Page 73 of Thankless in Death

“Try for coherency or I’m taking that coffee and pouring what’s left over your head.”

“Right. I started making contacts, and when I hit this place the guy got nervous. I got the ‘didn’t see the alert until a few minutes ago’ bullshit, but he came clean mostly, I think, because he heard enough media reports on the murders to get edgy.”

“He hit that shop in the morning, not long after he hit the banks. About ten.”

“Yeah, right about ten, with the bowl and the diamond star earrings, the bangles in one of the suitcases. He grabbed the first offer of nine hundred on the bowl, and six hundred fifty on the earrings, three hundred and a quarter on the gold bangles. Turns out the bowl is worth about ten times what Reinhold took for it.”

“Small satisfaction on that. We need that evidence picked up.”

“I sent out Uniform Carmichael,” Peabody confirmed. “And right after I did, another shop contacted me. I don’t know, maybe the word went out or it was just good timing. Reinhold sold the rest of the jewelry there, got another twenty-two hundred for that, then another fifteen for the menorah, and twenty-six hundred for the silver—the flatware.”

“Adding to his pile.”

“Yeah, not a lot, but decent when you add it up. The second shop is in the same area, about five blocks from the hotel.”

“He kept it close in, easy for walking. But he went out of his comfort zone for the big-ticket items. The watches and the pearls.”

“I tagged Cardininni,” Peabody added. “She got the list from the neighbor. So she’s hooking up with Carmichael, and they’ll hit both shops to pick up the evidence.”

“That works,” Eve answered absently, her mind still on the route, the choices of liquidation sites. “He sold the bowl for a fraction of the worth, but he probably got more than he’d figured on.”

To confirm, Peabody pulled out her PPC, brought up her notes. “Kevin Quint—pawnbroker—stated: ‘I could see he didn’t know what he had, so I lowballed it to get a sense, you know? And he snapped up the first offer like some rube from Kansas or somewhere. I figured him to negotiate some, or whine how it was his dead old granny’s, but he just said, Pay me, like that. So I did.’”

“Almost a thousand for a stupid bowl—that’s what he thought. His lucky day. But when he gets more than he figured for all the rest, it’s a pattern even he can see so he picks a classier place for the pieces he knows have real value.”

“Trading up,” Peabody suggested.

“Exactly. Three generations in business, estate sales a specialty—and the sob story about his dead parents. It dawned on his stupid ass his parents had better stuff than he’d thought. It was all crap to him, just something to sell. He went to a higher-class place because he wanted to make sure he got all he could get.”

She took a moment to get herself coffee. “I bet he was pissed he hadn’t taken more—the old stuff, the wedding canopy, the music box. Everything he considered junk. The second small satisfaction of the day,” she murmured.

“What else have you got?”

“I’m still working on finding the electronics,” Peabody told her. “He’d have to stick to the same area. What’s the point in running all over hauling comps and ’links? I just finished generating a map and time line of what I’ve got so far.”

“Send it to me. I’ll merge it with what I got from his second hotel. Let’s get it up on the board.”

“Wait.” Peabody stooped over Eve’s computer, fiddled. “You’ve got it.”

“Keep on the electronics, and the stores we nailed down. Give me a sense if we need to go by those stores for a face-to-face. We’ll work on finding a pattern. If Feeney can spare McNab, he might have a better sense of where Reinhold would try to turn the e-stuff, using the map. I’m going to head up to EDD anyway, so I’ll check.”

She glanced at the board. “I hit the morgue, the lab. Morris’s findings confirm ours, and Mira was right about the hair. According to Harpo, he took a good hank of it with him. And with her hair magic, she’s working on IDing the knife he used to whack it off. She’s got some blade guy on tap to assist.”

“Birdman?”

Eve frowned. “Yeah. Who the hell is Birdman?”

“He transferred from Chicago about six months ago. Callendar went out with him a couple times. Didn’t gel, but he’s okay. And he really knows his sharps.”

“Why isn’t he called Sharpman or Bladeguy?”

“He has a parrot.”

“That explains it. Did you read my morning report?”

“Yeah, and added Mal Golde’s name to the hotel alert. He’s probably sold everything by now, Dallas. Maybe he’ll try to run.”

“He’s not done yet. Let me talk to Feeney, then we’re going to generate a list of everyone he might go for. Relatives, friends, exes, crushes, bosses, coworkers, people who bugged him in school, teachers, doctors, neighbors.”

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