“No, not here, not anywhere else.”
“It bugs me.”
Yeah, it did, Eve thought, but turned. “Speak.”
“Okay, so you look around the place—her studio upstairs, the living space down here—and everything’s clean, really neat and tidy. Except for the art on the walls, she was a serious minimalist, and clearly liked everything clean and in its place.”
“Agreed.”
“No discarded shirt tossed on the little chair over there, no shoes kicked off anywhere to be put back on or put away later.”
“No dirty dishes—except those glasses,” Eve added. “The spread thing’s folded on top of the bench at the foot of the bed, but the sheets are tangled, half kicked off. Not sleep mode. Sex mode.”
“Maybe I can see leaving the bed messy—she’s going to smooth it out before coming back to sleep. That’s a little stretch considering how, you know, precise she was in her living style, but I don’t see her leaving those used wineglasses.”
“She used the kitchen AC at eighteen-ten last night to order up a single serving of chicken and rice with a side of brussels sprouts. Those dishes, and the ones from what she ordered for breakfast yesterday at zero-eight-twenty, lunch at thirteen-thirty-five, are in the dishwasher, clean. She programmed it to run at eighteen-twenty-eight.”
“So maybe she didn’t feel like emptying it so she could load the wineglasses, but I don’t see her leaving them in here.”
“Doesn’t fit the pattern,” Eve agreed.
“She’s having wine and sex with somebody, and all signs say consensual. But somewhere along the line, there’s an argument. Serious enough for the victim to get up, throw on some work clothes, and not follow pattern by tidying up. She’s like: ‘I’m not doing this again. We’re done. Get dressed, get out. I’m going to work.’ ”
“Following that line,” Eve said, “the dumped lover doesn’t want it to be done, doesn’t want to get out. And concludes the fight by bashing the victim with a mallet.”
“Crime of passion,” Peabody concluded. ‘ “I’ll show you who’s done, bitch!’ ”
“Decent probability on all of that. The morgue and the sweepers are on the way. Let’s have a look at the entrance door, and flag the sheets. The sweepers can take them, the glasses, and the rest.”
“They’re going to find DNA,” Peabody predicted, “but if the prints aren’t on file …”
“DNA being on file for the as-yet-unidentified lover is less likely,” Eve finished as she opened the front door, hunkered down. She put on microgoggles to study the lock, the key-card swipe.
“Cheap crap,” she muttered, “but no sign I can see of tampering. Let’s have EDD come in, check it—and see if they can tell how many times it was accessed yesterday. They can check the main door downstairs, too. Possibility: One lover storms out. ‘Fuck you, Ariel.’ She’s upstairs, music on, working. Second lover comes in. Hard to square someone without any sex toys or basic protection juggling a couple of bed partners, but maybe. Second lover sees bed, wineglasses. Why, that bitch! Walks up, bashes her. ‘That’ll teach you to cheat on me.’ ”
“Being tidy and organized doesn’t mean she wasn’t a bitch, and one tangling sheets with multiples.” Even so, Peabody sighed. “Too bad if she turns out to be a cheater, because I really like her work.”
When she heard the steps clanging, Eve replaced the goggles in her field kit. “That should be the morgue or the sweepers. Either way, let’s get them started, then go down and talk to the neighbor. She might know who the vic liked to tangle sheets with.”
2
Tall, slender, and visibly distressed, Hettie Brownstone let them into an apartment that smelled of vanilla from a candle burning on the ledge over a small electric fireplace. Unlike Byrd’s space, this one didn’t come within a mile of minimalistic.
Toys jumbled from a trio of stacked tubes in one corner and pillows forested the couch. A kind of cubby/tree inside the entrance held kid-size—and a few adult-size—shoes, boots, jackets, hats.
Dust catchers abounded.
“Is it true? There isn’t a mistake? About Ariel?”
“No, ma’am.”
Her eyes teared up, but she shook her head, gestured. “Please, sit down. I haven’t been to the market—I was going to go after getting my daughter to school, but… I have some tea, and some juice tubes.”
“We’re fine,” Eve told her.
“Can you tell me what happened? It’s awful not knowing what happened, and right upstairs from where my little girl sleeps.”
“We’re investigating.”
Brownstone dropped down in a chair, grabbed the pillow tucked in behind her, and hugged it. “The officers I talked to didn’t say, but I got the impression it wasn’t an accident.”
“No, ma’am, it wasn’t an accident.”
Now she squeezed her eyes shut. “She was so … blasé about security. The landlord’s useless when it comes to security, to improvement. Even repairs take forever. I put the camera and security locks on the apartment myself, and I can tell you I’ve learned how to do some basic plumbing. Actually, Ariel showed me how to change a washer and clean out a drain. That’s how we got to know each other.”
“How well did you know each other?”
“We’re the only tenants, both women, both single. But she’s very private, and as a single mother, a working one, I’m insanely busy most of the time. We’re friendly, but we don’t—didn’t,” she corrected, “really socialize or hang together. I teach dance six days a week, and I have Tasha. My socializing consists of playdates, trips to the park, kid vids. Ariel teaches art, and works hard and seriously at her own.”
“You had access to her unit.”
“Yes. Ariel had a cat—Rodin. She sometimes travels to art festivals, and she asked if I’d look after Rodin, go up, make sure he had food and water, give him a little company whenever she was away. He died last winter. I completely forgot to give her the key card back. And she never asked, so it slipped my mind. I gave it to the police.”
“Yes, we have it. Can you tell us about your evening?”
“Oh, sure.” She pushed both hands through a wild mass of curly black hair. “Like I told the other officers, after I picked up Tasha from school, we came home. I fixed her a snack, and she took a nap while I taught a class in my studio across the hall. I use a monitor so I can see and hear her if she wakes up. The security on the front is worthless, in my opinion, but I can’t afford to fix it myself. I keep the apartment locked if she’s sleeping and I’m teaching, but I have the monitor.”
“You know she’s safe,” Peabody put in.
“Yes.” Brownstone’s hand fluttered up to the top button of her shirt, twisted at it. “I don’t want you to think I neglect her. It’s just the two of us. Her father hasn’t been in the picture since before she was born—his choice. I filed for professional-mother status for the first six months, but …”