by J. D. Robb
“Boy, that’ll teach her.”
“I’m sure he thought just that. It’s not entirely clear, as yet, if he meant to kick the chair out from under himself or if he was terminally clumsy. Either way, here he is.”
Morris smiled, set down the scalpel. He wore midnight-blue pants with a silver shirt, a precisely knotted blue-and-silver tie under his protective cape. His dark hair fell in a single thick braid down his back.
“And how was your Christmas?”
“Good. Caught the bad guy, opened presents, drank fancy champagne. You?”
“I visited my parents Christmas Eve, stayed for the morning, and had dinner with Garnet DeWinter and her very charming daughter. A child adds sparkle, like champagne, to Christmas. How is your family, Peabody? You went home, I’m told.”
“Great. It was totally mag to see everybody, and just dive into the chaos for a few hours.”
“I know just what you mean. And let me say, that’s a very frosty coat.”
“I know.” Despite Eve’s warning, Peabody stroked the sleeve again. “My amazing partner and her hunka-husband gave it to me for Christmas.”
“Don’t make me regret it, Peabody.”
“Best Christmas ever.”
“And now we’re back,” Eve said, before they spent half a day talking plum pudding or whatever. “What can you tell me?” she asked, lifting her chin toward Leanore Bastwick.
“A very healthy woman up until her death.” Morris moved over to the slab. “Some expert face and body work. Nothing extreme, what you might call tune-ups. Her last meal, consumed about four hours before her death, was Greek yogurt and granola.”
“Now that’s sad,” Eve said to Peabody.
“She’d had about a half a glass of wine within thirty minutes of death, so that’s a bit happier. No illegals in her system, and no sign she used them,” Morris added. “No defensive wounds, no signs of restraint or physical struggle.”
He handed Eve microgoggles.
“Stun marks, which would account for the lack of defensive wounds. Mid-body.”
“Yeah, I see. Killer pulls the stunner out of the right coat pocket, moves into the apartment. She’s moving backward and to the side to let him in. Very close range, high power. So it left clear marks on her skin.”
“A very slight contusion on the back of her head. She fell backward, banged it, but not violently. As with most on a stun, she probably more crumpled than fell after convulsing.”
“What did she weigh?”
Since it was Eve, Morris automatically converted from metric. “One-eighteen.”
“Not heavy. She was wearing slipper-type things. Pull-on, elastic deals. I didn’t see any scuffing on the heels. Probably carried her into the bedroom. She’s stunned, out, limp. Haul her up, or toss her over the shoulder. Lay her out. The bed was tidy, so were her clothes.”
“No sexual assault. No recent sexual activity.”
“More sad,” Peabody murmured.
“Lowers the odds on a boyfriend type, an ex, a wannabe lover,” Eve considered. “You’d expect some sexual assault there, or more personal signs in the kill.”
“She’d opted for sterilization,” Morris commented. “Or I assume it was her option. Good, clean work. There’s no indication she’d ever borne a child. She tended to her body,” he continued. “The tune-ups, and her muscle tone speaks of regular exercise. As I said, no sign she abused illegals, or alcohol.”
“That’s how she lived. How did she die?”
“I concur with your on-scene. Strangulation. Thin, strong wire, piano wire would be my conclusion. A garrote. From behind.”
Eve narrowed her eyes. “Not face-to-face.”
“No. More leverage from behind, and the angle of the wound verifies. The killer got behind her, propped her up, nearly a sitting position, wrapped the wire around her neck, twisted, pulled. With some force, as it severed her larynx.”
“Okay.” She didn’t doubt Morris, so now circled the body, pulled the scene into her head. “Dumps her on the bed. You’ve already taken off the coat—don’t want blood on the coat because you’ve got to wear it out again. And it’s bulky. You need some freedom of movement. Leave on the gloves or, no, take out others. Thin gloves now, or sealant. Maybe you’ve got a protective cape and gloves, a can of sealant in the box. Open the box, get out the cape, the gloves, put them on, get out the garrote.”
“A protective cape, sealant, or gloves would cut down on any chance of fibers on the bed or body,” Peabody put in.
“Yeah, it would. And you’ve planned this out, taken some time to work out the details. Now it comes to that moment. Get on the bed, push her up so you can get behind her.”
Eve walked around the body, stood at the head.
“The wire’s thin and sharp. Being smart, you’ve probably rigged handles on the ends, so you can get a good, clean grip. You’re not looking to cause her pain, you don’t need to see her die—that toggles down the personal. No need to see her face when you do it, makes her a thing, not a person. Just feel the wire bite in. It’s not about sex, not about pleasure—not then—it’s about justice. So it’s quick and done.
“Don’t leave the wire—don’t leave anything. The wire goes back in the box, maybe in a plastic bag first, but back in the box. You lay her back down, smooth the bed where it got mussed. Neat and tidy. Do you look at her?”
Eve stopped, stared down at Bastwick’s face. “Maybe not, maybe not yet. Still controlled, hands steady. It’s not finished until you leave your message. It’s really all about the message.”
Put that front and center, Eve told herself. Time to put that on top because Bastwick hadn’t been a person to the killer, but a thing. A thing to be presented.
“You’ve got the marker in the box, too. Organized. You know just what you want to say. You’ve practiced, you’ve refined. Clean block printing, no style, nothing that would come back on you. You’ve thought of everything.
“Gloves and cape into another bag, into the box. You’ll have to get rid of them. You already know how and where. Now, now you step back, now you look. Now you feel it. You did that. You did it just the way you imagined, the way you practiced. Now you shake a little, but that’s the pleasure. Job well done, and who knew it would feel so damn good?
“Can’t stay, can’t linger. Don’t spoil it. Coat, gloves, scarf, hat, box. Go as you came, remember the cameras. Part of you wants to dance, part of you wants to whistle a tune. You’re smiling, I bet you’ve got a mile-wide grin behind the box as you walk to the elevator, shift it all, get in, go down. Down, out, and gone. Twenty-seven minutes, start to finish.”
Eve nodded, slid her hands into her pockets as she looked over at Morris. “That play for you?”
“Like a Stradivarius. A violin,” he qualified. “The neck wound is almost surgically clean. No hesitation marks. The blood pattern shows the initial, vertical flow, then the horizontal. Vic was up, then down. Her clothes are at the lab, but our check revealed no fibers, no hair, other than her own.”
“It’s almost professional—clean, quick, impersonal. If it wasn’t for the message, the little swing in the step when the killer left, I might consider pro. Somebody studied up.”
“Could be a cop.” Peabody winced. “Man, I hate saying that, but it could be. You’re a respected cop, and cops don’t have a lot of love for defense lawyers anyway. And this one was high-profile and snarky about it. A cop could get in and out of the building without anybody paying attention, case it. Or just order up the schematics.
“And you already thought of that,” Peabody finished.
“Yeah, it’s run through my mind. Easier if you have a police-issue stunner to just put it on full, hold it to her throat, and kill her that way. But . . . that kind of murder says cop first, so the garrote could be window dressing.”
“Crazy cop if a cop,”
Peabody added. “Because the message says crazy.”
“No argument there. Thanks, Morris.”
“Dallas. Have an extra care—as a favor to me. Crazy,” he said, lifting his hands, “is crazy.”
“Yeah, it is. But while it’s not pink—thank you, Jesus—I have a magic coat,” Eve said, making him smile again before she walked out.
• • •
I could see it, the way you said.” Peabody hunched her shoulders as they moved from the tunnel to the slap of late December, pulled her cap on over hair she wore in a dark, bouncy flip. “I had most of it, I think, but I could see the details when you walked through it. I hadn’t thought about the coat, the gloves.”
“Somebody that careful isn’t going to want the vic’s blood on the coat—you took your own off before you examined the body. He isn’t going to want it on the gloves, or anywhere on his clothes, for that matter. The box is handy. Blocks the cameras, holds whatever’s needed—coming and going. From behind lowers the probability she knew the killer. This was a task. No, more like a mission. Stunning her covers two areas, too. Takes her out, no struggle, no chance of a mistake, and it keeps her from feeling it. Even the message covers more than one base. It lets me know somebody’s looking out for me—in the crazy world—and it’s a way of bragging. It’s all really efficient.
“Let’s go talk to people who did know her. Maybe something will pop.”
But after six interviews, nothing did.
“We’ll check out the travel on the other five on the list.” Eve wound her way through traffic, aiming for the lab. “Confirm they’re out of town, do the interviews via ’link if necessary.”
“I’ll take that.” Peabody studied her own notes. “I’m guessing we’re not going to get much of anything new. She didn’t really have friends. Not real friends. Everybody’s sorry and shocked, but Dallas, nobody knew her well enough to feel much else. It’s almost like we talked to them about somebody they met casually at some party, or had a few surface conversations with.”
“Her choice. It strikes her work was her life, and the rest just there.”
It troubled her because she knew what that was like, that choice, that life. She knew exactly what it was like.
“Efficient. That’s what you called her murder. Clean and efficient, no passion to it. It’s like she wasn’t really important, but you . . .”
“I’m what’s important. You can say it, Peabody. I get it.” Eve didn’t snap, but it was close. “We’re still going to cover all the angles. Stern rakes in her share of the firm, so we look at him, his financials, his personal relationship with the victim. Maybe one of her fuck buddies wanted more, and got pissed off, and just made sure to keep the kill clean. Maybe a client she’d repped got out of prison and went for some payback. Mira needs to analyze the threat file.”
“Absolutely.”
“And we start looking at who might want to give me a dead lawyer as a fucking holiday gift.”
She let that hang a moment as she waited at a light. The latest ad blimp, she noted, had switched from post-Christmas sale to a RING OUT THE OLD, RAKE IN THE SAVINGS end-of-the-year theme.
The glide-cart operator on the far corner raked in his own, smearing bright yellow mustard on hot pretzels for some sort of tour group. All of them wore bright blue parkas and white caps.
The light changed, she drove on. Moved on in her head.
“The correspondence, my own case files. We go through it all.” She let out a breath. “Cops. Cops who might feel they owe me something and hate lawyers.”
“I gotta say that’s going to be a lot of cops. But it’s not just owing you something, Dallas. It’s admiration.”
Now she really wanted to snap, reined it in. Because Peabody wasn’t wrong. “Why Bastwick and why now? Those are other questions. A holiday gift might not be wrong. But this was planned well in advance, so what flipped the switch?”
“Could be the Icove thing, the exposure. For some people, the book, the vid, it romanticizes you, and the job.”
“Yeah,” Eve muttered as she found herself blocked in behind a farting maxibus. “This is romance.”
Eve went straight to chief lab tech Dick Berenski. He’d earned the name Dickhead, many times over, but that didn’t mean he didn’t excel at what he did.
“I need everything you’ve got.”
He held up one of his long, skinny fingers, kept his egg-shaped head with its slick, shiny skin of black hair bent over a scope another moment.
“What I got is nada. Hold it.” He pointed that finger at her before she could snarl. “Nada should tell you something. No fibers, no prints, no DNA, not a fricking hair in the place didn’t belong to the vic. Tells me she didn’t have a lot of company, or made everybody who came in seal up head to foot. Sure as hell tells me the killer did.”
He angled around, craned his neck. The goatee he’d recently started sporting didn’t look any more flattering to Eve than it had the week before.
“What?” Eve demanded.
“Thought maybe you brought me a little Happy New Year gift, is all.”
“Don’t push me, Dickie.”
“Chill it. We flagged this, top priority, and this time of year we’re swimming in work. Harvo went over to the scene herself ’cause she got it in her head maybe the sweepers missed a hair, a fiber. I’ve been working on the murder weapon. I’m giving it high probability for a 0.020-inch spring steel. Piano wire, that’s tempered high-carbon steel. That’s your most likely. But unless you pick up a guy with a piano wire garrote in his pocket, it ain’t much help. You can get the wire all over hell and back.”
He swiveled down his counter on his stool. “We can give you the make, model, and fricking dye lot of the marker used to write the love note to you.”
He tapped his screen as Peabody hissed, as Eve fisted her hands in her pockets.
“Common Sanford fine-point permanent marker. Your everyday Sharpie. Standard black.” He pulled one out of the drawer of his counter. “Like this one. Like you’d find in a million drawers and retail outlets, all over hell and back like the wire. I can tell you our blood guys go with Morris on how it went down. Vic’s sitting up, garroted from behind, laid down. That’s it, Dallas. You want more from us, give us more.”
“Okay.” Eve ordered herself to relax her hands. “All right.”
“Knew the vic,” Berenski said casually.
“What?”
“From court. We’re always testifying around here. Liked how she looked—who wouldn’t?—but you ask me, she was a stone bitch. Went up against her plenty, and my work held. My work holds,” he said, a little fiercely. “We do our jobs here, just like you. You won’t find any fans of the vic around here.”
Eve glanced around. Lots of counters, cubes, glass walls. Lots of people, most in white coats over street clothes, doing things she could never quite comprehend with tools and machines and computers.
“She screw anybody here?”
“I don’t ask my people who they sleep with. Mostly.”
“Not that way. In court. Did she fuck anybody up on the stand, get their work tossed?”
“Maybe fucked up some, she was good, and good at head games, and twisting things up. You know it.”
Yeah, Eve thought, she knew it. “Anyone get reprimanded, fired, suspended, lose it on the stand? Do you know anyone who threatened her, or took it personally?”
He showed his teeth under the excuse for a mustache. “You’re not looking at my people for this.”
“I’m looking at everybody for this. You’re in charge here, I want you to go over your records, to think back, and I want a list of anybody who had any sort of a run-in with her.
“The kill was clean, Dickie.” He was a pain in the ass at the best of times, but she understood standing up for your people. “Who’d know better how to keep a scene pristi
ne but people who work evidence?”
“Fuck that.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do, but get it done.”
She walked away before he could argue, let his curses roll off her back. But took her time. She knew a handful of the lab techs and field techs by name, another handful by face. But mostly they were lab geeks to her.
But maybe one of them thought there was more to the relationship than cop and geek.
She went back to Homicide, then, finding a message from Feeney, went straight up to EDD to meet with its captain and her former partner in EDD’s lab.
She saw through the glass he was working alone, in wrinkled shirtsleeves the color of anemic coffee. Silver sproinged its way through the bush of ginger hair topping the face of a loyal basset hound.
When she stepped in, he gave her a quick, hard study, nodded.
“This is fucked up.”
“That’s what I was missing. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the right term. ‘Fucked up’ it is.”
With another nod, he walked over to the AutoChef. “I’m programming us a couple of spinach smoothies.”
“I’ll pass. For the rest of my natural life.”
“Just what you need,” he insisted, tapped buttons manually. And came out with two cups of coffee.
“It doesn’t look like spinach.” It only took one sniff. “Smells like coffee. Real coffee. Roarke coffee.”
“I got connections. Programmed it in as spinach smoothie. Not one of my kids is going to touch that option should lives depend on it. It ain’t loaded with sugar or caffeine, they ain’t going near it.”
“Smarts like that are why you’re captain.”
“Damn straight.”
She looked up at the wall of screens. He had different views of the crime scene security run on each. “What can you tell me about the UNSUB?”
“Could be wearing lifts, but if not, we got a height of five-ten. Boots are Urban Hikers, chestnut, come in unisex sizes. Those are 39. That’s on the high side for female, a little on the small side for a male. They’re popular, middle-of-the-road footwear. Lots of delivery people wear them. Decent support, decent traction, decent price. These don’t look new.”