Forgotten in Death(63)

“Okay, this is a good start. Anything you get, anything, send it to me. I’ll take it in bits and pieces.”

“You haven’t closed your initial case.”

“Working up to it.”

Eve started out and down. She spotted Peabody just outside Harvo’s domain, leaning against the glass wall while she scrolled on her PPC.

“That better be work and not home improvement.”

“It is. I skimmed when I got up this morning, but I’m catching up. Harvo had to finish something, but she’s on ours now. Jesus, Dallas, we’ve got Alva’s books. We’re really going after her fuck of a husband.”

“Damn right we are. But he can wait.”

She stepped through the doorway.

Harvo looked through a microscope while she tapped her blue-tipped fingers on a mini pad. Over her head, codes and symbols, maybe equations—who knew?—covered a screen.

She wore white baggies and a white sleeveless tee—tame for her, if you discounted the figure of a woman on the back of her shirt flying through what appeared to be a meteor storm above the planet.

She tapped her feet, one, then the other, so her glittery blue toes sparkled through the clear boots.

Blue, Eve assumed, ranked as color of the day, since Harvo had gone for it with her short, spiky hair.

She shifted, swiveled. Eve caught the bold red lettering on the front of the shirt.

GIRL GEEKS SAVE

THE WORLD!



“Yo,” she said to Eve as she made an adjustment on the microscope, then tapped something else on the pad.

On-screen the fabric traces popped, magnified. The screen split with the right side full of symbols.

“Sorry I couldn’t get anything interesting from your dumpster DB, but I hit solid on the shoe in the wine cellar.”

“You took the shoe?”

“Dezi or Coke would’ve run it usually, but they went and got married. They’re honeymooning this week. Anyway, my baby’s working on your fabric from the hanging man, but I can give you the lowdown on the shoe.”

“What’s the lowdown?”

“High-quality Italian leather.” She swiveled again, worked a keyboard to bring the shoe on-screen. “European size thirty-seven, narrow, and exceptional workmanship. A classic low-heeled pump in your classic black. Prada.”

“Where it was made?”

“No, the designer. It’s a designer shoe, and they carried that classic pump, with that heel height and width, that toe shape 2022 to 2025. Before ’22, they had a slightly thicker heel, after ’25, a thinner with a more narrow toe shape.”

“That’s good data, Harvo.”

“We live to serve. The bad news is, classic black Prada pump. You’re never going to narrow down where she bought it if that would apply. Plus, thirty-five, forty years in the deep, dark past.”

“It’s not the where so much, but the what. Designer shoes, good jewelry. Classic pump. You’d call that…”

Harvo arched her eyebrows as Eve gestured to the screen. “Boring, and way, way conservative. Even for back then. A conservative, no-risk, no-statement lady shoe for a lady who could afford a grand for boring shoes.”

“A grand. Okay, yeah, it’s all giving me a picture.”

Something went ding-ding-buzz, and Harvo swiveled back again.

“Okay. First, good eye on the fabric trace, Dallas. You didn’t get much, but I don’t need much. I could nail it as wool—the good stuff—just eyeballing it.”

“Seriously?”

“Sure. How it looks, and the texture. Good wool. Italian again, as it turns out. Very finely combed Italian wool.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“You betcha. This is ult-grade fabric. And I’m going to give you a ninety percent probability the garment this came from is new. No chemical remnants from dry-cleaning—and you gotta with this fabric. Got your dye lot, and that tracks back to Italy.”

“It’s going to be a male. The trace came from a suit jacket or pants. Had to. I can use this to track designers or tailors or vendors who used this fabric from that dye lot.”

“Or … I could’ve programmed that in. Geek, not a cop, but—”

“Girl geeks save the world.”

Harvo spiraled a blue-tipped finger in the air. “Exactamundo. Now, the fabric and in that color, which is a medium sort of gray, probably sold to a whole bunch of high-class designers and tailors. Like the bespoke kind. My uncle’s a tailor.”

“Your uncle?”

“Actually my great-uncle. Uncle Den’s in Chicago, has his own shop and all that. He’s probably worked with this fabric. But the specific dye lot narrows it down.” She toggled the symbols off, and a list came up.

“I’ll take that list. If we go with the probability of new, he got it in New York. Most likely.”

“Got that. Hey, baby, display New York City recipients only.” Seconds later, the list shortened to three.

“Better.”

“Hey, Leonardo’s on there. I got to get myself over to see the new digs in progress. Anyway, I can run it for—”

“I got it from here. You never fail, Harvo.”

“Geeks accept no failures. Sending all data to you now. Copy Peabody?”