Forgotten in Death(67)

As she stepped off the glide on Homicide, the elevator doors opened. Reo stepped out.

“Took you long enough.”

“Hey.” Reo gestured. “Let’s talk.”

“You got the warrant.”

“Yes. But we need to go over some things.”

She breezed into the bullpen, then arrowed straight toward Eve’s office.

Deceiving appearances, Eve thought again. With her fluffy blond hair, pretty-girl looks, and faint southern drawl, she presented a picture of female sweetness, and that often came off as weakness.

Inside that pretty package lived steel and sharp brains and cunning.

In her straight-lined red dress, Reo flicked a glance at the murder board.

“I’m not sitting in that vicious chair. Everybody knows it’ll bite your ass, and everybody knows that’s why you have it in here. It’s outlived its purpose.”

Eve studied her miserable visitor’s chair. “I like that chair.”

“Then you sit in it.”

Reo slid into Eve’s desk chair, set down her briefcase. Crossed her legs.

Maybe she still had shoes and their hidden meanings on the brain, because Eve studied Reo’s.

“Why are you wearing those shoes?”

Reo lifted her foot, turned it right and left as she studied her heels—high and thin and red to pop against the more somber gray of the body.

“What’s wrong with my shoes?”

“They can’t be comfortable.”

“Actually, they have a very nice cushion and excellent arch support.”

“Yeah, right. Why those particular shoes?”

“They go with the dress, add a nice polished look. They say I’m a serious, professional woman, but I also have style.”

“Huh. They say all that?”

“They do. Why the interest?”

“Just trying to get a picture on another case. What about the warrant?”

“The boss and I went over the financial data you already found. Obviously we can charge him with tax evasion, fraud, and all the connected goodies. Now, while going after one of the Bardov family would be satisfying, it’s also a bit deflating to do the dance over relatively small potatoes.”

“There are going to be bigger potatoes. And why is it potatoes? Why isn’t it small apples, or elephants?”

Reo tilted her head as if giving that serious thought. “I have no idea. But we tend to agree there may be bigger potatoes—or elephants. Even a cursory study indicates his outlay is considerably larger than his income—even the unreported income. So this leads the cynical mind toward the possibilities of money laundering and/or cash transactions, which may involve blackmail, force, intimidation, or other nefarious means.”

“Nefarious. That’s a word for it.”

Smiling, Reo swiveled left and right in the chair. “And since I know, the boss knows, everybody in my world knows you don’t want to sweat Alexei Tovinski, Yuri Bardov’s favored nephew, over his financial machinations, we want all the t’s crossed before he’s picked up.”

Reo gave Eve her big, southern smile. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had coffee?”

Eve walked to her AutoChef. “I’m going to use those machinations—and his habit of knocking up women he’s not married to—to sweat him for two murders. Alva Quirk and Carmine Delgato. I suspect, as you do, those aren’t his first. Wouldn’t it be nice if they were his last?”

She handed Reo a mug of coffee, then, since she wasn’t about to use the visitor’s chair, eased a hip down on her desk.

“Yes, it would. It very much would. So let’s talk.”

Eve leaned over, hit her interoffice. “Peabody, my office.”

After a brief pause, Peabody responded, “I need five minutes! I’ve got something!”

“Bang,” Eve murmured.

“Bang what?”

“The fabric I found on Delgato’s windowsill. Harvo tracked it down to type, dye lot, manufacturers, venues in New York. Peabody’s working on finding out where Tovinski bought the suit, pants, whatever, made from that expensive Italian wool. How do you figure he’s going to explain snagging his fancy pants on the windowsill of a dead man’s flop?”

Reo sipped coffee. “I can’t wait to find out. That sort of physical evidence adds weight to the circumstantial. It connects the two men—though Tovinski won’t be the only person in the city of New York with a garment made from that fabric.”

“Dye lot narrows it—and Harvo says it’s new, not yet dry-cleaned. It’s weight.”

“It’s weight,” Reo agreed.

“They both needed more money than they earned to feed their addictions. Women for Tovinski, the horses for Delgato. They worked together to defraud the Singer company, by straight theft, by doctoring invoices, by changing orders to cheaper material. I’m betting Tovinski’s skimmed plenty from his favorite uncle.”

“The thought crossed my mind. And if so, favorite or not, Tovinski will be lucky to live long enough to go to trial.”

“I don’t want him dead; I want him in a cage. I’m going to have a chat with Bardov. I just have to put enough together to convince him not to order a hit. I think—”

She broke off as Peabody’s boots sounded a double-time clomp toward the office.