“The almost-getting-murdered thing.”

  “That.” She grinned. “Now I’m eating pizza. Anyway, we all saw the vid.”

  “It was totally mag, but I thought mostly made-up.” David gulped down lemonade. “Now I guess maybe not.”

  “Maybe not. Kiki—”

  “Do you know what he did? The totally richest guy? We get a private showing.” She grinned again, but like Andrea, tears sparkled in her eyes. “He made it so we can all go to see Return. The doctor said tomorrow because I have to rest and all today. Plus, it has to be in the morning, like ten o’clock before the theater even opens, because they’re mostly sold out and all that this week.”

  “It’s really solid of him,” Presley said. “He doesn’t even know us.”

  “It’s what he does.” Eve gave up, picked up the pizza. After one bite she decided Kiki hadn’t exaggerated her mother’s talents by much.

  “This is amazing.” Taking Eve’s cue, Peabody ate.

  “Told ya. Anyway, he didn’t have to do something so nice. I sort of remember him from last night. Because he’s got that voice and that face. I mean, yum-yum.”

  “Kiki!” But Andrea laughed as she said it.

  “True is true.” Lola lifted her shoulders. “Add yum three.”

  “It means a lot, to all of us.” Connie ladled sauce onto a third round of dough.

  “I’ll let him know. Kiki—”

  “So how come you—”

  “Kiki.” Connie cut her off. “Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody have a job to do. A very serious job. And it isn’t answering your questions.”

  With the warning, she set the second pizza on the table, then stroked a hand over her daughter’s hair.

  “Sorry.”

  “No problem. We’re glad you’ve recovered, and because you have, because you’re all here, we’d like to go over what happened. What you remember. Take us through it again.”

  Kiki grabbed another slice.

  “Okay, well, after we got in—and that took a while even though we had tickets—and we got our vid food, we went in. They had previews going, and we started down to our seats. Then it felt like somebody stabbed me.” She rubbed a hand on her arm. “I’d kind of banged up my arm trying a change-up on a loop. Fail!”

  But she laughed as she ate.

  “I didn’t think it was that bad, and they fixed that up at the hospital. Con-TU-sion.” She rolled her eyes. “But when he stuck me with the needle, it practically exploded. It really hurt, and I honest to God thought somebody stabbed me. I was so pissed. I know I swung around. I was going to punch that asshole.”

  “Ignoring the language rules only lasts so long,” Connie warned.

  “It should be at least twenty-four hours. I think I screamed.”

  “You did.” Lola nodded. “Like split the ears open. And you kept screaming.”

  “I thought somebody stuck a knife in my arm, so screaming’s required. And he sort of stumbled back, all surprised and whatever.”

  “You saw his eyes.”

  “Giant WTF eyes.” She mimed them.

  “Was his mouth open like that, too?”

  “I—I guess, yeah. Yeah, now that you say it. Mom said a police artist’s coming in a while, but I don’t know if I can make a real picture.”

  “That’s Detective Yancy’s job.”

  “I guess. He started shoving and running. I was going to run after him and punch him, but it was too crowded. And I had on my favorite jacket, and I was trying to take it off, looking down at the sleeve because I thought there’d be blood all over it. But there wasn’t. And everyone was yelling, and I’d spilled my popcorn and fizzy.”

  “The light came on,” Presley added. “And everybody was yelling, and they were going to kick us out for, you know, creating a disturbance.”

  “Then I didn’t feel right, and I got sick. The yelling was so loud my head started banging, and my arm was on fire, then my legs felt wrong. I don’t remember much after. It gets blurry, then I was in the ambulance.”

  “Let’s go back. You saw his face when you turned. He was behind you.”

  “I started to turn,” Kiki corrected. “He was kind of beside me and behind. Beside my bad arm.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “No. Maybe. It was loud, then I was screaming. Nothing’s ever hurt like that did. I remember that. I really remember that.”

  “David, you saw him when you were getting popcorn.”

  “Sort of. Pieces of him. The shoes, the trench. I think sunshades. I tried to go back in my head.”

  “A white kid.”

  “Yeah, short dude. I was just sort of glancing around like you do when you’re waiting. But mostly the four of us were talking and getting the vid snacks. I didn’t pay attention. He was just some dude with crappy shoes who didn’t know enough to beat up his trench. Trying to look chill.”

  “Fail,” Kiki said, and made him smile.

  “Major fail.”

  With the third pizza on the table, the moms took a seat.

  “David’s parents are fine with him working with the police artist, too.” Connie slid a slice onto her plate.

  “We appreciate that. Kiki, can you think of anyone who reminds you of him? Someone at school, at the boarder park, around the neighborhood?”

  “No, not … Barry Finklestein!”

  The name had Lola letting out a wild giggle.

  “From school?” Eve pressed.

  “Yeah. It wasn’t him, for abso-poso, but you said remind me. And not so much me, but what David said.”

  “Tell me about Barry.”

  “Oh man, I don’t want to get him in trouble. It really wasn’t him.”

  “We’ve got that, so you won’t. Why does he remind you?”

  “Well, he’s short, and not just white, but pasty-like. And he’s short, pudgy, too.”

  “That’s unkind, Kiki.”

  “Mom, I’m just trying to answer.”

  “He is, Ms. R.” Lola backed her up.

  “So, short and white and carrying some extra weight. That’s why he reminds you.”

  “Some of it. I don’t think the murdering guy was pudgy.”

  “No.” David shook his head. “He wasn’t. I think I’d have noticed that. I remember Barry. He wouldn’t have known to beat up his trench.”

  “He wouldn’t! That’s what I mean. I don’t think he has one, but he dresses like his aunt Matilda picks out his clothes. I mean, he’s just clueless. He’s got a real brain. I mean he’s super smart, but clueless on real stuff.”

  “Aces everything. I mean everything. He can be a real … Twenty-four hours on the language rules?”

  Andrea just waved a hand at her son.

  “A real shit about it. Brags a lot if he can get anyone to listen. Even the nerds mostly ignore him. He wouldn’t get bullied so much if he’d just shut up about how smart he is.”

  “We don’t bully him,” Kiki said quickly. “I swear. We don’t roll that way, and if we did? He’s not worth the time. Anyway, I’d have recognized him for sure.”

  “But he’s a type?”

  Kiki shot up a finger. “Yeah, that’s it. Going off David, and what I sort of saw. He’s a type. Without the pimples. Barry’s always got at least one exploding on his face. Dude! There’s treatment for that.”

  “And the one who attacked you had clear skin?”

  “I … Yeah. I think, yeah.”

  Saw more of him than you think. And Yancy would dig it out.

  She went another round, nudging here, nudging there, but accepted she’d gotten all she’d get.

  “We appreciate your time and cooperation,” Eve began, “and the pizza.”

  “I wish I’d punched him,” Kiki murmured. “Not just for me, but for those two other girls. We talked about going to Club Rock It the other night, but it was Meem’s—our great-grandmother’s—birthday. I wouldn’t have had the bruise if he’d picked me then. I read about her, the one he killed, this morning.

  “You were out talking to the doctor,” Kiki told her mothers. “And I looked it up. They had her memorial today. Jenna Harbough, she was my age. And I looked up the second one, Arlie Dillon. Hers is day after tomorrow.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you think I could go to that, maybe tell her mom I’m sorry about what happened to her? And maybe, sometime, talk to the first girl’s mom and dad and tell them?”

  “Oh, Kiki.” Andrea’s eyes streamed. “That’s so kind. I’m just not sure if it’s appropriate, but it’s so kind.”

  “I’m sure. We’ve spoken to Jenna’s parents, to Arlie’s mother. It is kind,” Eve said, “and appropriate. And I think they’d very much appreciate you making that gesture.”

  “Can I go?”

  The two women joined hands. “We’ll all go,” Connie said. “Would you mind, Lieutenant, checking with them first? We don’t want to overstep.”

  Eve glanced at Peabody, who nodded. “I’ll do that, and get back to you.”

  Kiki looked Eve dead in the eye. “You’re going to get him, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll repeat. It’s what we do.”

  * * *

  “That nearly teared me up,” Peabody said when they stepped outside. “You think a girl that age doesn’t think beyond the moment, and a lot of times it’s true. But she’s thought of what her own family would go through if he’d succeeded. And that led her to think what others are going through.”

  “She’s tough. And you know, if she’d managed to clock him? We’d have his ass. He’d have been down.”

  She got behind the wheel. “And she saw more than she thinks.”

  “Yeah, I got that. Yancy will slide it out of her. And there’s the wit from concessions, there’s David, there’s A.J., there’s Hank. We may just have a face to work with.”

  “He’s a type.” She stayed parked while she rolled it around. “We knew that, but it helps our survivor sees it that way. A type. I wonder if our teenage killer has an aunt Matilda who picks out his clothes.”

  “You’re not looking at this Barry Finklestein.”

  “No. She’d have recognized him. On line for a while? Yeah, you do glance around some. If she’d seen somebody she knew—and clearly disdains—she’d have said something to Lola, at least. But the type. Smart but clueless.

  “Check with the two victims’ families about Kiki reaching out. We’ll push on the goddamn shoes.”

  “That pizza,” Peabody said as Eve pulled away from the curb. “I ate two slices. Couldn’t help it. I should’ve thought of doing a pizza oven in my mag-o new kitchen. Too late for that, but you know, I could build one.”

  “Build an oven? What the hell, Peabody?”

  “I could. Outside, with the grill. Do a kind of outdoor kitchen. Brick-oven pizza! Maybe wood burning. Man, that would be a really fun project.”

  “Your definition of fun doesn’t approach the same universe as my definition of fun.”

  “You’d have fun eating pizza made in my new wood-burning brick pizza oven.”

  “There is that. Make the tags.”

  They spent over an hour pushing on the shoes. The single lead they gleaned from that took them to a twelve-year-old boy—inches shorter than five-six—whose mother bought them for him to wear to his All-State Orchestra competition the previous spring.

  He played the piccolo. They placed second.

  Since she verified he, his parents, and his two younger siblings had spent the weekend at an amusement park upstate, she had no trouble crossing him off the suspect list.

  Pulling into Central’s garage, about to deem the damn shoes a dead end, she got a tag.

  “Three hits, Lieutenant,” Officer Carmichael told her.

  “Gimme.”

  “Arnold Post, age fifty-two, bought a pair, size eleven for himself, and a size seven for his son, Junior, age sixteen. Matched set, in April. Second hit, three pair, size six and a half, charged to Kevin J. Fromer, black brogues, navy ankle boots, and the loafers. All last March. Last hit, five pair, sir. Black lace-up, brown brogues with buckle, ankle boots, black, navy house skids, and the loafers. Charged to Allisandra Charro in March.”

  “Send me the addresses. We’ll take them.”

  “Yes, sir. We’re only a few blocks from the Post residence if you want to us to take that one.”

  “Take it. Send the other two.”

  She backed out of her parking space. “Who buys five pair of shoes at one time?”

  “Me, if I could.”

  “Plug in the addresses, then do a run on all three.”

  “Fromer’s closest.” Peabody programmed the address. “Charro’s uptown. Okay, okay, Arnold Post. One marriage, one divorce, one offspring—that would be Arnold Junior. CFO Livingston Wine and Spirits. No criminal, a handful of civil suits. Junior attends Breckinridge Academy. He’s five-eight, Dallas. Decent grades, but not the big brain sort. Caucasian, blond and blue. Good-looking kid, on the smirky side.”

  Needed to check it out, Eve thought, but he didn’t buzz.

  “Fromer.”

  “Two marriages, one divorce. Second marriage going into year twenty, so it looks like it stuck. Two offspring from that: son, Lance, age seventeen; daughter, Marnie, age thirteen. Fromer’s an estate attorney. Spouse, Arlene, maintained professional mother status until two years ago when she went back to work as an event planner. Runs her own shop.

  “The son, Lance, comes in at five-eleven. That’s above our range, and he’s mixed race.”

  “We check it out anyway.”

  “The last, Allisandra Charro, age forty-one, single. Hell, Dallas, she’s a professional shopper.”

  “So are half the people in this city at this very moment in time.”

  “I mean that’s her job. She shops for people who don’t want to. Like Roarke does for you. But for a living, not for fun. I don’t get it.”

  “Shopping? Neither do I.”

  “No, I mean, don’t you—not you specifically, obviously—want to browse, see what’s out there? I mean, you tell somebody you want a black, bucket-style handbag, and they bring you one. How do you know it’s the one you really, really want without seeing the vast universe of black, bucket-style handbags first?”

  Eve took a moment to wonder why anyone wanted a purse that looked like a bucket, then let it go.

  “She bought the shoes for somebody. She’d have records. She has to. It fits, too, doesn’t it? Parents or guardians don’t want to take the time to shop for the kid. Hire somebody to take care of it. Fromer first. We’re nearly there. But the personal shopper fits.”

  Fromer wasn’t home, but his event-planning wife was.

  A tall, almost majestic blonde in a sharp white suit, she frowned at the badges. “Is there some sort of trouble? You just caught me. I have a meeting.”

  “You may be able to help us in an investigation. Is your son at home, Ms. Fromer?”

  “Lance? No. He’s spending the week at the beach with some friends. Is he all right? Is there—”

  “I’m sure he’s fine. Your husband charged a pair of these shoes.” Eve held up her ’link.

  “Those?” She laughed, and Eve heard the relief. “Not for himself or for Lance. Way too conservative for my guys.”

  “They were charged to Mr. Fromer’s account, purchased at Dellan’s.”

  “When?”

  “In March.”

  “March, March.” Frowning again, she took out her ’link, flipped through its calendar. “Oh, Mickey’s birthday. Our nephew. I swear the kid will probably grow up to be president. I think Kevin picked up three pair. The kid’s a shoe hound, and those are what he wanted. Thirteenth birthday,” she added. “So we splurged on him some. What’s this about?”

  “Is it possible for us to talk to Mickey?”

  “Sure. But he lives with his mom in Toledo. Kate’s a widow, and the last few years have been tough. So we splurged on Mickey. I really don’t understand why it matters to the police.”

  “As it turns out, it doesn’t. Thank you for your time.”

  They walked back to the car.

  “Mickey may be an odd kid wishing for conservative designer shoes,” Peabody said, “but I don’t think he flew from Toledo to New York to kill girls.”

  “Personal shopper.”

  En route, Officer Shelby, partnered with Carmichael, tagged her. “No dice with Post, Lieutenant. The kid was home, still sweating from a pickup game in the park. He said his dad bought him the ugly old man shoes to wear to a wedding, so he had to. Otherwise, no way. Kid had no problem showing us his closet in the dump heap he calls a room. He’s got three pair of well-worn kicks—good ones—plus the newer ones he had on his feet. And the loafers, stuffed in the back. Barely worn.

  “In addition, sir, on the night of the first murder, he was at the Yankees game—verified that—with his dad and some friends. Second murder, he was at his grandparents’ for Sunday dinner, then, according to him, the adults played cards for hours, and he and his cousin chilled with some screen time.

  “He doesn’t ring, Lieutenant.”

  “Got that. Fromer was a bust, but we’re heading to Charro’s.

  “Personal shopper—we checked. That’s got a ring.”

  “It does.”

  “Do you want us to keep at it? We’ve still got some on the list.”

  “Yeah, finish it out, cross it off, then head back to Central. Dallas out. Check with Yancy, Peabody, see where he is in this. Text,” she added. “He’ll answer when he’s not in the middle with a wit.”

  “I think we’re going to get a face,” Peabody said as she texted. “We’ve got a handful of witnesses who at least caught a glimpse.”

  Pieces, Eve thought. But they had to put those pieces together.

  “He answered quick. He just got to Kiki. He worked with Hank from the first murder, with the concession worker and A.J. from the attempt. He made a little progress, but not enough to give us yet. He’ll tag us back after he’s worked with Kiki and David.”

  “That’ll have to do.”

  But the day was sliding away.

  He’d have plans, Eve thought.

  The professional shopper did well enough to have an apartment on Riverside Drive in a sleek gold tower with a burly doorman who scowled at Eve’s DLE.