Page 56 of Random in Death

“Nothing. Let’s move.”

“A bit short, are you?”

As she walked out, she gave an irritable shrug. “I didn’t expect to work Saturday night through Sunday. Through freaking Monday morning. I had other things on my mind besides pulling out more cash.

“I can tap Peabody until I hit a machine.”

“Stop.” As they went down the stairs, he took out a money clip, peeled off bills. When she didn’t stop, he just stuffed them into her pocket.

“Don’t get bitchy when you run out of the ready, and I haven’t.”

“As if you ever could.”

She wanted to fight about it—again—but she couldn’t spare the time or energy.

Instead, she got in the passenger seat of the waiting car, started her run.

“Need a connection,” she muttered. “Same school, same neighborhood, same something.”

“They may have frequented the same places. Clubs, arcades. Had a mutual interest.”

“Unlikely on the places, as the first victim lived Lower West and this one’s Upper East. Damn it. Maybe a connection through the parents, friends.

“Why was she in Memorial Park at, what, around eleven on a Sunday night?”

She did a search there for events.

“Battle of the Bands. Music. Maybe they knew each other through that mutual interest. Music. Arlie Dillon’s next of kin, Tisha Dillon, mother. Single, never married, a tailor, her own business. No father on record, no other offspring. The Harboughs might use a tailor, though I can’t see why they’d go that far for one, any more than I see the Dillons going downtown for a doctor. But maybe.”

Since she had the drive time, she dug deeper.

“No bumps on the victim. Seventeen, just a couple weeks ago, so nearly a year older than Jenna. Medical… nothing major, but confirmation Julia Harbough isn’t the family doctor. Works part-time at her mother’s shop, impressive grades in school.

“Got some social media here.”

After a scan, she shook her head. “Music’s not her thing. It’s fashion. Designing. Damn it. Got a boyfriend. She’d already posted pictures from this band thing. Ready for the battle! with her and a guy, tall, white, about the same age. And another group shot with two other minor females. A couple, from the body language. So a group of four.”

She put her PPC away as they approached the park. “We’ll hope one of them saw something.”

What she saw when they walked toward the police barricade were Jamie Lingstrom and Quilla Magnum.

Jamie, college boy e-genius, stood with his hands in his pockets. He’d let his fair hair grow just long enough for a stub of a tail.

Quilla, Nadine’s teen intern, reporter in training and student at Roarke’s An Didean, stood beside him in hot red shorts, purple high-tops that matched the current color of her hair, and a T-shirt featuring a guy with hair down to his ass manhandling a guitar.

Eve badged her way through, said, “What’s this?”

“We were here.” Quilla burst out with it. “A bunch of us from the school. Crack and Ms. Pickering came. We’re going to put a band together for next year, and we got to come if we wanted to see how it all works.”

Eve shifted to Jamie. “Don’t you go to Columbia, when you’re not interning in EDD or for Roarke?”

“Well, yeah. I tagged along. We weren’t near the incident, Lieutenant.”

She gave him credit for using her rank, and the carefully modulated cop tone.

“While we didn’t witness the assault, we were moving in that direction. Quilla and I were, as she took videos.”

“So we could study them,” Quilla added. “And so I could write a story about the event.” She offered Eve a disc. “I made a copy for you. In case there’s something, um, relevant.”

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