“Keep it up and you’ll need body paint to cover the bruises.”
“I’m just saying it’s like we only got two hours down, and then I couldn’t turn my brain off because murders and the Academy freaking Awards! Okay, ouch. But I’m saying everything was just fuzzy this morning, and I needed to give you one hundred percent. A hundred absolute percent. So booster. But then it didn’t feel like it worked. All fuzzy. So I thought about the espresso, and maybe it did work some because it’s crazy stupid to chase the boost with espresso. It’s the real. McNab and I splurged. I love McNab! Ian McNab is my BFF—boyfriend forever! And we—Ow, ow, ow.”
“Stop talking. Stop. I get what happened. I get why it happened, which is why I’m not searching for a blunt instrument to beat you bloody with before I dump your broken body out on the street to be run over by a maxibus.”
“Maybe I should take some Sober Up. It’s not like being drunk, but maybe—”
“No. Nothing else goes in. Except water.” Eve programmed just that from the in-dash. “Drink.”
“I already sort of have to pee.”
“Good, the sooner you flush it out, the better.”
“Where are we going? Can I pee where we’re going?”
“Yes. Drink. Mikhail Kinski, resident of Banks’s building. Age forty-six, former Army, rank captain. Divorced. One hit on domestic violence. Works security for Dobb-Pinkerton Financial.”
Peabody nodded, tapped her temple. “Got it.”
“Good, because we’re there.”
“Really good! Because now I sort of more than sort of have to pee.”
Eve found a second-level street slot. “You put on your cop face, and you zip it. You observe on this one, and that’s it. Unless somebody jabs a spike up your ass, I don’t want to hear anything coming out of your mouth with an exclamation point at the end.”
“That would really hurt.”
“And I can find a spike. Believe it.”
She hoped the short walk, the fresh air and the flushing would bring her partner back.
The lobby looked rich with its towering green marble columns and acres of gold leaf. While Peabody goggled like a damn tourist, Eve ignored the ornate decor, the scores of people—most in black—clipping and striding to and from elevators with their ear-links and micro PPCs.
“There.” Eve pointed toward a sign for restrooms. “Make it fast.”
“Yay.”
As Peabody bounded off to pee, Eve headed straight to the security podium. Held up her badge.
“Where would I find Mikhail Kinski?”
The woman, black-clad, muscular, aimed a suspicious eye at the badge before pulling out a scanner. She seemed a little disappointed when it read green.
“Mr. Kinski is in Security Hub A. You’ll need to be escorted to that level.”
“All right.” Eve stepped back, keeping one eye on the restroom and hoping she didn’t have to go in there and yank Peabody away from primping in the mirror while she sang a happy tune.
Fortunately for her partner’s life expectancy, Peabody came trotting out. She had a big grin plastered on her face, but maybe, just maybe, her eyes were a little less manic.
“The bathroom is swank.”
“Great. Lose the smile.”
Peabody shifted to an exaggerated glower. It might’ve been effective, Eve thought, without the pink lip dye. Still, better than the smile.
Eve watched the man stride off a single, secured elevator. She recognized Kinski from his ID shot. A well-built man with close-cropped silver-blond hair, icy blue eyes, and the edgy cheekbones of a Nordic god, he walked with that purposeful stride straight to Eve.
“Badges, please.”
Eve offered hers, elbowed Peabody until she remembered hers. He drew out a mini scanner, verified.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant, Detective?”
“We can talk about that here in the lobby of your workplace, or we can go somewhere more private.”
“Give me a broad stroke.”
“The murder of Jordan Banks.”
He nodded, one decisive movement, then turned to lead them to the secured elevator.
“We can speak in my office. This will have to be brief. We have a full system test in twenty minutes.”
He used a card swipe and a thumbprint to engage the elevator. The ride down was short and smooth.
They emerged into a short hallway with double doors, fully secured and monitored by cams, at the end. Kinski turned to the left, used the swipe and his print again to open a door into a small, spartan office dominated by double wall screens.
He walked to sit behind a simple desk, gestured at the two metal chairs. “Have a seat. This should be brief as I didn’t know Jordan Banks.”
“You live in the same building, two floors down.”
“So I learned when I read of his murder. There are over eighteen hundred people living in that building, Lieutenant. Do you assume I know all of them?”
“I’m only concerned about Banks.”
“I didn’t know him. I never met him. I may or may not have seen him at some point over the twenty-eight months I’ve lived at that address.”
“That would be shortly after your divorce.”
Kinski’s eyes went to blue stone. “Yes.”
“Can you verify your whereabouts from twenty-one hundred Monday night through oh-four hundred Tuesday morning?”
“I was at home from approximately twenty-one hundred Monday night until oh-six-thirty Tuesday morning.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
“I left this building at nineteen hundred hours, walked to Hannigan’s Irish Pub on Forty-First to have dinner with a friend. I left about twenty-thirty and walked home to arrive at approximately twenty-one hundred.”
“Long walk.”
“I like to walk,” he said evenly. “After I arrived home, I remained home, until the following morning. My apartment security will verify the time I arrived, and the time I left.”
“You work in security, Mr. Kinski. I imagine you have access to a lot of interesting toys, and you have the knowledge and skill needed to use them.”
“My job makes me a suspect in the murder of a man I didn’t know?”
“This is an inquiry. I haven’t read you your rights. Being security—you are head of Level A?”
“I am.”
“Being that level of security in a building that houses financial institutions would likely give you a working knowledge of finance. The market. Maybe some inside information.”
His gaze remained level, stony. His voice matched it. “Now you’re accusing me of, what, insider trading? I’ve had enough of this fishing expedition. A man’s murdered in Central Park, his valuables taken before he’d dumped in the reservoir. The media terms it a mugging. At least I see you’re not stupid enough to dismiss it as such.”
“Why would that be stupid?”
“His neck was broken—manually, according to the reports. I doubt your average mugger’s had the kind of combat training that particular skill requires.”
“But you have.”
Still hard, his gaze never strayed from hers. “I have. I live in the same building, I work in security with a background in military service. I’ve been in combat. I was home, alone, on the night in question.”
“You also have a charge of criminal violence on your record.”
As the angry flush rose up to his hairline, the first hint of frustration eked through. “I did not strike my ex-wife. I have never put a violent hand on any woman outside of training or combat when they were soldiers. If you looked deeper, you’d find my ex-wife is currently in court-appointed rehabilitation for drug and alcohol abuse, and I won’t discuss that any further.”
He rose. “I have work. I’ll escort you out.”
Eve rose, gestured for Peabody to do the same. She waited until they were back in the elevator to look up at Kinski’s rigid face. “Ever been to the Salon?”
She saw the flicker in his eyes before they narrowed. “The art gallery, the one bombed yesterday? By one of the owners. What is this?”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“No.”
“You had some training in explosives during your time in the Army.”