YOUR TRUE FRIEND.
“It’s longer,” Eve noted. “Getting chattier, and…” She pulled out microgoggles, moved in closer. “Shakier. Not as precise and controlled on the lettering here. We need this analyzed, but it looks like some of the words are darker, a little thicker – like he pushed harder with the marker. My first name, justice, filth, respected, true. More emphasis there.”
She stepped back, pulled off the goggles. “Okay. We’re going to leave the scene to the sweepers.”
Peabody glanced around the pesthole. “Thanks be to the goddess of all that’s clean and healthy.” She smiled at Roarke. “A little Free-Ager sentiment.”
“And perfectly apt, considering.”
“Send for the sweepers, and the wagon,” Eve ordered. “Tag Morris, Mira, and Whitney. EDD can check out his ’link. We’ll talk to the wit, have the uniforms secure the scene.” She looked over at Roarke. “You’ve got to have things to do.”
“I’ll stay until you’re done here.”
Rather than argue, she moved out and across the hall, knuckle-rapped on the door.
A female officer with a tough build answered. She glanced at Eve’s badge, back up to her face. “Lieutenant.”
“Your partner’s started the canvass. The sweepers and the morgue have been notified. Keep the scene secured, Officer Morales.”
“Yes, sir. Wit’s shaken up, but cooperative. I don’t think she saw anything. Her story’s holding solid.”
“We’ll take a pass at her.”
Eve stepped in. It was a mirror of Ledo’s flop in size and shape, but it lacked the toxic pigsty decor. Misty Polinsky had a saggy sofa covered with a wildly floral throw, a skinny red rug over clean floors, a fringed lamp with a dented shade. She – or someone – had painted more flowers on boxes stacked into a substitute dresser.
The kitchen consisted of a cup-sized sink, a mini AutoChef, and a counter about as big as a desk blotter. But it was clean.
Misty herself sat on the floral throw, legs curled up, holding a chipped mug in two hands. She wore her sky-blue hair in a sharp wedge, shivered under an oversized sweater draped over narrow shoulders.
Though her face enhancements were badly smeared, pretty peeked out under them. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but from the look of her Eve deduced tears rather than the funk.
“Ms. Polinsky, I’m Lieutenant Dallas. This is Detective Peabody, and our consultant. How are you holding up?”
“I feel a little sick. Officer Morales said to drink some tea, but I still feel a little sick. I never saw anything like that. I never saw anything like Ledo in there.”
Tears swam – shock not grief in Eve’s estimation, so she sat on the arm of the sofa. “It’s hard seeing something like that. How well did you know Ledo?”
“Not really. I mean to see – and I talked to him a few times. You know how you do.”
“Have you ever been in his place?”
“No. He… he asked me over, but, well, you know.” She drew in her shoulders. “I didn’t want to.”
“Did you ever buy anything from him?”
“I don’t do that.” Big eyes as blue as her hair went huge. “I swear to God. You can test me and everything. I don’t do illegals.”
“Okay.” Eve scrolled through her PPC as she spoke, doing a quick run on her witness. “How old are you, Misty?”
“Twenty-two.”
“How old are you on Planet Earth?”
The hands holding the mug trembled. “I’m not going back. You can’t make me go back. I got ID that says I’m twenty-one.”
“Go back where?”
“Look, I was just going to work. I work the early shift at the coffee shop around the corner three days a week. Del’s, it’s called, but I never met anybody named Del in there. I had to call in, tell them I’d be late, and now Pete’s mad.”
“And you work at Swing It four nights a week.”
Misty’s face went pink under the blue hair. “I just dance, okay? I don’t do the other stuff. I just dance.”
“How long have you been in New York?”
“Six months. Almost. I was just going to work, Officer.”
“Lieutenant.”
“Okay. I was just going to work, and the door over there was open. I shouldn’t’ve looked in, but it was open, and it’s not a good neighborhood, so I looked in just to make sure Ledo didn’t get robbed or something. And I saw him, on his bed. The blood.”
“Did you go in?”
“Uh-uh.” She shook her head vigorously. “I ran back in here, locked the door. I didn’t know what to do, thought I was going to boot. I was going to run out again, go to work, pretend I hadn’t seen anything. But… It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right, so I called the police.”
Though it remained pink, her face went rigid with anger. “I shouldn’t be in trouble for calling the police. For doing the right thing.”
“And you’re not. Did you see anybody, hear anything, before you looked in Ledo’s?”
“No. I told Officer Morales how I got up at five-forty, like I do when I’m working at the coffee shop. I took a shower. The water doesn’t get really hot, and it’s really, really noisy. I got ready for work. I have to work a shift at the club tonight, so I packed a change for that, and I got a GoBar and tube of cola, ’cause I don’t like coffee. Then I got my coat and stuff, and went out – it was about quarter after six. And I looked in because the door was wide open.”
“Have you seen anyone come around here you didn’t recognize?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes people sleep on the floor downstairs. I don’t know them, but they don’t bother anybody. And it’s been really cold. And the bug person came once.”
“Bug person?”
“To kill bugs. I guess the super ordered it, but when I asked if I could get somebody in here to do it on my place, the super just laughed at me. Guy’s a dick anyway.”
“Can you describe this person? The exterminator. Male, female, build, race, age?”
“God, I don’t know.” She drank a little more tea, blew upward and stirred her fringe of blue bangs. “I guess I thought it was a guy, but I don’t really know. He had on this hood and mask, and had this tank and sprayer. I just peeked out a minute.”
“Did you talk to the bug person?”
“I just asked through the crack of the door if he was doing the whole building. And he sort of nodded. I thought, good, ’cause the cockroaches creep me. I straightened up some, you know how you do when maybe somebody’s coming in your place, but when I looked out again, he was gone.”
She smiled wanly. “Cockroaches are still here.”
“Did you notice any sort of logo, or name?”
“I really didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“I’d like you to work with a police artist.”
The pink flush had faded away, and now she gnawed off what was left of her lip dye. “I didn’t really see anything.”
“You never know. We can have you taken down to Central, and the artist might help you remember some details you don’t realize you noticed.”
“You’re going to arrest me?”
“No.” Eve slid off the arm of the sofa so she sat beside Misty. “Nobody’s going to arrest you. Nobody’s going to send you back. You’re not in trouble. You’re helping us out, and I can clear two hundred for the help if you work with the artist.”
“You – Two hundred?”
“That’s right. We can use the help, Misty. Ledo was a screwup, and he hit on you.”
“Yeah, but, well, he didn’t get pushy or anything like some guys do.”
“That’s right. And somebody killed him. You may be able to help us find out who.”
“Look. I gotta work, pay the rent. The two hundred, that’d be sweet, but I need regular pay. Pete’ll fire me if I don’t come in for my shift.”
“Do you like working for Pete?”
“It’s a job. I gotta pay the rent or I’ll get booted out.”
“Right. You like living here?”
For the first time a glimmer of a real smile eked through. “I’d have to be blind, deaf, and crazy to like living here, but it’s what I got, and it’s better than what I had.”
Eve glanced at Roarke. “I might be able to help you find a decent place where you could stay until you find better work, and better than this.”
“I’m not going in a group home. I’m not —”
“Just hang on a minute. Nobody’s going to make you do anything. Just hang a minute.”
She rose, gestured for Peabody to sit with Misty, and to Roarke to step out in the hall with her.
“She’s seventeen. I figure a runaway – out of Dayton, Ohio – but nobody’s looking for her. I got enough of her medical to see a pattern of physical abuse. The father’s doing some time right now – went in last month for assault. Mother’s been in and out – illegals abuse. I know the youth shelter isn’t near finished yet, but maybe – she doesn’t altogether fit – but maybe there’s a place for her at Dochas until. She’ll be eighteen in May.”
“I can arrange that, if she’s willing. Some of the women there aren’t much older.”
Eve nodded, said nothing. And Roarke lifted his brows.
“You want me to talk to her.”
“You’ll slide her right in. She respects the badge, but she’s afraid of it. Odds are nobody wearing one gave her much help. You’ll keep it smooth, and she won’t be afraid of you.”
“All right.” He gave her a little poke in the belly. “Softie.”
“I can’t have my only wit going into the wind, can I? Or risk having the bug person coming back for her, just in case. She’ll work better with Yancy on a sketch if I don’t have to take her into protective custody.”
“You can play that line.” He leaned down to kiss her before she could evade. “Give me a minute to make the arrangements, on the assumption I can slide her right in.”