Vendetta in Death (In Death #49)(4)

She kept him alive as long as she could, and when it was done, when he hung limp and silent, she let out a long sigh.

“So. Justice is served.”

As dawn broke over the city, Lieutenant Eve Dallas stood over the naked, mutilated body. The early breeze frisked through her choppy cap of hair, flapped at her long leather coat as she read the bold, computer-generated print on the sign tacked securely where the victim’s genitals had been.

He broke his vows of marriage,

and woman he disparaged.

His life he built on wealth and power,

to lure the helpless to his tower.

He raped for fun,

and now he’s done.

LADY JUSTICE



Eve shifted her field kit, turned to the uniformed officer, the first on scene. “What do you know?”

The beetle-browed, mixed-race female snapped to. “The nine-one-one came in at oh-four-thirty-eight. A limo dropped off a female, one Tisha Feinstein, on the corner of West Eighty-eighth and Columbus. Feinstein states that after attending her bachelorette party with fourteen friends, she wanted to walk, catch some air. Catching said air, she walked the three blocks uptown to Ninety-first, saw the body laid out across the sidewalk here. She ran into the building—this is her residence, Lieutenant—woke her fiancé, one Clipper Vance. He came out, saw the body, called it in.

“My partner and I responded, arrived on scene at oh-four-forty, secured the scene, called for a pair of beat droids to help with that. Officer Rigby is inside with the wits.”

“All right, Officer, stand by.”

After sealing up, she crouched by the body, opened her field kit. Then, pressing the victim’s thumb to her Identi-pad, she read out for the record:

“Victim is identified as Nigel B. McEnroy, Caucasian, age forty-three, British citizen. His several listed residences include an apartment at 145 West Ninety-first, New York City. That would be the same building as Tisha Feinstein, who discovered the body.”

Eve scanned the face. “Hardly a surprise she didn’t recognize him if she’d known him. Severe bruising and burn marks, most likely electrical, on the face, the body, ligature marks, deep, both wrists, indicate the victim was bound during torture and struggled during same.”

She took out microgoggles, took a closer look at the cuts and bruises on the wrists. “From the angle, I’d say his arms were bound over his head, carried the weight of his body. ME to confirm. The genitals have been severed.”

She bent close, lifted the bottom edge of the sign for a clearer angle.

“No visible hesitation marks, looks almost surgical. Possible medical knowledge or experience?”

She took out her gauges. “TOD oh-three-twelve. COD, possible blood loss from castration, possible cardiac incident from electric shocks. Maybe a combo.”

She sat back on her heels. “So he was bound, tortured, killed elsewhere—need some privacy for that—placed here. Not dumped so much as arranged, basically on his own doorstep. And with this handy, poetic note.

“Lady Justice. Somebody was really pissed at you, Nigel.”

She took small pliers, a couple of evidence bags from her kit. As she pulled out the first tack, she heard the familiar clomp of her partner’s pink cowboy boots trotting up the sidewalk.

Peabody badged the beat droids, moved through the barricades. She took a look at the body, said, “Harsh.”

“It’s all that.”

Eve remembered a time, not so long before, when Peabody would have taken that look and gone green. A couple years as a murder cop brought out the sterner stuff.

“When I get this love note detached—there. Peabody, call the morgue team, the sweepers. Let’s get him bagged and tagged before people in this nice, quiet neighborhood start walking their dogs or taking a morning jog. Officer, help me turn him to finish the on-site.”

She found scores of burns, many that had seeped open during the torture, on the back, the buttocks, the hamstrings, the calves.

“Had to take some time,” she murmured. “Couldn’t do all this without taking time. And what do you suppose Lady Justice did with the cock and balls?”

Rising, Eve turned to her partner. Peabody wore her pink coat with a thin blue scarf with—jeez!—pink flowers scattered over it. She had her dark hair in a bouncy little tail.

“Wits inside. Hold the scene, Officer. What’s Feinstein’s apartment?”

“Six-oh-three, sir.”

With Peabody she started toward the entrance of a nicely rehabbed brownstone of about fifteen floors of dignity. No night man on the door, Eve noted, but good, solid security.

She badged her way through the beat droid on the door.

The lobby continued the dignity with navy and cream tiles for the floor, navy walls with cream trim, a discreet security desk—currently unmanned—a couple of curved padded benches, and fresh, springy-looking flowers in tall, slim vases.

Eve called for an elevator while she filled in Peabody.

“Wit’s coming home from a girl party, sees McEnroy on the sidewalk, runs in, gets Vance, her fiancé. He goes out, verifies, calls it in. Nine-one-one logged at four-thirty-eight, first on scene arrived in two minutes. Vic’s also a resident of this building—or has a residence here. He’s a Brit, owns, with partners, some sort of international, interplanetary headhunter firm. Married, two offspring.”