Forgotten in Death(12)

Bolton waited until Terry slipped back out of the room.

“Is there anything you can tell us about the woman who died? If there’s anything we can do for her family?”

“Our information to this point is she lived on the streets.”

He nodded, looked down at his coffee. “There’ll be expenses regarding her burial or cremation. If there’s no family, I would take care of that.”

“She was known to the cops at the Tenth Precinct, and if we can’t locate next of kin, they’ll make arrangements for her.”

“You know who she is?” Geraldi spoke up, then glanced over. “Sorry, Bolt.”

“No, don’t be.”

“I didn’t really get a look at her. I’d just gotten on the site when the kid found her. I figured we weren’t supposed to touch anything before the cops got there.”

“You were right. We’ve identified the victim as Alva Quirk.”

“Don’t know the name.” Geraldi looked back at his boss again. “Don’t know it.”

“Peabody.”

Peabody brought up the ID image—one a few years out of date—turned her PPC so both men could see it.

Bolton started to shake his head, but Geraldi leaned closer.

“Ah, shit. Sorry. Damn it. I knew her. I mean to say I didn’t know her so much as I saw her a few times, talked to her a couple times.”

“Where?”

“On the site. She came up a couple times—some do even though we’ve got the old steps blocked off. They get around it. And we have crew coming up and going down, so it ain’t hard. Nothing up on that side of the fence right now, so it’s not a big problem, but I move ’em along when I can. She was … she gave me a flower.”

“A flower,” Bolton repeated.

“Folded paper flower. Like that origami stuff. Out of part of one of those damn flyers they try handing out on the street nobody wants. She said I was lucky to work in a place with such a nice view, and how it was good we were building places for people to live. She kept coming back, and I had to keep telling her it was private property. She’d just smile and give me a flower or a bird or whatnot.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Got so I liked seeing her now and then. She’d camp some days down on the sidewalk by the steps. She wasn’t hurting anybody. She told me how she was sorry she had to report one of my crew to the police.”

“Why?” Bolton demanded immediately. “Did someone harass her?”

“Nah. She’d been up at the fence, saw one of the crew tossing stuff in the dumpster there. He missed with something, left it on the ground. She said littering was against the rules, showed me how she’d written it all out in her book.”

“She showed you her book?”

Geraldi nodded at Eve. “Yeah, she had this book—sort of like those diaries little kids like to write in. A paper one. She showed me where she’d written it down. What the guy looked like, what he was wearing, the time of day, the litter. She said how we had to keep our city clean, and I said it wouldn’t happen again.”

“When was this?”

“Oh, man, this was back … last month. Three, four weeks easy. It gave me the idea to ask her how about she write down people who came up the steps who didn’t work for us. Figured it would keep her from coming up. I guess it didn’t.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

Geraldi scrubbed a hand over his beard. “Gotta be a couple, three days ago. I worked out a kind of deal with her, see? I’d stop by down below after work every Friday, and she could give me her report, you know? I’d give her a few bucks for the weekend. I made a kind of game out of it, because I didn’t want her coming up all the time, maybe taking a spill, or getting through the gate and picking through one of the dumpsters. We got broken glass, nails, sharp shit—stuff goes in there. We’re doing a lot of demo. I didn’t want her getting hurt. She wasn’t hurting anybody.

“Goddamn it, Bolt, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not on you, Paulie.” Bolton reached over, gripped Geraldi’s arm briefly. “It’s not on you, and I’m sorry, too.”

“Who has off-hours access to that dumpster area, and the secured area, the building, all of it?”

“I would,” Bolton began. “Paulie, of course, our head architect and engineer, head electrician, lead plumber.” He stopped himself, held up a hand. “I’ll give you a list of names and job titles.”

“That would be helpful. We’ll need to speak to all of them.”

“I’ll have Zelda set that up. Wouldn’t it be more likely it was someone who got through the stairs on that side of the fence? Just some … opportunist?”

“More likely doesn’t apply at the moment. Can you tell us where you were last night, Mr. Geraldi, between midnight and two A.M.?”

Geraldi blew out a breath. “Takes me back,” he murmured. “I had a couple little brushes back in my misspent youth.” He tried a half smile. “Nothing like this. I can tell you I was home, from five-thirty or so—grabbed a beer—a couple—with some of the crew before I went home. Two beers because my in-laws are visiting from Scottsdale.”