In Death 28 - Promises in Death

her. She said good-bye, and she would see me soon. I think she was only here for fifteen minutes. Not long. Not very long.”
    “Did she usually come in alone?”
    “Most always.” Mary lifted her teacup with her elegant hands. She wore a wide gold ring, and her nails were long, painted a glossy rich red. “Once or twice she came with the man she was seeing. She called him Li. They had love all around them. I hope you won’t tell me he’s the one who hurt her.”
    “No, he’s not the one who hurt her. Thank you, Mrs. Hon. You’ve been very helpful.”
    “I’ll miss seeing her.”
    “Sadder and sadder,” Peabody said when they were back on the sidewalk. “I guess you don’t think of how many people you brush up against, or how they might remember you. The guy at your corner deli, or the owner of your favorite take-out spot. The clerk where you usually shop for clothes. Not to sound too Free-Agey, but it matters. It all matters, what we leave behind with the people we brush up against.”
    “Someone she brushed up against wanted her dead. Let’s walk from here. Follow her steps.”
    Somewhere around six, Eve calculated, Amaryllis Coltraine walked this way, carrying take-out Chinese for one. Nice day, nicer than today when the sky couldn’t make up its mind if it wanted to rain or just stay gloomy. Had she strolled, or had she picked up the New York pace and clipped right along?
    Strolled, Eve decided. What was the hurry? She wasn’t especially hungry, wouldn’t eat for an hour or so. By all appearances, she’d planned to spend the evening in, catching up on a little work.
    “Even if she took her time, less than five minutes to walk it.” Eve went in the front, as Coltraine would have, using her master where Coltraine would have used her key card. “Check her snail-mail drop.”
    Peabody used her master on the narrow box, as she had that morning. And as it had been that morning, the box was empty.
    “She’d take the stairs.”
    They walked past the elevators, cut to the right. They passed through the fire door, and Eve paused to study the layout again. Back door straight across, stairs going up and down to the right.
    “Which way was she going, out the front or the back? She didn’t have a ride, so was someone picking her up, or was she getting wherever she thought she was going on foot, subway, cab? They didn’t ambush her here. It doesn’t make sense, not if they were inside, to take her this close to the lobby fire door. Someone’s more likely to walk in from this level than any of the others.”
    “Maybe she went out the back, or started to. They were lying in wait, dropped her. They wouldn’t have had to gain access that way. She’d have opened the door.”
    “Possible. Yeah, possible. But when you hang around the rear of a building, you’re exposed. You look suspicious. Still, if you were quick enough . . . possible.”
    They started up. “The stairs are clean. No litter, no graffiti, no hand smudges on the rail or the walls—the kind you’d get from long, regular use. Most people probably take the elevator.” Eve paused on the next landing. “Here’s where I’d have taken her. Keep behind the stairs. You’d hear her coming down, be able to judge her speed. She turns here, to round for the next level, you’re facing her. Close. Blast. Done. You haul her up, or you and your accomplice haul her up, carry her down two levels. It’s not likely you’d run into anybody that time of night, but if you do, you’re armed. You just take them down, too.”
    Eve narrowed her eyes, studied Peabody. “You weigh more than she did.”
    “Thanks for reminding me of the eight pounds I can’t get off my ass.”
    “She was more my weight,” Eve continued, ignoring the sulk. “Shorter, but we weighed in close to the same. You’ve got a strong back. Haul me down to the basement.”
    “Huh?”
    “Over the shoulder. Firefighter’s carry. That’s the way he’d have done it. Leave his weapon hand free if he needs it.” Eve pressed back against the wall, imagining slapping against it from a hard stun. And let herself slide to the floor. “Haul me up, cart me down.”
    “Man.” Peabody rolled her shoulders. She squatted, grunted. It took her two tries to get Eve’s deadweight over her shoulder. And another long grunt to straighten back up.
    “I feel stupid,” she muttered as she trudged to the stairs. “Plus you’re heavier than you look.”
    “She wouldn’t’ve been a