Leverage in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel (In Death #47)(42)

“Tag me, will you, when you know something? After all, I talked with him as well.”

“Sure.” She downed the pocket, the rest of the coffee. After scooping a hand through her hair, she pulled on the jacket.

And Roarke pulled her to him, kissed her. “Take care of my cop.”

“Got it.” She bent to give the cat a quick scratch before heading to the door. Stopped. “Waffles or oatmeal?”

“Sorry?”

“When I’m not here is it waffles or oatmeal?”

“I like oatmeal.”

She could only shake her head as she jogged downstairs, bundled in the damn winter gear, and headed out to meet death.

Sleet blew, wet and unpleasant, splattering her windshield. The sun had yet to make an appearance so the wet white streaks streamed in the nasty March wind as her headlights beamed. The streets gleamed black.

She passed a single maxibus, lumbering alone with its load of sleepy passengers fresh off the graveyard shift. She swung onto Eighty-Sixth until she pulled up behind a black-and-white.

A uniform started toward her, nodding when she held up her badge.

“What do you have?”

“Well, we got a couple of college types in the back. They were out for a drunken stroll, saw the floater. The pair of them climbed over the fence, jumped in to pull him out. Beat droids called us in. We got them in the back keeping warm.”

“I’ll take them first.”

Eve opened the door of the cruiser, took a look at the two men—maybe twenty—shivering under heat blankets.

She crouched down. “Lieutenant Dallas. Let’s hear it.”

“Man, Jesus, we were just taking a walk, right?”

“Right.”

He had smooth cocoa-colored skin, a little gray under it, and wide, wide brown eyes. She could smell the nerves, the water, and the cheap brew pumping off him.

“Your name?”

“Marshall. Marshall Whitier. We pulled like an all-nighter, and were walking it off, and messing around. Maybe jog around the JKO, right? And we saw the dude. So Richie says, Holy shit, and I’m like, What the fuck, and we climbed over and jumped in the water.”

“I tried CPR, even mouth-to-mouth,” the other man said.

“Name?”

“Oh, Richie. I mean Richard Lieberman.” He swallowed, hard.

He had skin so white his freckles popped out like . . . polka dots, Eve thought. And orange hair with tips of blue—with a tiny pointed beard to match.

“I’m, uh, certified. I work summers as a lifeguard, so I knew what to do. But, man, he was gone. You know, dead. So we called the cops.”

“Did you see anyone while you were messing around, or while you waited for the police?”

“Nobody. Well, there was a sidewalk sleeper, but he was back on Fifth, before we came into the park. And well . . .”

“Well?”

“I guess we saw the beat droids back there, too, so we sort of ducked in here.”

“Got any Sober-Up?”

Their eyes shifted to each other, then down.

“Look, I don’t currently give a shit about your underage drinking.”

“There was this party—”

“Don’t care,” she told Marshall. “I’m going to need your contact information, then these officers are going to take you back to—where?”

“We’re at Berkely. We, ah, sort of snuck out of the dorm to go to the party, then—”

“Don’t care,” she said to Richie. “We’re going to get you back.” Impaired or not, she thought, they’d tried to save a life. “What are your chances of sneaking back in?”

That eye slide again. “We’re pretty good at it,” Richie told her.

“Good. Do that. Dry off, get something hot—and nonalcoholic—to drink. Here’s what I care about: You tried to help someone, and when you couldn’t, you called the cops.”

“You’re not going to rat us out?”

“I’m not going to rat you out. If you don’t have such good luck sneaking back in, have the person who busts you contact me. Lieutenant Dallas, Cop Central. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You lose points for the ‘ma’am.’” She shut the door. “Get them back,” she told the uniform. “Make sure they get back inside.”

“Dumb-asses.” The uniform shook his head. “But they got balls. Probably shriveled up right now, but they got ’em.”

In full agreement, she went back to her car for her field kit, started the hike to the jogging path and the reservoir.

The struggling sun turned the sky to a lighter, dirtier gray. In its pissy light, she spotted the beat droids—muscular issues, both male with square, serious faces. Unaffected by the wind and the wet, they stood flanking the body.

Eve held up her badge. “Report.”

Their report added little to the witnesses’ statements but for, in the way of droids, precise times. She had them stand by, then took a long look at Jordan Banks.

He lay faceup, and from the angle of his neck, the bruising harsh against the skin, she judged his neck had been broken before whoever broke it dumped his body in the water.

The droids had ID’d him with scanners, but she sealed up, took out her Identapad, made it official.