New York to Dallas

“A couple of the neighbors said the FBI was here before when we were out. Now the police.”
    “Do you know a woman calling herself Sarajo Whitehead?”
    “Yeah, the neighbors said the FBI asked about her. She used to live here. Second floor. She moved out a while back. Eight, ten months, maybe. Why? She did something, didn’t she?” Becky continued before Eve could speak. “The FBI people didn’t really say, but Earleen—my neighbor—she could tell. And now you’re here, too. I never liked that woman—Sarajo, I mean, not Earleen.”
    Chip came by his talkative nature honestly, Eve decided. “Why is that?”
    “She could barely be bothered to say a friendly hello. I know she worked nights, mostly, but I don’t appreciate anybody yelling at my kid—all the kids.”
    Becky put her hands on her hips as she looked over the racing, shouting kids with the mother’s version of the beady eye.
    “They got a right to play out here in good weather, and in broad daylight for heaven’s sake. Told her that myself, after she yelled and used swears at those kids one too many times. Told her she ought to get herself some earplugs or whatever.”
    Becky looked back at Eve. “What did she do?”
    “We’ll know more about that when we locate her. Did she have any visitors?”
    “The only person I ever saw go in or out of there except her was another woman. Young, pretty.”
    “This woman?” Eve showed her Melinda’s photo.
    “Yeah, that’s the one. She’s not in trouble with the police, is she? She seemed so nice.”
    “No, she’s not. You don’t remember seeing anyone else?”
    “Well, yeah, a man came once. A really fat man. Said she worked for him, and he was looking for her. But she’d already gone by then. Just left one day. Left the furniture, too. Turned out it was rented. She paid it up-to-date though, rent, too. The landlady told me. Anyway, I wasn’t sorry to see her gone.”
    Eve waited a moment. “There’s something else.”
    Becky glanced around, shifted. “It’s just something I think. I can’t swear to it.”
    “Anything you know, think, saw, heard. It’s all helpful.”
    “I don’t like accusing anybody—even her—of something, but the FBI, for heaven’s sake. Now the police. Well . . . I think she was on something. At least sometimes.”
    “Illegals.”
    “Yeah. I think. I had a cousin who got sucked into that scene, so I know the signs. Her eyes, the jittery moves. I know I smelled zoner on her, more than once. When we got into it about the kids, I said she oughta take a little more of whatever she was popping or smoking so she’d pass out and wouldn’t hear them. I shouldn’t have said it, but I was riled up.
    “She gave me such a look. I have to say, it scared me some. She shut the door in my face, and I went home. The next morning, I go out to my car to go to work. My husband’s rig’s parked next to me. Every one of his tires is slashed. I know she did it. I know I’m accusing her again, but I just know it. But how’re you going to prove that? Besides I’m the one had words with her, not Jake. He doesn’t get riled up like I do. If she’d slashed my tires maybe I could’ve gotten the cops on her.
    “Jake, he needs that rig to get to work. He lost a whole day getting new tires.”
    “Did you report it?”
    “Sure. You’ve got to for the insurance, though it didn’t cover it all. Jake didn’t want me to say anything about her, so I didn’t. She’d have denied it anyway, and maybe done something worse. I stayed clear of her the best I could after that. So I wasn’t sorry when she took off.”
    Eve talked to a few more neighbors, but she had everything she needed from Becky Robbins.
    “The ball’s still rolling,” she said to Roarke as they headed back to the hotel. “She could pull off the hardworking, no-trouble-here woman at work. But at home, well, that’s home.”
    “Where you want to relax,” he commented. “And be more yourself.”
    “Yeah. You’re entitled to some of your illegals of choice in your own home, entitled to some quiet when you want it, entitled to have your bitch of a neighbor leave you the hell alone. And when she gets in your face, you’re entitled to payback. You know how to get it, too. The best way. Go after the primary breadwinner’s ride to work. Fuck with that, fuck with the whole family where it hurts. In the money bag.”
    “She has a temper,” Roarke added, “and a mean streak. No fondness for children,