Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(9)

“Maybe a thistle—Scottish symbol—because McNab. But maybe a rainbow.”

“You could do two rainbows. One on each ass cheek.”

“Or a crescent moon with a little star,” Peabody continued, unperturbed. “Those are my top contenders right now. It’s a big decision.”

“Yeah, paying somebody to pump ink into your skin’s a big one. Now, let’s move on from voluntary self-mutilation and back to murder.”

“Self-expression. Body art.”

“Whatever.” The entire conversation just weirded her out. Murder, at least, Eve understood.

“We’ll see what Elder’s tox says, but I think it’s a safe bet she was drugged for a good portion of those ten days. Still, you need a nice private place to do all of that. You need transport.”

“Private residence, or exceptional soundproofing in a multiunit. With a multiunit you’d need a private entrance. Someplace to keep a vehicle. Maybe a private garage for the whole deal.”

“Did she know the killer? From the bar, her old neighborhood, her new one? He rolls up—‘Hey, Lauren.’”

“Bartenders are usually friendly types. It’s part of the job. But why would she willingly get in a vehicle when she’s only blocks from home?”

“Check the weather the night she went missing. Otherwise, maybe he lured her in. ‘Hey, Lauren, take a look at this.’ Or he’s parked along the route, maybe looks like he needs help with something. Or just grabs. He got her into the vehicle. No head wounds that showed on scene, but if he bashed her that could’ve healed up, and Morris will find it. Jabbed her with a drug, that’s more likely.

“Jab, load her in, drive away.” Eve played it out like a vid in her head. “It wouldn’t take half a minute.”

“Partly cloudy, no precipitation, low of sixty-two on May twenty-eighth.” Peabody lowered her PPC. “Not the kind of night you’d jump into a vehicle for a couple of blocks.”

She’d walk the route, Eve thought. Family notification had to come first, but she wanted to walk in Lauren’s footsteps, see what she’d seen.

“If she didn’t know him, how did he choose her? He had to see her to want her, had to want her to choose her. At the bar? Is he from the neighborhood? Say he spots her, studies her, decides on her. Maybe he starts parking the vehicle along the route so she gets used to seeing it. Doesn’t think anything of it.”

She rolled it around and around as she crossed the bridge into Brooklyn.

“Who’s Mommy? That’s going to matter. If it represents a sexual thing, he’d rape her. Or she’d rape her if the killer’s female. If Mommy’s Mommy, that’s fifty-fifty.”

“Ew.”

“Didn’t Octopus have a mommy deal?”

“Octopus? I don’t think they screw with their mothers. Do they know their mothers? How do they know?” Peabody wondered. “They all have weird heads and tentacles.”

“No, the guy with the complex, and the mother banging and the eyes.”

“Oedipus. I think. I think Oedipus.”

“Octopus, Oedipus, all creepy. So maybe the perp wants to bang his mom, but mom isn’t all about that, so he creates a substitute. Or she was, and that fucked him up, so a substitute. Or it’s some other mom deal, and he doesn’t want to bang her.”

“Why kill her once you create her?”

“She’s not the real deal. And she’s not banging him right, or giving him what he needs. She’s not the original. He was always going to kill her.”

“Why do you think?”

“Because he’s shithouse crazy, Peabody. You don’t do all this unless you’re shithouse crazy. Ten days, ten months, whatever, the crazy’s going to crack through the control eventually. The perfection of the tat, the piercings, the makeup, the hair, the clothes. That’s control, precision. So he’s got to have that, but under it? Shithouse crazy.”

And following that logic, Peabody turned to Eve. “He’s going to need another substitute.”

“Yeah, so let’s hope he doesn’t already have one picked out.”

Eve followed her in-dash directions to a pretty house with a pretty yard on a block of pretty houses and yards.

“Father’s a mechanic—owns his own place,” Peabody began. “Mother’s an artist—you saw some of her stuff in the vic’s apartment. She runs a local gallery. I’d guess both the sibs are home from college for the summer. Somebody’s probably home.”

“Let’s find out.”

Eve got out of the car and prepared to destroy someone else’s world.



* * *



By the time they’d finished, the emotional overload had a headache trying to drill through the crown of her head. She programmed coffee, black for her, regular for Peabody.

“They reminded me of my family.” Peabody let out a sigh. “Not Free-Agers, but they’re tight. They’ll get through it, but nothing’s ever going to be exactly the same.”

“You can check out the couple of ex-boyfriends they gave us. If nothing else, it’ll block that avenue. We’ll take the bar next, then you can split off, check out the exes, for what it’s worth. I’ll take the morgue. Morris should have at least started on her by the time I get there.”