The Other Side - J. D. Robb [8]
“Yeah, wedding ring, or in any case a plain gold band, the cross pendant along with a second pendant, starburst pattern with a pale blue center stone, gold earrings. No bag, no purse, but if it were a violent mugging, why not take the jewelry?”
She slid her sealed hand into the pocket on the side of the skirt, closed her fingers over a little bag. It was snowy white, felt like silk, and tied precisely with silver cord in three knots.
She knew what it was even before she untied it and examined the contents. She’d seen this sort of thing before. “Woo-woo,” she said to Lopez.
“What?”
“Magic stuff. Witchcraft or whatever. We got herbs, little crystals. I’d say she hedged her bets. Amulet and crucifix—and a spell deal in her pocket. Didn’t help her.”
Though she’d already noted time of death, she used her gauge to confirm. “Damn it, this thing must be broken. It’s given me TOD at just past thirteen hundred. She died right here in front of us at sixteen-forty-two.”
“Her skin’s cold,” Lopez murmured.
“We watched her die.” Eve pushed to her feet, turning as Peabody jogged up, Morris in her wake.
“This wasn’t on the party schedule,” Peabody said as she looked at the body.
“I bet it wasn’t on hers either.” Eve took the weapon and harness she’d asked Peabody to bring, and after strapping it on covered it with the jacket her partner held out.
She sat on the curb, changed her skids for her boots.
“You need to get a statement from Father Lopez so we can spring him. Have one of the uniforms drive him back when you’re done. You didn’t have to come,” she said to Morris. “I notified your people.”
“I called them off. I’m right here, after all.”
“Actually, I can use the head guy. My gauge is wonky. I recorded TOD as the damn TOD, since she died in front of me. But my gauge is putting it almost four hours earlier. Cause is pretty clear, but you might find something else. If you can take over on the body, I want to get on this blood trail, find the kill spot.”
“Go ahead.”
She followed the blood west.
The neighborhood was quiet. Maybe the heat kept people inside, she thought, or maybe most of them were at the sale at the Sky Mall or at the beach. But there was some pedestrian and street traffic.
Had no one seen a staggering, bleeding old woman and tried to help? Even for New York, that was too cold to believe. But the trail continued west for two blocks, right over crosswalks—as if the dying had felt obliged not to jaywalk. Then it headed north.
Buildings older here, she noted, squat towers of apartments and day flops, tiny markets and delis, the 24/7s, coffee shops, bakeries, and bodegas—and more people out and about on their Saturday business.
She continued another three blocks, then jogged north where the trail led into the mouth of a narrow alley between buildings.
And there, without question, was the kill spot.
Deep in the narrow trench, shadowed by overhangs, stinking of garbage from an overfilled recycler, blood splattered the pocked concrete walls, drenched the filthy ground.
She hitched open her field kit for a flashlight and played it over the walls, the ground, the neatly tied bag of trash beside the recycler.
“Did you tie that, Gizi? Bringing out the trash? Do you work here, live here? What were you doing in the alley otherwise? And how the hell did you walk better than six blocks after he sliced you to pieces? And why? Help would have been right around the corner.”
Crouching, she unknotted the trash bag. Fruit and vegetable peelings, she noted, packaging from a small loaf of bread, an empty box of powdered milk, a long, slim bottle that had held some sort of wine . . .
She retied the bag, tagged it for evidence, and shifting it, found the key.
Old, heavy, she noted as she studied it. But then there were old buildings here that might still run to straight lock and key. She turned to the alley door and its keypad. Entrance digitally secured, but inside?
She’d have to see.
She bagged the key, labeled it, then walked back to the alley door and tried to see it.
Wants