Born in Death (16 page)

“It’s about Tandy Willowby. Apartment 4B.”

“If Tandy’s done something to earn a visit from a badge, I’ll fly on the first pig that wings by.”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

“Look, no offense, but cops’ve been a pain in my ass. You’re looking to hassle Tandy, you won’t get anything from me.”

“I’m not looking to hassle her, just find her. Apparently nobody’s seen her for a couple of days. I’m a friend of a friend of hers.”

“Who’s the friend you’re a friend of?”

“Mavis Freestone.”

“You’re a friend of Mavis’s.” The woman narrowed her eyes.

“That’s right. Mavis had a baby shower today. Tandy didn’t show, and Mavis is worried. We came by to see if she was here. She’s not. Looks like she hasn’t been since Thursday. Have you seen her since?”

“Well, hell. Come on inside. Me and Max are roasting in these coats.”

“Max?” Eve looked down at the dark eyes framed in a puffy red hood.

“Yeah, Max is my son, and the only thing worth spit I got out of the ex. Come on, pal of mine,” she said to the boy. “Let’s go inside. Zeela,” she added to Eve. “I’m Zeela Patrone.”

“Dallas. Lieutenant Dallas.”

Zeela unlocked the door, led the boy inside. Then she crouched down, grinned into his face. “You in there, Maximum Force? Let’s see. Hey, there you are!”

He giggled as she stripped off the coat, unwound the scarf, pulled off mittens. Under it all, he was sturdy and dressed in some sort of overalls with a bright plaid shirt.

“You go play in your room for a few minutes, okay?”

“Can I have juice?”

“Soon as I’m done.”

Then he tugged her hand, whispered in her ear. “I don’t think so, handsome. Get your trucks, why don’t you, and we’ll have a race with them when Mommy’s done talking to the lady. That’s my boy.”

When he toddled off, Zeela smiled, rose. “Kid’s a fricking miracle. Not a chromosome of his old man’s, far as I can tell. Sweet and fun and smart. Somebody decided to cut me one huge break. He asked me if maybe the tall lady could stay for a tea party.”

“Appreciate it, but I have to pass. Tandy Willowby.”

“Yeah. No, I haven’t seen her. That’s the thing. She was supposed to baby-sit Max Friday night.” Absently, Zeela tunneled her fingers through the hair that had been flattened by her cap. “I was going out on a limb and taking in a vid with this guy I keep running into at the deli down the block. I’ve been off dating since Max came along, so this was like a maiden voyage. Tandy was supposed to come down, watch Max for the evening.”

“She didn’t show.”

“No. I called up there, then I went up. No answer. I gotta say, I was pretty steamed.” As she spoke, she hung up the outdoor gear on little pegs by the door. “Figured she forgot or was too tired. Max was bummed because he likes her a lot. We were both looking forward to Friday night, and she let us down. I decided to be pissed. Now I’m trying to decide if I should be worried.”

“How well do you know her?”

“We got to be friendly over the last few months. I’ve been there, done that—the having a kid on my own deal. Have you checked with her midwife? She could’ve gone into labor. She’s close to due.”

“My partner’s up in Tandy’s apartment, making inquiries about that. Did she tell you anything about the baby’s father?”

“Not much. Just he was back in England, and wasn’t part of the picture. No rancor, so I figure they’d just split amicably like.”

“She ever mention his name?”

“I don’t think so. Don’t remember anyway. Most she told me was that somebody’s bc didn’t do the job—happens—and she got pregnant. He wasn’t looking for permanent or family, she wasn’t sure she was ready to take it on by herself. Then she decided she was—the family thing. She decided to come to New York. Fresh start, new scene. That’s about it.”

“How about other friends, men she was seeing?”

“She was friendly. Mavis came by off and on. I met one of the women she works with, and sometimes she’d walk out with Ms. Pason from across her hall. They went to work about the same time most days. But as for men, she wasn’t into it. Not now.”

“Did you get the sense she was worried about anything, anyone?”

“No, just the opposite. She was revved up and ready to be a mother. But now I’m starting to worry. This city can eat you up. I don’t like thinking it could’ve taken a bite out of Tandy.”

Nothing,” Peabody reported when Eve returned to Tandy’s apartment. “I know she has the same midwife as Mavis, so I contacted her. Randa Tillas. She states she hasn’t seen or heard from Tandy since her appointment on Monday. She was fine, right on schedule. Checked with her boss. She had Friday off. She’s slated to work tomorrow, noon to six. They’ve lightened her hours.”

“She show for work Thursday?”

“Right on time. Worked a full eight, last full day for her. She got in at just after nine, left at six. Nothing out of the ordinary during the day. She had three breaks. A full hour for lunch—maternity benny. She took them in their back room, with her feet up. Didn’t leave the shop all day, until six. No contact via the store ’link for her. Can’t say on her personal.”

“How did she get to and from work, as a rule?”

“Boss said she takes the bus. I got the route. The Thursday driver’s off today. We can track him down at home, or talk to him tomorrow. He’s on.”

“We’ll take him at home.”

“I’ve contacted the health and birthing centers nearest her work and her residence. Nobody by her name has checked in.”

Eve rubbed her eyes. “Okay, we’ll spread out from that. And we’ll check if any MTs did a run with a pregnant woman matching her description.”

She glanced over as Roarke came out of the bedroom. “I’ve checked her ’links and her comp,” he told her. “No outgoing on the ’links since Wednesday evening when she talked to a Zeela Patrone, this building.”

“Yeah, I’ve gotten her statement. Tandy was supposed to run herd on Patrone’s kid Friday night. Didn’t show, didn’t contact her to cancel. Incomings?”

“Nothing Thursday. Friday evening, from the same neighbor’s little boy. Came in at about seven in the evening, obviously coached by his mother. ‘Are you coming down to play with me’ sort of thing. Another transmission from the mother just after eight, faintly irritated. Asking where Tandy was, did she forget. Transmissions from Mavis today, from our house. Nothing else.”

“And the comp?”

“Nothing that seemed useful. She surfs baby boards, pregnancy and childhood sites. E-mails Mavis. She has Mavis’s e-address in her book, along with the addresses of her midwife, the downstairs neighbor, her work, her coworkers. Precious little, really,” he replied. “There’s nothing on there, Eve.”

“And nothing that shows that indicates she’d rabbit,” Eve added. “If there was an accident, they’d have contacted her medical group. A woman this organized would have that data in her bag. Listed in her memo book, on her pocket ’link. Why does someone snatch a woman that close to giving birth?”

“For the baby,” Peabody finished.

“Yeah, for the baby.” A grim and nasty thought, Eve decided. But there was more grim, more nasty. “Or because they’re some sicko who rapes and/or kills pregnant women. We’ll do a run through IRCCA, see if we have any like crimes. And I want a full background run on Tandy. Things look this quiet, this normal, this settled, there’s often something shaky underneath.”

“Does Mavis know who the father is?” Roarke asked.

“No. But we’re going to find out.”

“I’ll contact McNab,” Peabody began. “He can meet us at Central.”

“No. I need to do that, work this out with MPU. We’re stepping on toes here.”

She stopped a moment, lined up the steps in her mind. “Go back to your place, go ahead and do the search for like crimes. If Mavis is up to it, go there and ask her if she knows anything about what Tandy did back in England, what she might have said about the baby’s father, her family, that kind of thing. We’ll do the data run on Tandy, but Mavis may know more than she thinks. Keep her calm, you’re good at that. Let her know I’m talking to the people I need to talk to.”

“We can help Leonardo set up some of the baby stuff. That’ll do the trick.”

“If you say so. Roarke? With me?”

“Always.”

When they were in her vehicle, Roarke turned to her. “You think she was taken.”

She thought of the pretty, cheerful blonde, the way she’d talked about looking forward to Mavis’s shower. “I see no reason for her to walk. I can’t jump to abduction or foul play from there, but yeah, that’s the way it feels.”

“If you give Mavis a little time to calm down, I think she’d be satisfied if Missing Persons took this over, and you simply stayed in the loop.”

“You didn’t see her, you didn’t hear her.” Resigned to it now, Eve shook her head. “And besides that—which is plenty—I told her I’d do it. All I have to do is convince MPU to leave it with me, then convince Whitney I can take this on without it infringing on the investigation I’ve already got going.”

He brushed a hand over her hair. “You might want to convince yourself of that first.”

She smiled thinly. “Working on it.”

13

AT CENTRAL, SHE SPLIT OFF FROM ROARKE, asking him to go straight to Homicide and wait for her in her office while she arrowed off to MPU.

“I may need to offer whoever I deal with on this an incentive,” she told him.

He cocked his head and those wonderful lips curved in an easy smile. “You mean a bribe.”

“Bribe’s such a strong word. Yeah, I may need a bribe. Sports or booze, probably. Those are the usual hot tickets. I’ll keep it within reason.”

“Bribing cops not to do work is a time-honored tradition.”

“Hey.”

He laughed. “Do what you need to do, Lieutenant. I’ll be in your office.”

She didn’t know who might have caught weekend duty, or who might be at a desk, but she hoped it was someone she had at least a passing and cordial relationship with.

Otherwise, she’d have to start from scratch with whoever had the weekend command—and if things got sticky, and anincentive didn’t make the cut, she’d go straight to Whitney. But that was something she hoped to avoid.

She figured she lucked out when she spotted Lieutenant Jaye Smith grabbing what looked like an energy bar at Vending.

“Smith.”

“Hey, Dallas. Caught a Saturday tour, too?”

“Not exactly.” Eve dug credits out of her pocket. “Grab me a tube of Pepsi, will you?”

“Sure. It’s on me.”

“Thanks.”

“Great coat. Hell for leather, huh?”

“You could say. Thanks,” Eve repeated when Smith offered the tube. “You got a minute for me?”

“Sure. Want the lounge or the office?”

“Let’s take your office.”

“Business, then.” With a nod, Smith led the way.

She was near fifty, Eve remembered, and had better than a quarter century on the job. Married with a kid, maybe two. She was on the short side, about five-three with a boxer’s kind of build. Tough and muscular. Her hair was many shades of blonde, and worn straight with shaggy ends that swung past her jaw.

She wore her weapon as a sidearm at the hip, low, with a navy sweater over it.

Eve knew her to be a solid cop, so tucked away the idea of waving sports or booze into the mix. With Smith, she could be direct, and put it all straight up.

Lieutenant Smith’s office was bigger than Eve’s—but most were—and boasted what appeared to be two reasonably comfortable visitor chairs as well as a brushed steel desk that looked new.

On it were the standard d-and-c unit, stacks of files, and a framed picture of a couple of teenagers—one of each kind—who Eve took to be Smith’s kids.

From her office AutoChef, Smith got herself a mug of tea so dark it looked like coffee, then gestured to a chair. Instead of taking the desk, Smith settled into the other visitor’s seat.

“So, what’s up? Lose somebody?”

“Somebody looks to be lost. And I need you to do me a solid on it.”

“You want me to shuffle a MP to the top of the pile for you, I can do that.” Rising, she opened a desk drawer. She was reaching for a recorder and a note pad when Eve shook her head.

“That’s not exactly it either. Let me give you the situation.”

Eve ran through it, watched Smith’s face, saw she was taking it in. “You’re thinking a snatch, and could be. But you got a pregnant woman, no partner, no known family, foreign. That’s a big plate heaped with several helpings of emotion. Could have snapped, taken off.”

“Could, yeah. Thing is, nobody who knows her sees that.”

“But you don’t,” Smith pointed out, “know her. Really.”

“No. But I met her myself, twice, and I got a good gauge of her. I wouldn’t peg her to rabbit, or even to take a few days off somewhere. Not without telling anyone, missing an event she was juiced about, leaving all her things behind.”

“You said you checked her ’links. No communication in or out that indicated any plans.” Smith pursed her lips. “An appointment she didn’t keep, a party where she didn’t show—with the gift wrapped and waiting. Okay, looks like you’ve got one to me.”

“Time line and circumstance point to something going down after she left work, before she got home.”

“I’d agree with that.” Sitting back, Smith sipped her dark, strong tea. “But you don’t want me to open a file and move on this?”

“This friend of mine? The other pregnant one? She’s turned around about this, and she…” Eve blew out a breath. “Okay, she put me on a spot with this. So I’m going to ask you to let me handle the case.

“I’m not looking to elbow you out,” Eve continued, when Smith frowned over her mug. “And I’d welcome any help or direction you could give me, but Mavis is holding one of those emotion-heaped plates, too, and she’s looking to me to take care of it.”

“Knows you, doesn’t know me or anybody in the unit.”

“That’s the big of it, yeah. Mavis and I go back a long time. I don’t want her any more screwed up over this than she has to be.”

“How far along is she?”

“Mavis?” Eve pushed at her hair. “Heading to the final countdown. Couple more weeks, I guess. I told her I’d do this. I’m asking you to let me keep my word.”

“This would be Mavis Freestone, music sensation?”

“It would.”

“I got an eighteen-year-old daughter who’s a major fan.”

Eve felt the tension in her shoulders ease. “She might like backstage passes next time Mavis performs in the city. Or anywhere, for that matter, if you wouldn’t mind her being transported by a private shuttle.”

“I’d be her hero for life, but that sounds suspiciously like a bribe.”

Now Eve grinned. “And a damn good one. I had booze or sports lined up if I needed them. I appreciate this, Smith.”

“I’ve got friends, too, and I don’t like to let them down. Here’s what I’d need. You’d copy me on every report, every statement, every note you make. I’m apprised of every step of your investigation as you make it. I’ll keep my own file on her here, and if I feel at any point I need to step in, or assign someone to step in—to work with you, or to take over—I don’t want to hear the squawk.”

“You won’t. I owe you one.”

“Find them—the woman and the baby—and we’ll call it even.” Smith dug up a card. “I don’t have anything current that mirrors this one, but I’ll do a search, see if there’s anything in the city that reflects a like crime.”

“Appreciate it. All of it.”

“The missing’s who matters, not who runs the show from here. My home ’link, pocket ’link numbers are on the back. Day or night.”

Eve took the card, offered her hand.

Back in her office she found Roarke at her desk working on her comp. He glanced up at her, lifted his brows in question.

“I’m clear. I got lucky.”

“That’s good then. I got started on your background checks. Do you want to work here or at home?”

“Neither, not yet. Right now we’re going to see a man about a bus.”

The bus driver’s name was Braunstein, and he was about two hundred pounds of hard fat in a New York Giants football jersey. He was fifty-two, married, and was spending his Saturday evening watching a post-season game on-screen with his brother-in-law and son while his wife, his sister, and niece took in some—in his words—“girlie vids” at a local theater.

His irritation at having his viewing interrupted was obvious, until Eve mentioned Tandy’s name.

“London Bridge? That’s what I call her. Sure I know her. Rides with me most every night. Always has her fare card ready, lots don’t. Got a nice smile. She sits right behind me. Somebody takes that seat, I make ’em get up, give it to her. Her delicate condition and all.

“She gave me a nice tin of cookies for the holidays. Made them herself. She got trouble?”

“I don’t know that yet. Did she ride with you Thursday evening?”

“Thursday.” He scratched his chin, which badly needed a shave. “Nope. Funny now you mention it, ’cause I remember her saying, ‘See you tomorrow, Mr. B,’ when she got off at her stop on Wednesday. She calls me ‘Mr. B.’ I remember because she was carting this box wrapped in funny paper with a big-ass bow on it.”

He glanced around as both of his companions erupted with rage at a call on the field. “Offside, my rosy red ass,” one of them shouted.

“Goddamn refs,” Braunstien muttered. “’Scuze the language. Anyway, I asked her about it—the box—when she got on, and she said how she had a baby shower on the weekend. Listen, that little girl get hurt or something? I told her she ought to take the maternity leave, close as she was. She okay? She and the baby okay?”

“I hope so. On the bus, you ever notice anyone paying too much attention to her? Hanging too close, keeping an eye? Anything like that?”

“No, and I woulda.” He scratched his prominent belly. “I kinda looked out for her during the run, you know? Got some regulars, and some of them might strike up a conversation with her the way people do when a woman’s carrying a bun. You know, ‘How you feeling?’ ‘When are you due?’ ‘Pick out any names,’ that kind of thing. But nobody bothered her. I wouldn’a let them.”

“How about people who got off at her stop?”

“Sure, there’d be some. Regulars and otherwise. Never noticed anybody looking funny, though. Someone hurt that girl? Come on, I feel like her uncle or something. She hurt?”

“I don’t know. No one’s seen her, as far as we can tell, since Thursday, at around six o’clock.”

“Well, Jesus.” This time Braunstien showed no reaction to the shouts and curses coming from the living room. “Jesus, that’s not right.”

People like her,” Eve said as she drove. “Like people liked Copperfield and Byson.”

“Bad things happen to likable people,” Roarke pointed out.

“Yeah, yeah, they do. I’m going by where she worked. Walk from there to her bus stop. Get a feel.”

Outside the White Stork, Eve watched traffic zing uptown on Madison. It was later than it would have been when Tandy left work, and a Saturday rather than a weekday. But it would’ve been going dark at six, and, as she recalled, that day was gloomy.

Streetlights on, she mused, headlights cutting through the dank light.

“Cold,” she said aloud. “People bundled up, like they are now. Walking brisk, most of them walking brisk. Want to get home, or get where they’re going. Early dinner, after-work drinks, errands to do on the way home. She comes out. Has to walk over to Fifth to catch her bus. Two blocks down, one block over.”

Eve started to walk it with Roarke beside her. “She’s going to move with the lights. If she hits the walk, she’ll go on down the second block, then over. If she doesn’t, she’ll do the cross-town block first. You want to keep moving.”

“No way to know which way she did it.”

“No.” But since they caught the light, Eve continued through the intersection. “Least likely place to snatch her—if it was a snatch—is the corner. More people, closer together. You want to come up behind her.”

She demonstrated when they were near the middle of the block, falling back a few steps, then coming in quick, banding an arm around Roarke’s waist.

“Using a weapon?” he speculated. “Otherwise she’d react—call out, struggle. Even the most jaded would stop when an obviously pregnant woman is in trouble.”

“A weapon,” Eve agreed. “Or it was someone she knew. Hey, Tandy!” Eve shifted her arm, firmed it tight around Roarke. “How’s it going? Boy, you sure are carrying a load there. How about a lift home? Got my car right down there.”

“Possibly.” He turned west as she did to walk to Fifth. “Who does she know?”

“Customers, neighbors, someone through the birthing class or center. Someone from back in England. Baby’s father. Had to be force or familiarity. Maybe both. Had to be quick and quiet, because, yeah, somebody’s going to notice a pregnant woman struggling with someone. We’ll show her picture around this area, in case someone did.”

Once they hit Fifth, she turned north to walk back on the alternate route.

“Probably took her on the cross street,” Eve said. “Always less foot traffic than the avenues. Had to have a vehicle, or possibly…” She scanned up, frowning at the apartments overhead. “Possibly a place close by. But then you’ve got to get her inside without anybody making note of it. I don’t like that one, but it could be.”

“And why wouldn’t she resist once she was in a vehicle?”

“Force? She could have been sedated, or she was afraid. Maybe there was more than one abductor. Familiar, she could have been pleased to see someone she knew, and to be off her feet, catch a ride home.”

She scanned the area as they crossed back to Madison. Most people moving quickly, most with their heads or at least their eyes down. Thinking their thoughts, bubbled inside their own worlds.

“Somebody willing to take a risk, moving quick and smooth. Sure, you could pluck a woman right off the sidewalk. It happens. One of the cross streets,” she repeated. “Makes the most sense, but you can’t be sure which one she’ll use. Wouldn’t park the vehicle, if you’re using one, on the street. Not if you’re doing the snatch alone. And if you were lucky enough to find a spot anyway. Closest parking lot to her work, that’s what you’d use.”

“Logical,” Roarke agreed, and took out his PPC. He tapped a few buttons, nodded. “There’s a lot on Fifty-eighth, between Madison and Fifth.”

“That’d be handy, wouldn’t it? You’d only have to walk her a couple of southbound blocks. Let’s go have a look at it.”

She wanted to walk it, again taking the most logical route. It was an automated lot with no attendant, human or droid, and on this Saturday evening, at capacity.

It boasted a security cam, but even if it worked, she knew the disc would have been dumped every twenty-four hours. She noted down the number posted for contact. “Maybe we’ll get lucky on the security disc,” she told Roarke. “They should have records, in any case, of payments. We’ll want ID on any vehicles leaving the lot between eighteen and nineteen hundred on Thursday.”

She dipped her hands in her pockets. “Or he could’ve had a partner circling the blocks, and we’re screwed on this angle.”

Or they paid in cash, Roarke thought. Used a stolen vehicle. Eve would be considering those possibilities as well, he knew, so didn’t bother to comment. “If she was taken the way you’re theorizing, it was planned out, timed. Do you think she was stalked?”

“I’d say the probability of it being a random snatch is low, but I’m going to run it. Somebody knew her routine, her schedule, her routes. Somebody wanted her and/or the baby she’s carrying specifically.”