Forgotten in Death(8)

As Mackie jogged off, Roarke turned to Eve. “Is there anything you need from me?”

“A lot of information, and any data or plans you have or can access from when this building went up. I’m going to have a talk with Singer.”

“It’s Bolton Singer now,” Roarke told her. “Fourth generation. He and I made the deal on the property.”

“I need their records. They would’ve had a Mackie back then, maybe still have him or her. I need to know who worked or had access to this area when she went in. It’s not impossible somebody didn’t bust up the concrete more recently, then cover it up again.”

“I suppose it’s not. There would have been several buildings along here being built about the time she died.”

“So somebody decides to kill her, has access to the building over the pad, jacks it up, dumps her, does a quick cover-up. Possible.”

And a lot of work, Eve thought.

“More likely they dumped her in before, then covered her up. Either way, I need what building was over that section, and who had access.”

“I’ll have all that for you by this evening.”

“Good. Get me how long she’s been there, DeWinter. That’s a factor into finding who put her there.”

“It’ll take longer than this evening, but you’ll have it. Here’s my recovery crew.”

“And the sweepers. Earring, bullets,” she reminded DeWinter. “And she’s still wearing a necklace and a watch. I need those and anything else your team or the sweepers find.”

She looked at her wrist unit. “Peabody and I have to get back to the first scene.”

“Do you want what they find sent to you at Central or straight to the lab?”

“Lab. We’ll get by there at some point today, or tomorrow.”

“I’ll be here for a while yet,” Roarke told her.

“I’ll be in touch.”

With Peabody, Eve clanged down the metal steps.

“It’s a stretch,” Peabody commented, “to connect a murder from potentially thirty-seven years ago here with the murder of a sidewalk sleeper last night a block and a half south.”

“The Singer organization owns and is developing the first scene, owned and did develop the second scene at the probable time of the unidentified victim’s murder. But, yeah, still a stretch. And they have a partner. I did some looking when you were examining the remains. Singer partners with Bardov Construction for areas within what they’re now calling the River View development.”

“Bardov?” That was a name she knew. “Did you get any specifics?”

“Not yet, but I can dig.”

“Yeah, do that, and we’ll look at the partner, seeing as that company’s owned by a Russian gangster.”

“Really?”

“Feels like kind of sloppy for the mob,” Eve considered, “but then again, it was effective. She could have been part of the company, worked for any of those companies—if they had access to that site, that building under construction. There’s a reason you cover up, hide, basically bury a body. They walled her in there, Peabody.”

“I saw the interior brick wall. No other reason for it. Mackie said the same thing.”

“You don’t just want her dead, you want her to vanish—want to cut off any connection between you. Otherwise? You’d dump her in the river, hell, toss her in a dumpster.”

“She had a wedding ring?”

“Right type of ring, right finger for it, so high probability. And, yeah, if we ID her, we look at the spouse first.”

“Gotta do it. The baby … The way the remains looked, it had to be close to full term, Dallas, or a newborn.”

“That’s DeWinter’s area.” But she’d thought the same. “Post-Urbans—again, high probability—and this area settled down and into rehab, renewal, rebuilding. It’s unlikely somebody got shot a couple of times on an active construction site in broad daylight. So what was she doing there after hours, after dark?”

“That’s our area.”

“Yeah, it is. We pin down when that particular building went up, then when the wine cellar section went in. Following probability—unless and until DeWinter tells us otherwise—we search for records of missing persons reports with that time frame. Pregnant female, which again, with DeWinter, we can narrow down to an age span, a race, and we’ll eventually get an image reconstruction.

“Until we do,” Eve continued as they climbed up to the initial crime scene, “we gather as many names as possible. Who had access, who among those had a pregnant spouse, sister, daughter, ex, mother, and so on. Who, among those, can we confirm is alive, or was alive beyond our time frame.”

“That’s all going to take time.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think she’s in a hurry.”

She moved over the debris and back to the platform. “Now, Alva Quirk. She came from somewhere, had connections to someone at some time.”

Eve spotted the head sweeper still in her white protective gear and headed that way. “And we go back to access. Who had reason to be up here last night? CSI Yee.”

“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody.”

“Any prints or trace on the dumpster or the sheet?”