Forgotten in Death(85)

She grabbed the robe on the back of the door. When she stepped back in the bedroom, she saw the covered plates and the pot of coffee waiting.

The cat, she noted, had chosen to stretch out in the sunlight under the window. She poured more coffee, then considered the plates he’d uncovered.

The yogurt stuff with the healthy tree-bark stuff that the fat berries made reasonably okay. And she’d get through that because … waffles.

She immediately coated them with butter and drowned them in syrup.

“Have a look here.”

She scooped up some of the yogurt to get it out of the way, and glanced over at the kitchen layout on his tablet. She remembered the design Peabody had rhapsodized over, the soft greens and creams.

“That’s Peabody’s?”

“It will be.”

“That evil science lab–looking kitchen is going to turn into that?”

“The science lab is no more. Demo’s all but finished, both sides. There was some back-and-forth there, as on the Mavis side, they said do Peabody’s first, and on the Peabody’s, it was do Mavis’s first. And I finally stepped into that to remind them you wouldn’t allow Mavis and her family to move in without the cops, and it would be not altogether pleasant for the cops to move in while construction crews were swarming all over the place.”

Nodding, she stuffed in waffles. “Damn right on reason one, probably true on reason two.”

“In any case, the demo’s all but done, so we’ll start on those internal systems very soon. Then we have this.”

He swiped the screen. Eve let out a laugh.

“Jesus, that’s Mavis all over. No, it’s her and Leonardo, and the kid. It’s all of them. Who knows about the one that’s still cooking, but that’s the three of them.”

Color, color, and more color, but not, she thought, crazy. Not Jenkinson’s ties crazy. Cheerful and bright and happy and maybe right up to the edge of crazy so it came off artistic.

“It’s going to work,” she said. “Because of who they are—all of them. And because you’re helping. You’re helping them make a home. Peabody and McNab, they grew up in one. Now they’re really making their own. Mavis and Leonardo, they made one, made one with the kid, but it was always temporary. This is the real deal.”

She’d finished off the yogurt without realizing it, and happily attacked the rest of the waffles. “It strikes me, a lot, what a difference it makes when you’ve got one. I had the job, but I’ve seen cops burn out when they didn’t have the home to fold into. How you can lose your edge, or lose what you need to keep that edge from going too sharp.

“It’s not just waffles and sex.”

He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “They don’t hurt.”

“Don’t hurt a bit. But it’s knowing you can go there, that you’re going to get there no matter how hard and ugly the day. It’s not the color schemes and all that, but they make you feel at home. That safe space. Alva had one, then she didn’t. In the end, not feeling safe broke her, so she made her home on the streets.”

She looked at the cat stretched out in the sunlight.

“I think she let herself forget the safe spaces as much as she did the prison Wicker locked her in. Delgato, he lost home, because his addiction dragged him down so far he couldn’t climb out.”

“And let himself forget making and keeping a home takes work and care.”

“Yeah. Did she have one?” Eve wondered. “The woman behind the wall? Did she think she’d go home that night, or the next day? Into that safe space, take what was inside her there? Did she have someone waiting for her? Did they just forget her when she didn’t come back?”

“She has you now.”

“I need more. She’s basically a ghost at this point. I have an age range—young twenties. Basic height and weight—right about average, but small-boned. I’ve got shoe size. I know she had long, narrow fingers. She probably had money. Designer shoes, good jewelry. Had conservative lady tastes or wanted to project that image—the shoes and jewelry again. And I know she was thirty-two weeks pregnant, or thereabouts, when she took the bullets.

“Three shots, thirty-two caliber. I got that lab report mixed in with everything else yesterday.”

“Lieutenant.”

The quiet patience in his voice made her stop eating to look at him. “You learned of the remains less than forty-eight hours ago. And in that time, closed two murders. I’d say you have quite a lot.”

“I’m not giving myself grief. Really.” But. The but struck her hard and clear. “Alva’s case broke because Tovinski’s name popped in the first interviews, and Delgato’s murder was so damn sloppy. We did good work, but we had things fall on our side fast. And I know DeWinter’s not scratching her ass on the remains. I just need more.”

“And you hate depending on someone else to get it for you.”

“Maybe.” She polished off the waffles. “Oh hell yeah, I do. I can’t see her. I can’t put her up on my board and look at her face or read her background and piece together who she was. Can’t interview her friends, family, coworkers if she had any. Was she married, or was the ring a blind to keep people off her back because she was pregnant? Who was the father? Too many questions I can’t begin to answer until I know who she was.”