supplies?"

"Her supplies? I don't get it."

"It's details, Mr. Cabel," Peabody told him. "Details help."

"It was one of the things we didn't do together." He mustered up a smile. "She'd dragged me along a few times, on her hunts, but I made her feel rushed, she said, because I was so obviously bored. She's got a little studio set up in the second bedroom. There's probably some record of where some of the stuff came from."

Eve rose. "Can we take a look?"

"Sure." He got up quickly, the enthusiasm for the new angle clear on his face. "It's right in here."

He led them into a small room, full of material and threads and ribbons. Fringes and framing and objects Eve couldn't begin to identify. It all appeared to be meticulously organized into groups. There were a couple of small machines, and a mini data and communication center.

"Can we turn this on?"

"Sure. Let me get it for you." He walked over to the d and c, booted it up.

"Peabody." Eve tipped her head toward the unit.

"She could make anything," Cabel continued, and wandered the room, touching fabrics. "The quilt on the bed, the folk art scattered around the apartment. The sofa out in the living area? She picked it up off the street, hauled it home, fixed it up, re-covered it. One day, she's going to start her own business, do home decorating, or maybe run her own craft school. Something."

"Lieutenant? There's a transaction here for supplies, February 27, another March 14. Total Crafts."

Eve nodded, continued to riffle through wide baskets, painted boxes. And lifted out three rolls of corded ribbon. One in navy, one in gold. And one in red.

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"He trolls the craft shops." Again, Eve crossed the park, her focus on the castle. "Why does a guy like that troll the craft shops?"

"He could have spotted them somewhere else, followed them there."

"No. Two women, their only known connection a hobby. One dead, one missing and presumed. I guarantee you when we finish with Nadine and go talk to Breen Merriweather's babysitter, we're going to find she did crafts. We're going to find she bought supplies, at one time or another, from Total Crafts, or one of the other locations either Maplewood or Kates used. He sees them there, they fit his requirements. He stalks them, studies them."

She tucked her thumbs in her pockets. "Then he lays in wait, and takes them. If he did Kates, he almost certainly had to have his own transpo. There's nowhere between the restaurant and the apartment where he could have raped, murdered, mutilated her, then hid the body. He had to do a snatch-and-grab, then take her somewhere."

"If we're right about Kates, then he changed his method for Maplewood."

Eve shook her head. "Not changed. Perfected. Kates was one of his trial runs. Might have been more before her. Sidewalk sleepers, runaways, junkies, whatever. Someone who wouldn't get reported missing, or was reported months before the grab. He had it down to a science when he killed Elisa Maplewood. He might have been working up to that for years."