Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(70)

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, but it’s going to be something like that. It just follows.”

“I’ll set it up. I can keep going while we’re in the field, and send alerts on any hits.”

“Do that.” Eve sat, engaged her desk ’link.

Anna Hobe might not have maintained close ties with her parents, but Eve knew when she ripped the heart out of two people.

After documenting the notification, she scrubbed her hands over her face, and put it aside.

Peabody shot up a hand when Eve walked into the bullpen. “Two seconds, let me remote it. I’m getting hits,” she added as she finished, then popped up. “So I’m filtering the alerts to bar workers or alcohol issues or other addictions, prostitution pops. I can go through the rest when we’re back, but those filters might narrow it.”

“Good thinking.” She risked the elevator again. “I doubt Morris will find many deviations from the first victim, except the big one. He killed Hobe from behind. Covino suits him better and, for her sake, I hope she keeps doing just that.”

“No fresh missing persons that fit. It’s early, but if she does suit him better, maybe he won’t grab another.”

“Aren’t kids usually greedy?”

“Oh, well,” softhearted Peabody began, “I don’t know if I’d say that.”

“Sure they are. It’s a natural state until you’re taught about sharing and all that. The man plans, the boy wants. And the kid’s inside a man who knows how to take. Covino won’t keep him satisfied for more than a few days because she’s not Mommy. But she can buy us time.”

She pulled out her signaling ’link. “It’s Mira,” she told Peabody, and answered as they came to a stop on her garage level. “Dallas.”

“I’ve just read your report. I can come in early, within thirty, to consult.”

“I’m actually on my way to the morgue, then the lab.” She wondered how long Mira had been up, and how much time it had taken her to make her hair perfect. “It may take more than an hour.”

“All right then. Why don’t you—”

Mira paused as Dennis Mira came on-screen, pressed his cheek to his wife’s. And smiled with his hair going everywhere at once and his eyes still a little sleepy. Eve accepted it when her heart just melted.

“Good morning!”

“Hey. Sorry to interrupt your morning.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’m going down and scrambling us some eggs, Charlie.” So saying, he kissed Mira’s cheek.

“That would be great, Dennis. I’ll be right down.”

“Don’t you work too hard,” he told Eve, then shuffled off in a green bathrobe that looked like it had seen a dozen years of early mornings.

“Why don’t you tag me when you’re back at Central. I’ll make time.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Eve got into the car. “If you could come to the conference room when I tag you? I think it would be more useful for you to see the board, hear anything Peabody’s dug up.”

“Just tag me, and I’ll come to you.”

Eve thanked her again, clicked off. As she drove out of the garage, she considered. “It’s still early. Go ahead and program some eggs for Morris, and coffee. I got him out of bed with this.”

“Nice. And, ah, got me out of bed, too, so…”

“Fine, fine, whatever—just eat yours fast.”

“You want?”

“I don’t—” Then she remembered she’d told Roarke she’d eat, and didn’t think a third of a muffin qualified. “Egg pocket.”





15





Once again, Eve walked the white tunnel, this time with Peabody carrying a go-box.

“I gotta say, I don’t know how anybody could eat in a room with bodies on slabs and in drawers.”

Eve glanced over. “Do you eat in the bullpen?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Work’s work. You don’t see the bodies when you eat, but you’re standing for them.”

She pushed open the doors and found Morris standing for, and over, Anna Hobe.

“The saying is the early bird catches the worm,” Morris began.

“I guess that means the bird starts the day with murder,” Eve finished, and made him laugh.

“I suppose it does. Hers ended before this one dawned, as you know.”

“We brought you some breakfast.” Peabody made a wide circle around the slab and the body on it to set the go-box on his counter.

“That’s very considerate of you, and I’ll enjoy it when we’re done here. Your on-scene observation on the wrist lacerations coincides with my exam. You also note the fresh lacerations and bruising don’t appear on the ankle.”

“Yeah. I thought.” Eve pounded a fist in the air. “Maybe beating on something, because they don’t look like she got them trying to pull out of the cuff.”

“Indeed they don’t. Bang, bang, bang—sharp movements that had the cuff slapping against her wrist. Pounding against a door perhaps, or wall, and over the last thirty-six hours before TOD.”

“Why’d she wait? That’s the question. Wouldn’t you start off with the beating and pounding? ‘Let me the fuck out!’ Then gradually give it up? She tries to pry off the cuff, pull her hand through, you can see the marks, but she gave that up to start pounding something.”