Calculated in Death

black, maybe dark blue, maybe dark gray. No idea of make, model, plates. Her privacy screen hung up, and she was trying to fix it, thinks she saw a van over here. And she says she’s sure the lights were on in the lower apartment. She noticed that especially as she’s been watching the rehab progress. She figured the van was one of the crew, working late.”
    “What time?”
    “About ten-thirty, she says, give or take a few minutes. She messed with the screen awhile, then went for her cohab. He was sleeping in his chair, kicked off watching the screen. I talked to him via ’link. He doesn’t remember one way or the other. We knocked on a lot of doors. In a neighborhood like this, people mostly open up for the cops. But a lot of people were out during this canvass. We’ll follow up in a few hours.”
    “Good enough. How did Turney do?”
    Carmichael smiled a little. “She don’t give up.”
    “Take her on the second pass if she wants it.” Let her see, Eve thought. Homicide, like most cop work, was walking, waiting, asking questions, and paperwork.
    She walked down the stairs, broke the seal, entered the apartment.
    Nothing to see, really. Same as it had been, but for the fine layer of dust left by the sweepers, and that on-the-edge-of-nasty chemical smell that clung to the air.
    They didn’t take her farther than the front living space. No need to drag it out. Privacy-screened windows—lights showed through, but not movement, not activity. Good soundproofing. A dozen people might have walked by on the sidewalk, they’d never have heard her scream.
    They took her briefcase, that was more than show, more than cover. That was part of the job. Take her work, her files, her memo book, her tablet, whatever she’d carried.
    The woman had two kids at home. She wouldn’t have played the hero. And for what? Numbers, someone else’s money? She’d have told them whatever they wanted to know, if she knew it.
    She didn’t fight back. Did she believe they’d let her go if she told them, gave them, cooperated.
    “Makes the most sense,” Eve murmured as she circled the room. “Tell us, give us, what we want, and it doesn’t have to get ugly.”
    She’d believe them because the alternative was too terrifying.
    Peabody came in and brought the scent of something wonderful with her.
    “Chicken noodle soup and twisty herb bread. They make it on site, right there. I got us both a large go-cup. Did Carmichael find you?”
    “Yeah. Possible wit on a van parked out front, but no description of said van other than dark. Push the search on that, on the Cargo.” Eve took the go-cup Peabody offered, sniffed, sampled. “Jesus. That’s freaking good.”
    “It’s freaking uptown squared. I started mine on the way back. The smell nearly killed me. It tastes a lot like my granny’s.”
    “There’s probably something illegal in here. I don’t care.” She hadn’t realized how far she’d been flagging herself until she felt her energy rise up again.
    “They got what they wanted from her,” Eve stated. “If she’d said she didn’t know, didn’t have, whatever, they’d have messed her up more, broken some fingers, blackened her eye, hurt her until she gave it up, or they were sure she didn’t have it. They got what they wanted, pretty quick, pretty easy.”
    “And they killed her anyway.”
    “They were always going to kill her. Whatever she knew, had, did—they couldn’t have her pass it to anyone else, talk about it. Her work, and this place, either the owners or somebody on the construction crew. My money’s on the owners, but we’ll see about the construction people. A job like this, they went high-end. High-end construction firms make plenty. And I bet audits aren’t out of the ordinary.”
    Eve bit off a hunk of bread. “Got to be illegal. Let’s go talk to the wit and his partners.”
    “You still want to talk to Candida, right?”
    “After, if you can stay awake long enough to track her down.”
    “I’m totally charged up again. Maybe I should go buy a gallon of that soup. No! I’ll e-mail my granny, and I’ll sweet-talk her into sending me some.”
    “You have no shame, or guile.” Eve led the way out, still sipping soup. “You e-mail her and tell her you just had some soup that’s as good as hers—subtext, maybe better—and it made you think about her, blah blah. How good it was, on a cold, crappy day in New York, yadda, yadda. She’ll cook up a batch and ship it out to prove