“The dead guy probably doesn’t care about rain or snow or whatever narcissus is,” Eve pointed out.
“A very pretty and fragrant flower,” Morris told her. “A harbinger of spring. In any case . . . I’m told our dead guy was pulled out of the JKO by a couple of boys too insulated by various substances to worry about the filthy weather or the jump into the drink.”
“Young and stupid. Without the young or stupid, Banks would have spent another couple of hours in the water. Not a prime day for jogging in the park.”
“Your killer had to have some muscle to get Banks over the fence.”
“There were probably two of them.”
“Ah, that would help. Still, it took some upper-body strength and skill to break this neck manually.”
“Military training, most probable.”
“And logical. From behind,” Morris added. “Dominant right hand. The late Mr. Banks didn’t put up a fight. No defensive wounds, no other injuries. He’d consumed quite a bit of red wine along with some brie and herbed crackers—rosemary—two deviled dove eggs, about a quarter ounce of beluga, with the accoutrements: a few marinated olives, some goose liver paté. He capped all that off with a few ounces of absinthe.”
“Party food,” Eve stated. “Expensive cocktail party.”
“The goose liver and the absinthe? He’d have enjoyed that less than an hour prior to his TOD.”
“Left the party, went to the park. The killers may have been at the party,” she speculated as she studied the body. “Or arranged for the meeting after. He knew them, told them I was poking around. So . . .” She twisted her hands in the air. “Snap. Tox?”
“Sent off. We should have the full results fairly quickly. He didn’t just eat and drink at the party,” Morris added.
He picked up a clear sample case from his tray, held it up. Inside, Eve saw the single bright red hair.
“Pubic hair, combed out of his own,” Morris told her. “I’ll send it to Harvo at the lab.”
“It’ll be female. There’s nothing to indicate he was into same-sex play. DNA would be helpful.”
“If the owner’s in the system, our queen of hair and fiber will track her down. I can tell you he’s had a bit of work here and there,” Morris continued as he set the case back on the tray. “Face and body, nothing major. As you can see, he believed in pubic grooming—of the permanent sort.”
Eve glanced at the narrow line of hair. “Made it easy to spot the stray red hair.”
“It did. The evidence indicates he died well-fed, buzzed, and sexually satisfied. I don’t suppose that’s much comfort to him.”
“Or me, since I was looking forward to slapping him in a cage as an accessory. Thanks, Morris.”
“We’re here to serve.”
As they walked out, he ordered the music up again, on a sob of tenor sax.
“Party and sex,” Eve said as they walked out. “Hit those cab companies and private transpos, Peabody. We’ll go by and talk to his money guy, see if we get any buzz there.”
She headed east, and by the time she approached the narrow streets and canyons of the financial district, Peabody got a hit.
“Yeah.” She held up a hand to signal Eve. “Can you patch me through to the driver? No problem. Rapid Cab,” she told Eve. “Logged a pickup on West Ninety-Sixth, two-twenty. Drop-off on West Eighty-Seventh. Yeah, still here.”
Eve listened with half an ear as she negotiated in the shadow of the tall buildings. Some of the Gilded Age buildings with their fancy architecture had survived the Urbans. Others had been built up after the war, so sleek bullets married with high, festooned palaces beyond the bronze bollards, wet with rain, that shielded them from vehicular bombs.
She ruled out double-parking, not because it worried her to piss off civilian drivers, but in order to avoid hiking blocks in the continuing piss-trickle. The street options were simply too narrow.
She found a lot, used her vertical option to squeeze into a stingy second-level slot.
“Confirmed,” Peabody told her. “RC pulled up the ticket. Banks charged the ride, so we have that. The driver remembers him—solo fare. Says the fare was high and tight, talked to somebody on his ’link. Doesn’t know or remember what he said beyond he’d be there in a few minutes. Fare called up a ride for pickup at 743 West Ninety-Six, and came out about a minute or two after the driver tagged his arrival.”
Peabody got out as Eve did, started down the clanging iron steps to ground level.
“Banks paid via his ’link for the charge, got out, walked away.”
“Good. After we talk to the money people, we’ll take a pass through Banks’s apartment. He’ll have an address book, so we’ll find out who he knew at that address. We can talk to the party-goers, and hit his art gallery. We need to check in with Baxter and Trueheart.”
She’d hooked them for notification of Banks’s next of kin.
“I want the family reaction, and we may need to interview them.”
They passed through the barricades, joined the throng of tourists who swarmed the Wall Street district with their cameras and craned necks.
She smelled street coffee from the glide-carts and the first of the steaming soy dogs as the morning eased toward noon. Purposefully, she avoided the diehards who marched or circled with their signs and their earnest, angry faces protesting the evils of capitalism. Others thronged around the Wall Street bull, gleefully posing in front of its snorting charge. To her mind, a bull—metal or flesh—was a cow with a dick. She gave it a wide berth.
And entered the vaulted, gilded lobby on John Street.
Eve badged through security and headed up to the forty-third floor with Peabody.
No gilt, but plenty of plush in the lobby of Buckley and Schultz. And people looking very important as they watched screens full of stock reports or financial news.
One of the three receptionists looked soberly at Eve’s badge. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Schultz is in off-site meetings all day today. He’s not expected in his office here until tomorrow. Should I ask his administrative assistant to make an appointment for you?”
“I’ll talk to the admin.”
“I’ll see if he’s available.”
Three minutes later, the admin came out.
Early thirties, Eve judged, with a kind of Trueheart cut of clean polished by a bankerly patina. Excellent suit, shined shoes, doe eyes in a youthful face.
“Lieutenant, Detective.” He glanced toward the plush, important, and prosperous. “Please come with me. I’m Devin Garrison, Mr. Schultz’s admin.” He led the way by offices where people in suits sat or paced while they talked of money in a language as foreign to her as Greek. Or e-geek.
He turned into another office—a bit larger, good view, well-appointed. Upper-middle strata to Eve’s gauge.
Devin closed the door. “I—Mr. Schultz is out of the office all day. I just . . . I just heard a bulletin about Mr. Banks. Mr. Jordan Banks. I knew him. I can’t believe . . .”
“How well did you know him?”
“Oh. Well, only really via ’link. When he wanted to speak to Mr. Schultz. Or when I arranged a lunch or dinner meeting. I never actually met him in person. He didn’t come to the offices. Mr. Schultz went to him, if necessary.”
“When’s the last time it was necessary?”
“Would you give me a minute to check?”
“Check.”
He went behind the desk, pulled up, Eve noted, a calendar. Mr. Schultz was a busy man with few slots open most workdays.
“It looks like February eighteenth, for their regular monthly lunch meeting. They were scheduled for the next the middle of this month.”
“When did they last speak, that you’re aware of?”
“Yesterday. Mr. Banks contacted the office yesterday morning, first thing. Well, actually . . . Was Mr. Banks really murdered?”
“He was really murdered.”
“I think you should speak with Agatha. Ah, you see, Mr. Schultz was Mr. Banks’s financial adviser of record, but in actuality Agatha Lowell handled the account. The day-to-day.”