Born In Death

“You’re doing fine,” Baxter told her. “You’re doing just fine.”

“I ran. I think – it’s all blurry. Did I scream? I think I screamed her name and I ran and I tried to lift her up, to shake her awake, even though I knew…I didn’t want her to be dead. Her face was bruised and bloody, and her eyes. I knew she was dead. There was tape around her hands.”

As if she’d just remembered, she sent Eve a shocked look. “Oh, God, her hands, her ankles. They were taped.” Palma pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. “I needed to call for help, but I got sick before I could get out, get my ’link out of my bag, I got sick. Then I ran out. I couldn’t stay in there, so I ran out and called nine-one-one, and I sat down on the steps. I should’ve gone back in, stayed with her. I shouldn’t have left her alone like that.”

“You did exactly the right thing.” Baxter picked up the water cup, handed it to her again. “Exactly the right thing.”

“Did she tell you anyone was bothering her?” Eve asked.

“No, but some thing was bothering her. I could tell. She looked upset when I talked to her earlier, but when I asked what was wrong, she said it was nothing to worry about. She just had a lot on her mind.”

“She was seeing someone? A man?”

“Bick! Oh, my God, Bick. I didn’t even think of him.” Eyes flooded again; she pressed both hands to her mouth. “They’re engaged. They’re going to be married next May. Oh, my God, I have to tell him.”

“What’s his full name?”

“Bick, Bick Byson. They work together – well, for the same company. Different departments. Nat’s a senior account executive at Sloan, Myers, and Kraus – accounting. Bick’s a money manager there. They’ve been together almost two years now. How can I tell him?”

“It’d be better if we did that.”

“And my parents.” She began to rock, back and forth, back and forth. “I have to tell them. I don’t want to do it over the ’link. Do I have to stay here? I need to go home, to Cleveland, and tell them Nat’s gone. Nat.”

“We can talk about that after we’re done here,” Eve told her. “Were your sister and her fiancé having any problems?”

“No. I don’t know of any. They’re crazy about each other. I guess I thought maybe they’d had a fight and that’s why she was upset earlier. All the wedding plans, you get stressed out. But they’re really happy together. They’re great together.”

“Did she have an engagement ring?”

“No.” Palma took another long breath. “They decided against one – saving their money. Bick’s great, but he’s pretty frugal. Nat didn’t mind. Well, Nat’s the same way, you know? Save it for a rainy day.”

“He didn’t live with her? Save money paying rent.”

“She wouldn’t let him.” For the first time Palma smiled again, and Eve could see how Baxter had been attracted. “She said they were going to wait for that until they were married. We’re pretty old-fashioned in my family. I think my parents like to believe Nat wasn’t even having sex with Bick. They loved each other,” she murmured. “They were good together.”

“Were there any problems at work?”

“She never said. I haven’t seen her for about three weeks. I had a chance to take the New L.A. to Hawaii run for ten days, then I took a vacation out there with a couple of girlfriends. I’d just gotten back on the Vegas to New York run. I talked to her a couple of times, but…We were going to catch up, go shopping, go over wedding plans. She never said anything about a problem, work or otherwise, but I know something was wrong. I just wasn’t paying enough attention.”

Eve stepped out with Baxter. “You know anything about this fiancé of the vic’s?”

“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “ Palma said something about her sister getting engaged. She was lit up about it, which is why… I backed off. Those things can be catching.”

“Your commitment issues don’t enter in, so set them aside. It helped you being in there with her, familiar face leveled her out some. Why don’t you get her to a shuttle – stay on the clock. See she gets off to her parents.”

“Appreciate that, Lieutenant. I can take lost time to do it.”

“Stay on the clock,” she repeated. “Make sure she understands I need her available. I want to know where she is, when she comes back. The usual routine.”

“No problem. Feel so damn sorry for her. You’re going to look at the boyfriend.”

“Next stop.”

Byson didn’t show at the office.” Peabody hoofed it onto a glide behind Eve. “Which, according to his assistant, isn’t the norm. Hardly ever misses, and always checks in if he’s going to take off or be late. She tried him at home, and on his pocket ’link, being concerned, and couldn’t reach him.”

“Got his home addy?”

“Yeah, he’s on Broome in Tribeca. According to his chatty assistant, he and the vic just bought the loft, and he’s staying there while they’re having some reno done before the wedding.”

“We’ll try him there.”

“Could have rabbited,” Peabody said as she hustled off one glide and hotfooted to the garage elevator. “Fights with fiancé, goes off on her, runs home. Runs away.”

“It wasn’t personal.”

Peabody ’s eyebrows knitted as they clipped off the elevator and across the garage. “Those kind of facial injuries, and face-to-face strangulation often are.”

“We find any tools on the crime scene?”

“Tools?”

“Screwdriver, hammer, laser scope?”

“No. What does…Oh.” Nodding now, Peabody slid into the passenger seat. “The duct tape. If she didn’t have any basic tools, why would she have duct tape? Killer brought it with him, which lessens the possibility of crime of passion.”

“No sexual assault added to that. Broken locks. When the vic’s sister talked to her hours before the murder, she got no indication of trouble in paradise. It wasn’t personal,” Eve repeated. “It was business.”

The loft was in an old, well-preserved building in a neighborhood where people painted their stoops and sat out on them on warm summer evenings. The windows facing the street were wide, to afford the tenants a view of the traffic, and the shops ran from the mom-and-pop bakery/deli to the snazzy little boutiques where a pair of shoes cost the equivalent of a quick trip to Paris and would turn your feet into a study in misery. Some of the units sported the luxury of balconies where, Eve imagined, people stuck plants and chairs in the good weather so they could sit and sip something cold while they watched their world go by. From the looks of the exterior, it was a major step up from the Jane Street address, and one suited to the combined incomes of a couple of young, urban professionals on the rise.

Byson didn’t respond to the buzzer, but before Eve could use her master, a woman’s voice piped through the speaker. “You looking for Mr. Byson?”

“That’s right.” There was a security screen, and Eve held up her badge. “Police. You want to buzz us in?”

“Hold on.”

The door buzzed; the locks clicked. They stepped into a tiny communal lobby where someone had gone to the trouble to set a leafy green plant in a colorful pot. Because she heard the elevator clanging its way down, Eve waited.

The woman who stepped off was dressed in a red sweater and gray pants, with her brown hair pulled back in a stubby tail from a pretty face. She had a baby of indeterminant age and sex perched on her hip.

“I buzzed you in,” she said. “I’m Mr. Byson’s neighbor. What’s the problem?”

“That’s something we need to discuss with him.”

“I don’t know if he’s home.” She jiggled the baby as she spoke. The kid stared owlishly at Eve, then plugged its thumb in its mouth and sucked as if it contained opium. “He should be at work this time of day.”

“He’s not.”

“It’s weird, because I usually hear him leave. We’re on the same floor, and I hear the elevator. Didn’t catch it today. And he had the plumber scheduled, turns out. When they’re having one of the crews in – they’re rehabbing – he stops by, asks me if I can let them in, you know? He didn’t do that today, so I didn’t. You can’t be sure. Might be somebody with a pipe wrench just going in to rob the place.”