In Death 59 - Passions in Death, page 6
“How does having somebody stick needles in you keep you balanced?”
“Oh, it’s—”
“That was a question not looking for an answer.” Eve walked to the residential door, buzzed the studio.
She gave it thirty seconds, was about to buzz Anton Carver—one of the artists—when the staticky voice answered.
“Jen?”
“Dallas,” Eve answered. “Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody, NYPSD.”
“Ha ha.”
“Not really.” No scanner, Eve noted, no door cam. “We need to speak with Donna Fleschner, Anton—”
“You for Donna? Dallas and Peabody for me?” A snorting laugh came through the static. “Yeah, right. I’m usually up for pranks, but I’m working, so—”
“Buzz us in, Ms. Fleschner, or I’ll master in.”
“Shit, like I’ve got time for this!”
But the buzzer sounded, the locks clicked open.
Inside, the entrance proved narrow due to the big-ass cargo elevator.
Without a thought, Eve took the clanging metal stairs.
“Loose pants. Even looser pants.”
The owner had soundproofed here, so the only noise came from boots on metal treads as they walked to the fourth floor.
Eve buzzed again at the wide double doors with a sign that read:
STARVING ARTISTS AT WORK
Half the door opened a crack, and a bright blue eye peered out. That eye popped wide as the woman behind the door said, “Holy shit! Not a prank. Holy shit!”
The door shut, chains rattled, then the door swung wide.
“Holy shit! It’s Dallas and Peabody. Did Jen get you to come? My birthday’s not until next month.”
“No, she didn’t. Can we come in?”
“Well, hell yeah! I never thought I’d actually meet Dallas and Peabody, in the flesh.” Donna, currently goggling, had her multicolored streaky hair bundled back. She wore a white tank—as generously streaked with paint—and a pair of knee-length shorts on a lanky frame.
“After I saw the vid, I downloaded the first book—already read the second—can’t wait for the vid. And I started following your cases. Wild stuff! Whoa, check it! You guys are mag cops. I mean so mag. I can’t believe you’re standing here. Shit, we don’t have any coffee. I had to get my kick start at the cart this morning. I can go get…”
She finally ran down, then took a step back.
“You’re standing there,” she said. “Oh God, oh Jesus, do I know somebody who’s dead?”
“I regret to inform you Erin Albright was killed early this morning.”
Now, her face sheet white, she took two stumbling steps back. “No, that’s no way. She and Shauna … They partied last night with a bunch of friends at the Down and Dirty. I know Crack, okay? I know that dude. You know him. No way that happens in his place.”
“I’m afraid it did.”
“But … no. She and Shauna, they’re getting married in a few days. This can’t be happening.” She staggered back to the lump of couch in the center of the room. “Not Erin. This can’t be happening to Erin.”
“Would you like me to get you some water, Ms. Fleschner?”
Donna lifted shocked and swimming eyes to Peabody. “Please. We got a cooler back there. Please.”
She covered her face with her hands, then dropped them.
“How?” she asked Eve. “Why? Oh fuck, just fuck. Where’s Shauna? Oh Jesus, poor Shauna. They loved each other. You’ve got to know they loved each other. Shauna would never, ever hurt Erin.”
“She’s not a suspect. Why weren’t you at the party last night?”
“I was in Baltimore. My sister had a baby, so I took a shuttle down when she was in labor the day before, with my mom. Quentin James MacAbee took his time arriving, like twenty hours or something.”
Swiping at tears, she took the tube of water Peabody offered. She cracked it, drank, struggled to continue.
“Our mom’s staying down there for like a week, but I was going to try and take the nine o’clock shuttle back last night. I missed it, then there were all these damn storms up and down the East Coast, and I didn’t land in New York until around midnight.”
She sniffled, drank some more.
“After all that, I just didn’t have the juice to glamour up and hit the party. I just didn’t have it in the tank. Maybe if I’d been there—”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Peabody said, and sat beside her.
Strong, ropey muscled arms, Eve thought. Tall enough. With an alibi easy to check.
“Can you give us the hospital or birthing center, and do you have your shuttle ticket receipt?”
“Yes. Lady Madonna Birthing Center in Baltimore. My sister’s Alyce—with a y—Fleschner. I’ve got the receipts, going and coming, on my ’link.”
She pulled it out of her pocket, swiped up the receipts before offering the ’link to Eve.
“I know you have to ask. You’re mag cops, and you have to ask. I swear I’d cut off my fingers before I’d hurt Erin. I transitioned five years ago, and she was with me all the way. It hurt my mother, and I love my mother. She thought I was gay, and she accepted that without hesitation. But facing the reality that the son, Don, she loved was a woman inside? That hurt her. Erin was there for me, and for my mom, too. She helped me in so many ways I’ll never be able to pay back.”
Eve handed her the ’link. “She trusted you.”
“Yes, of course. We trusted each other.”
“So you knew about the trip?”
“The trip? What trip?”
“To Maui?”
“Maui? Sure, down the road. They needed to save…” She trailed off. “Wait. The paintings. She sold those paintings. Man, she worked so hard on those paintings. I’m telling her to take it easy, how she had a wedding coming, but she pushed on them. And damn, they were so good. She sold them, but she asked me to keep the sale on the down-low.”
“She didn’t tell you why?”
Swimming blue eyes met Eve’s. “She didn’t have to tell me anything. She asked, that’s all. Was she going to surprise Shauna with the big dream? At the party?”
“It appears so.”
Tears rolled. “That’s so like her. Just so Erin. She must’ve had something in her overnight. Leis or a pineapple or…” Donna covered her face again. “God. Erin.”
“How do you know about the overnight case?”
“I was supposed to bring it. She brought it here a few days ago. When?” Now she pressed her hand to the side of her head as if to shove the memory through. “A week or two after the big sale. I don’t know, last week? I think last week. She stowed it back in her supply area, and asked me to bring it in, to the party.”
“But you didn’t know what was in it?”
“I asked, like what’s up, and she said she had a surprise for Shauna. A surprise for everybody, so not to look, just to bring it to the party. She had a privacy room booked, and she’d give me the swipe when I got there so I could put it in the room.”
After an uneven breath, Donna drank more water. “I tagged her from the shuttle station after I missed the nine o’clock. No, I still thought I could make it. I tagged her like about ten, when they started announcing more delays.”
She swiped at her phone again to bring up the tags.
“Man, she looked so happy, and the place was already starting to rock. I told her I didn’t know when the hell I’d get out of Baltimore, and I guess I was a little weepy with it. I really wanted to be there, and I was stuck. Then I remembered the overnight, and got weepier.”
She wiped away more tears. “All about me, right? She said not to worry about the overnight, she had a backup handling it—just in case—since I had to go to Baltimore. To fly safe, how we’d party twice as hard at the wedding if I stayed stuck. She said, ‘Love you, babe.’ That’s the last thing she said to me. ‘Love you, babe.’”
“Who would have been her backup?”
“I don’t know. Angie maybe, or Becca, or really most anybody at the party. I didn’t ask. I was tired, feeling sorry for myself. Is it important? I can ask everybody.”
“Yes, it’s important. We’ve spoken with everyone who was there. Show us where she kept the case.”
“Sure.” Rising, Donna gestured toward an easel with a painting of an old man sitting on a bench, a spotted dog at his feet. “That’s my area. Anton is over there. He does mostly commercial art—for hotels, office buildings. Roy’s there. He’s been doing a lot of mural work lately, but he still comes in a few times a week. And Erin’s here.”
Like the other stations, it had a worktable, a stool, shelves holding jars and tubes of paint, supplies. She’d stacked canvases, finished, half-finished, blank, against the wall. None sat on the easel.
“She hadn’t started anything since the sale. And she had plenty finished to sell from her street spot. Plus, she’d do on-the-spot portraits—pencil sketches, charcoals, pastels. Tourists go for those.”
As she spoke, Donna stroked a hand over the easel. “She put the case right there, bottom shelf.”
“She didn’t worry about your studio mates poking into it?” Peabody asked.
“Oh, no. Don’t mess with anyone else’s shit. Hard-and-fast rule. Plus, neither of them would’ve noticed it.”
“Would she have asked either of them to bring it in for her?”
Donna shook her head at Eve. “I can’t see that. We’re friendly, and we’re supportive of each other’s work. But we’re not real tight. And Roy, he works nights, waits tables at … ah, Cuchina—that’s it. He’s talking about quitting now that his mural work’s taking off. And Anton—Anton’s a talented artist, but just not the kind of guy you ask for a favor outside of the art.
“I don’t understand why it matters.”
“Every detail matters.” Eve’s eye landed on a canvas, a painting of an Italian place, a pizzeria. Bright colors, people sitting at booths and tables, drinking wine, eating a slice, a waitress in motion with a loaded pie on a tray. The long counter at the front window where people could sit on stools and watch New York go by.
A lone figure sat there, facing the window, a slice in one hand.
As she had when she’d first arrived in New York.
“I know that place,” she murmured.
“Oh yeah, Polumbi’s, one of our favorites. Great pizza. She really captured the vibe.”
“Yeah, she did.”
Pulling herself out, Eve turned to Donna again. “Who has access to the studio?”
“The four of us. Roy’s got a serious girlfriend, so I guess she would. Shauna.” Donna lifted her shoulders. “I can’t think why anyone else would.”
“All right. We appreciate your time and cooperation. If you think of anything else, contact me or Detective Peabody.” Eve offered her a card. “Again, we’re sorry for your loss.”
“Can I—could I talk to Shauna?”
“I think talking to someone who was close to Erin would be good.”
“You’ll find out, won’t you? It’s not just a vid, is it? You’ll find the bastard who did this to Erin.”
Never make promises on an investigation, Eve reminded herself. But she said, “It’s not just a vid.”
As they started out, Peabody stopped, turned back. “I just wanted to say, I really like what you’re working on. The man on the bench with the dog. It’s restful. The man and the dog love each other. It just shows.”
“Thank you.” Donna’s eyes filled again. “Thanks for that.”
Eve started down the stairs. “She could’ve had somebody take that trip to and from Baltimore. She didn’t,” Eve added as Peabody started to speak. “But check her alibi—the birthing center, the shuttle station security feed. Let’s cross her all the way off.”
“Yeah, you’re right. We need to check, but she didn’t. She loved Albright. Like the man and the dog, it showed.”
“Agreed. We’ll do runs on the other two artists, confirm where they were from twenty-three hundred until midnight. But I think she knew Albright through and through. When she says Albright wouldn’t have asked either of them, I lean that way.”
“But we cross them all the way off.”
“We do.”
On the street, she considered the distance to the Down and Dirty. “Ten-minute walk from here to Crack’s place. Plenty of time from when Fleschner tagged Albright from Baltimore for Albright to tag her backup if she hadn’t already. They get here, swipe in—the swipes for this building and the studio were in Albright’s purse, not the apartment. Killer goes to the club—probably back door again. She gives him the swipes—and thanks so much—he walks here, gets the case, walks back.”
“She doesn’t meet him at the back door the second time,” Peabody began.
“Doesn’t need to.” Eve walked to the car. “Killer slips in the back, goes straight to the privacy room—she’d already given him that pass. Set down the case, and wait. When it’s done, put the swipes back in her purse.
“Why leave the case? Leaving the case is stupid.”
Drumming her fingers on the wheel, she waited for a break in traffic.
“Not much time to plan a murder, though, or come up with the weapon.”
“I’m going to say they didn’t need it. Maybe just waiting for an opening. Then a baby decides it’s time to come out. Add storms along the East Coast, shuttle delays, and you’ve got one.”
She swung into traffic. “This wasn’t impulse. Maybe the time and place were. But somebody wanted Erin Albright dead.”
Chapter Five
“Alibi checks.” As Eve drove, Peabody viewed the security feed sent by the Baltimore station. “She’s half-asleep in a chair in the terminal at twenty-three hundred, and I’ve got her boarding the shuttle a few minutes later. Considering the time she landed, and the distance from the station here to the studio, to her apartment, she couldn’t have made it before midnight.”
“Thoroughly crossed off. Cross-check the moonlighting gigs with the partygoers.”
“I remember one had a catering business. Let me check my notes.”
“Do that, and see if you can find her connection to the other two venues. Shauna would know, but I don’t want to follow up with her yet.”
“We should’ve asked Fleschner.”
“Didn’t want to do that until the thoroughly crossed-off. You can start on that angle while we check in with Morris.”
“How many mornings do you figure we visit the morgue?”
“Too many.”
After pushing through a tangled knot of traffic, Eve parked.
And with Peabody, started down the long white tunnel of the city’s dead.
“I’ve got Tricia Pilly—the caterer. Maura Lang, bartender, the grill. And a Chassie Gordon, daughter of Blondina Gordon—owner of the maid service.”
“Good. Find a seat, have conversations.”
Eve continued on, then pushed open the doors of Morris’s work home. Music played, something soft and bluesy, as he stood beside the body, his hands in the chest cavity.
Under his protective cape, he wore an oatmeal-colored suit with a pale blue shirt and a tie of a deeper shade of blue. He had his black hair in a long braid, starting high on his head and threaded with cord in the deep blue.
He lifted his long, dark eyes to Eve, and sighed.
“And so she’ll be the center of a memorial instead of a bride.”
“She trusted the wrong person. Don’t know who yet, but it killed her. Piano wire?”
“I’d say yes. A pity something designed for beauty and enjoyment would be used to end a life.”
“People are fucked up. They’ll find a way to kill with pretty much anything.”
“I once had a victim on my table killed with a binky.”
“A what?”
“A baby’s pacifier.”
Even then, it took her a minute to identify what she thought of as a plug.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that. It wasn’t my case, but I remember hearing about it. Father went nuts, forced it down the mother’s throat so she choked on it. Why do they call it a binky?”
“I have no idea. Where’s our Peabody?”
“Running down a few things. Never going to be able to trace piano wire.”
“Wire used with considerable force, and as your on-scene speculated, from behind, drawing upward, then crossed in the back.”
“Some sort of handles or grips on the ends.”
“For this kind of force, yes. The skin under her nails is hers. The lab has the broken nails from the sweepers, but the trace under those will likely be hers. She dug at her own throat to try to drag the wire away. As deeply as it cut in, she wouldn’t have fought for long.”
No, Eve thought, studying the body. Not for long.
“No other defensive wounds?”
“None. The contusions here, here? From a blow to a solid surface—the door, as you’ve already concluded. And these? From the fall when she went down.”
“He took the murder weapon with him. Stick it in a bag along with her ’link, the jewelry he took off her, any cash she had, stuff it in your pocket, walk out. Easy to dispose of in a recycler as you go. Smarter to do that a bit at a time, using multiples.
“Did he keep a trophy?” she wondered. “We’ll find out.”
“There are no indications of sexual abuse ante- or postmortem.”
“No, the killer didn’t care about that. This was personal, but not sexual. A straight kill, with a half-assed attempt to make it look like a robbery.”
“Half-assed indeed,” Morris agreed. “She’d consumed a considerable amount of alcohol—it was a party, after all. Her reflexes would have been slowed. She’d had some bar snacks. Pretzels, some nachos, and some pasta primavera earlier, about seven, given the TOD.”
He walked over to wash his sealed hands.
“Otherwise, I find no signs of alcohol abuse, illegals use. The tox screen will confirm that. A healthy young woman, no body or face work, good muscle tone, and a small heart tattoo on her left buttocks.”
He lifted his hands. “She can’t tell me more.”
“Then it’ll have to be enough. Thanks. I’ll tell Shauna and the victim’s family to contact you about coming in.”
