Page 110 of Random in Death
“Management will honor all tickets dated for tonight at another showing,” Peabody reminded him. “Or afford a full refund.”
“Yeah, like that makes up for it. Cops are assholes.”
“Are you twenty-one, Jerry?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Well, it appears to me you haven’t reached that legal age as yet, and you’ve spent some of your time in here nipping off whatever’s in the bottle in your coat pocket.”
Deliberately, Eve took a sniff. “My guess is gin.”
The flush that rose up his throat and into his face equaled the perfect tell.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I may be an asshole cop, but I know gin when I smell it on some whiny fuckhead’s breath. No alcohol permitted in this theater. Add the underage element, and you and your pals—who’ve wisely stayed quiet—could end up spending some time in the tank.
“You’ve got two choices,” she continued. “The tank’s one of them, and given the hour, you probably won’t be able to post bail until the morning. You might find spending the night in the tank educational. Second choice is to take a tip from your friends. Say nothing and walk away.”
She stepped aside so he could. He took the second choice.
“You know,” Eve observed, “it may not be tonight, but Jerry’s eventually going to have that educational experience.
“Status.”
“First, what’s Rosenburg’s status?”
“She was awake, reasonably lucid, and her doctor says she’ll make a full recovery.”
“Excellent news.” Peabody eased back in her seat, rubbed at her tired eyes. “Next, I knew he’d been drinking, and he was a fuckwit, but I thought it more practical to just get through the interview and move him along in the interest of time.”
“Agreed. I, however, enjoy making a little time for fuckwits. Next?”
“We’ve been through several who state they saw someone run out the emergency exit, the one on this side, and those accounts vary. A male, a female, a kid, an old guy, Black, white, big, small. You know how it goes.”
“Yeah.”
“But we may have something from a wit who was working the concession stand. Sharlie Weaver, age twenty-three. She noticed the vic because of the hair. Really long, thick, straight, and really red.”
“That’s accurate.”
“She’s been thinking about going red—Sharlie—so she got a good look. And remembers there was someone in a trench just behind her. She assumed with the same group, as he approached the concessions more or less with them, but walked away without ordering anything when they had their snacks.”
“Did she see his face?”
“Again, she only noticed him because she was looking at the victim’s hair, but she noticed the trench because—I quote—‘the rest of the group weren’t flakers.’ She said he had his head down when they walked away, and he was wearing shades.”
“Shades? At ten at night? Inside?”
“It’s a look, Dallas. But she’s pretty sure she caught a glimpse of his profile. She definitely ID’d him as white and about the same height as the redhead. She thinks his hair was brown, and—again quoting—‘floppy,’ flopping over his face so she didn’t really see it.”
“It’s a wig.”
“You think?”
“His clothes, Peabody. Button shirt, expensive dress shoes—freaking tassel—quality pants. Who’s going to put him in those and let his hair flop around? A wig, longer than his hair, helping to hide his face. Shades do the same. We need her to work with Yancy.”
“She’s willing, and I sent him a text on it. He can make time tomorrow.”