Page 37 of Passions in Death
“Angie… Right, right, I know Angie. Should I tag Angie? Is that better?”
“It might be.” Eve got to her feet. “Thank you for your time, for your cooperation.” Eve took out a card, laid it on his cluttered desk. “If you think of anything else, please contact either me or Detective Peabody.”
“All right.” He looked down at the card, then up at Eve. “They were getting married Saturday. Shauna asked if I’d help seat people. It doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel like it could be real.”
“He felt real,” Peabody said when they’d left.
“He did, but I’ve been in Bojo’s. You could walk to the D&D inside fifteen minutes. Let’s check the timing, Peabody. He’s one of Shauna’s good friends—why wouldn’t Albright trust him? It also feels as if he’d be the perfect backup to Donna Fleschner.”
Chapter Six
On the street, Eve strode toward the parking lot. Morning started to bleed into afternoon.
“Give me the rundown on the other ex who came up.”
“Jon Rierdon. He manages City Style Home Goods. Ooooh. Thirty, single, one cohab that lasted about eighteen months. No criminal. New York native. Moonlights as a piano player at Swank—a piano bar downtown.”
“Here’s what we’re going to do. You take Rierdon, I’m taking the player. Wade Rajinski—Crack got me his full name. Then together we’ll follow up with Hunnicut.”
“You don’t want to go to a home goods store with me?”
“If I go with you, you’ll drive me to kick your ass. I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re not in the mood to kick my ass?” Peabody did a quick dance shuffle. “It’s my lucky day.”
“I’m always in the mood to kick your ass. I’m not in the mood to be driven to do so by your drooling over light fixtures and table settings.”
“That’s fair,” Peabody decided. “And bonus? I can drool without fear.”
“Got cab fare?”
“Yeah, but I actually know this place. Just a couple stops on the subway from here.”
“Fine. Tag me when you’re done.” Eve stopped at the lot, reconsidered. “I’m leaving the car here. Rajinski’s place is walking distance, and so’s his employment. Personal trainer and yoga instructor.”
“I bet he’s pretty. Stillwater was pretty.”
“You’re going to drive me to kick your ass after all.”
“Nope. My ass is now a moving target.”
As she hustled off, Eve called after her, “I’ve got really good aim.” But she walked in the opposite direction.
She didn’t mind the noonday heat, in fact preferred it to the fake, frigid air of the interiors. And she never really tired of walking New York.
Even when it was filled with wilting, sweaty tourists. Plenty of them trudged along the sidewalk, happy to spend their money on overpriced souvenirs and scratchy T-shirts from stalls or pose for pictures with their red, shiny faces in front of a shop or by a waiting Rapid Cab.
She’d never been a tourist here, she realized. No, not even when she’d had that first slice of New York pizza at the window counter. Nearly as far back as she could clearly remember, New York had been her destination, the badge her goal.
And when she’d finally been free to get there, New York was home. Her place, her city.
She walked it now surrounded by all the sounds and smells.
Honking horns, shouted insults, a distant siren, music thumping out of a car window, voices merging in a multitude of accents, languages.
Soy dogs on the boil, crap coffee, a tangy sauce from a plate on a table at a sidewalk café. A recycler overdue for pickup, some lunching lady’s high-dollar perfume.
Every bit of it was just fine with her.
