Connections in Death (In Death #48)(44)

Walter lifted his glass, drank deep. “He took being a short-order cook in an all-night diner, living with his sister, going to meetings instead of hitting a club. Saving his pay instead of pocketing his share from the gang business.”

Finally, Walter’s voice broke, his eyes swam. “He was a goddamn hero. You find who did this because Duff didn’t do it alone. You find who shot my brother up with what he’d battled back every damn day. You make it matter.”

“It does matter. He matters.”

With effort, he pulled himself together before Rochelle came back, rose to take the small suitcase she carried.

“We can give you a lift,” Eve offered.

“No, but thanks. I’m just going to drop this off at Wilson’s, then we’re going to pick up our family, and go see Lyle.”

“We’ll be in touch,” Eve promised, and left them alone.

“I’ll have the pictures of the two pieces we have sent out,” Peabody said as they walked down and out to the car. “And descriptions of the rest. Big, stupid mistake to steal.”

“Sloppy again. Crappy planning. The wit gave me more on one of the killers.”

As Eve passed it on, Peabody noted it down. “Probably jonesing.”

“Maybe. We’re going to swing by and talk to Crack. Red purse, shiny jewelry. Catches the eye.”

“Like magpies.”

“Like what?”

“Magpies. You know, the bird that’s attracted to shiny objects, uses them in its nest.”

Eve knew—sort of—what a magpie was because Roarke had pointed them out to her in Ireland. “Magpies,” she murmured. “Yeah, at least one’s like a magpie. The other stuff—the shoes, the buds? That’s somebody who can use them, or knows who can. You can pawn the buds, sell the shoes, but more likely you use them or trade them. Send the beat cops—Zutter and Norton—the descriptions, the pictures. I want to know if they spot any of it.”

She had to hunt for parking near the Down and Dirty. It did the bulk of its business after dark, but parking didn’t get easier in the daylight.

When she found a slot two blocks down, she grabbed it.

“Feel that.” On the sidewalk, Peabody lifted her face. “That’s what sixty degrees feels like. And sun. Winter’s done! It is over!”

“You say that and just ask for it to dump a round of wet snow on your sixty degrees.”

But damn if it didn’t feel good to walk without getting slapped in the face by the wind or slogging through the last round of wet whatever decided to fall.

“How about a soy dog? My treat.”

Eve knew the street dogs were disgusting, but even Roarke’s amazing menus had never killed her taste for them. “Loaded.”

“Is there another way?” Peabody almost danced on her pink boots to the cart. “I’m getting a fizzy water. The bug juice was pretty good, but I can’t get rid of the spinach aftertaste.”

“Fizzy water’s good.” Because cart coffee? That she had lost her taste for.

Chowing on loaded dogs, they walked toward the sex club.

“So, how serious do you figure Crack is about Rochelle?”

“Because that’s really what’s on my mind right now?”

Peabody took another bite, talked around it. “There’s always room in the brain for romance. And, you know, spring.”

“What’s spring got to do with it?”

“It’s romantic.” Seriously beaming, Peabody licked a little mustard off her thumb. “People get romantic in springtime.”

“I thought they got romantic in winter for the body heat.”

“Not sex, romance. Although in spring you could have sex in a meadow because romantic.”

“Bugs, bees, possibly snakebites on bare asses.”

Undeterred—because spring—Peabody pushed on. “He gave her pretty earrings for V-Day. That says serious.”

“Right now he’s connected through the earrings and the woman whose lobes they dangled from to a couple of pretty serious murders.” Eve polished off the dog. “Let’s stick with that.”

The Down and Dirty was, as its owner stated, a joint, and that’s just what it wanted to be. It did a solid, sordid business with a mixed clientele of shady characters, wide-eyed tourists who wanted a risky and risque experience before they went back to humdrum, the horny who’d pay to get lucky in one of the private rooms, and the broody type who seemed content to drink the swill as long as the server was mostly naked.

She’d had her bachelorette party (stupid term) at the D& D, watched her friends get stupid drunk, and had foiled—barely—an attempt on her life by a wrong cop.

Good times.

When she walked in, a holo band had the stage. The lead singer, female, wore elaborate body paint with the fangs of some sort of jungle cat impaling her tits. A large bird—maybe a hawk—flew above her crotch, talons at the ready. Various other predators stalked, fought and prowled over the rest of her.

Her bandmates wore G-strings and crotch-high boots while a couple of dancers—live and wearing strategically placed glitter—gyrated.

Since the dancers worked up a sweat, glitter ran in sparkly streams while the band banged out the chorus: “Gonna pump you like a well, gonna drill you down to hell.”