The In Death Collection Books 16-20 - J. D. Robb [183]
Only the bars had been open after midnight, and both of them were at the far ends of the block. Though the neighborhood had already been canvassed, she swung through each place again, running the routine, asking the questions, coming away empty.
She ended up standing at the mouth of the alley again with the beat cop, the neighborhood security droid, and Peabody.
“Like I said,” the cop named Henley told her, “I knew her, the way you know the locals LCs. She never caused any trouble. Technically, they’re not supposed to use the alley or any public access for work, but most of them do. We roust them now and again for it.”
“She ever complain about any john getting rough or hassling her?”
“Wouldn’t have.” Henley shook his head. “She steered clear of me, and the droid. Give me a little nod if we passed each other on patrol, but she wasn’t the friendly sort. We get some rough stuff in this sector—johns and janes slapping an LC around. You got some mopes coming through mugging them, and sometimes they wave a sticker around. Had some use ’em, but not like this. Never had anything like this.”
“I want a copy of any reports where they used a sticker, any kind of blade.”
“I can get that for you, Lieutenant,” the droid told her. “How far back do you want to go?”
“Give me a full year. Keep it to attacks on women, with LCs the priority. Maybe he practiced first.”
“Yes, sir. Where should I transmit?”
“Send it to me at Central. Henley, where’s the safest place to park in this area? Street or underground, not a surface lot or port.”
“Well, you want quiet, lower crime, probably you’d go west, maybe Lafayette. You want busy, so there’s too much going on for anybody to mess with your ride, you could hike it up the other side of Canal, into Little Italy. Restaurants stay open late.”
“Okay, we’re going to try this. One of you take from here to Lafayette, the other head north. Ask residents, merchants who might have been around at that time of night, if they noticed a guy alone carrying a bag. Some kind of bag, good-sized one. He’d’ve been moving along pretty quick, no meandering, and going for a car. Talk to the LCs,” she added. “One of them may have tried to hustle him and got brushed off.”
“Long shot, sir,” Peabody said when they’d split off again.
“Somebody saw him. They don’t know it, but they saw him. We get lucky, jog a few memories.” She stood on the sidewalk, baking in the heat as she scanned the street.
“We’re going to have to see how much we can stretch the budget for added security and surveillance for a square mile around this scene. He’ll stick to the mile, stick to the script. And it played too well for him the first time—he’s not going to want to wait too long before act two.”
Chapter 6
It was a difficult meeting for him to take. It had to be done, and Roarke could only hope that some of the weight he was carrying at the base of his skull would lift once it was over.
He’d put it off too long already, and that wasn’t like him. Then again, he hadn’t felt completely like himself since he’d met Moira O’Bannion, and she’d told him her tale.
His mother’s story.
Life, he thought, as he stared out the wide window wall of his midtown office, could take a big chunk out of your ass when you were least prepared for it.
It was after five already, and his timing had been deliberate. He’d wanted to meet with Moira at the end of the day, so that there was no business to be done afterward. So that he could go home and try to shift it all aside with an evening out with his wife.
His interoffice ’link beeped, and damn him, he nearly jolted.
“Yes, Caro.”
“Ms. O’Bannion’s here.”
“Thanks. Bring her back.”
He watched the traffic, air and sky, and thought idly that the trip home would be a bit of a bitch just now. The commuter trams were already loaded, and from his lofty perch he could see dozens of tired, irritable faces packed together like rowers on a slave ship for the hot journey home.
On