Secrets in Death (In Death #45)(6)

“Good. I need you to help me keep the staff calm and ordered. I’d like you to have your most reliable waitperson help you distribute water or soft drinks to the customers still in the bar. Can you do that?”

“Yeah. Lieutenant? I know the … her. Ms. Mars. Larinda Mars.”

“Personally?”

“No, I mean, not really. I mean she’s a regular. And she’s on screen. The gossip channel.”

A steady one, Eve thought. She’d expect no less from one of Roarke’s business managers. “I don’t see the man she was with here in the bar.”

“I think he left before … before she came up from the bathroom. I mean she went through there, and that leads down to the restrooms, so I assume she went there.”

“Do you know who she was with?”

“No, but I can find out. He paid for the drinks. He charged them. I think he used his ’link app. I can check.”

“I’d appreciate if you’d do that, and have a couple of reliables pass out drinks. No alcohol, okay?”

“Got it.”

“Who served them?”

“That’s Kyle’s booth.” Emily looked around, gesturing with her chin. “He’s over there with Cesca and Malory.”

“Okay, go ahead and check that charge for me.”

Eve stepped back to the body, crouched down. “I’ve got a field kit coming, but in the meanwhile we’ve ID’d her—from the primary, and from the manager of the bar—as Larinda Mars.”

“I knew she looked familiar,” DeWinter added. “I’ve seen her reports.”

“We have TOD as verified on my recorder by both you and Dr. Sterling.”

“You had your recorder on?” DeWinter demanded.

“Relax. Jesus. I engaged it when she came staggering out with blood dripping everywhere. Dr. Sterling, in your medical opinion, how long does it take someone, given her height, weight, to bleed out from a cut to—you said brachial artery?”

“It depends. It might only take a couple minutes. It might take longer, between eight and twelve. Realistically, she was dead before we saw her. We simply couldn’t have saved her, as she’d already lost too much blood.”

“Okay. Say somebody slices this artery. What’s the immediate response?”

“Depending, again, it would gush with every heartbeat. If it was only nicked or partially cut, it would leak more slowly. Without treatment, there would be confusion, disorientation, shock, increasing with blood loss until unconsciousness and death.”

“All right. I’m going to get your contact information, your statement. Then you can go back to the kitchen, clean up if you want. I’ll clear that. After, you’re free to go, with thanks.”

“My wife is here. She’s…”

“I’ll see that she’s interviewed right away, so you can leave together.”

As she straightened, one of the droids opened the door for her partner and her partner’s main man.

Detective Peabody wore a pom-pom hat over her currently flippy dark hair. EDD ace Detective McNab’s red coat and plaid airboots lit up the bar like fireworks.

Eve moved to them quickly, held up a finger to hold off questions. “Peabody, I need you to get the statement and contact information of the guy next to the DB. He’s a doctor. His wife’s in the crowd, and I need her interviewed next so they can be released. After, take the waitstaff. They’re likely to have seen more. McNab, the manager is Emily Francis—the brunette behind the bar. She’ll tell you where to find the security feed. Exterior only on this place.”

She took the field kit from him. “I’ve got shields coming, so let them in, curtain off the body asap. I’m heading downstairs, the most likely site of the attack.”

“Just one question?” Peabody held up a single finger. “What the hell happened?”

“Looks like somebody decided to cut off the social information network. Keep this crowd in line,” she added, then strode off, moving around the blood trail so as not to compromise it more than it already was.





2

Eve followed the blood trail across a short hall, down a steep flight of steps to another longer sort of vestibule with restrooms—painted doors with Femmes on one above a stylized female silhouette, and Hommes on the other, with a male silhouette.

The blood led to the female. She paused, pulled a can of Seal-It from her kit, coated her hands, her boots. Eased open the door.

Blood, an arterial spray, she assumed, slashed across a wall painted in pale gold, over a section of the wide, framed mirror above a long silver trough with curvy silver faucets.

It pooled on the floor, where it had already begun to congeal.

Stepping over, Eve opened the large pink handbag hung on a hook by the trough. Rifled through.

“Victim left her purse, ID inside verifies. Also holding pepper spray, panic button, and lookie here, an illegal stunner. Indications the vic was either paranoid or had reason to carry defensive tools.

“And that’s likely her lip dye on the shelf under the mirror.”

She verified same, setting up a marker, testing the dye tube for prints, running them. Then bagged the tube, sealing and marking it.

“She came in to use the facilities. Stood here, putting on lip dye, fluffing up. Most likely the attacker followed her in. Lying in wait seems a stretch. Had to have the weapon, though the attack itself may have been spur-of-the-moment. Pull the weapon, cut the arm. One wound from my brief on-site exam, so the attacker either knew where to cut or got seriously lucky. I lean heavy toward knew where.