Betrayal in Death (In Death #12)(43)

"Can do." Even as he agreed, his communicator beeped. "Hold on." He rose, pulling it out, and stepped away as he answered.

"Lieutenant?" McNab called for her attention. "I was thinking about the... can't be delicate about this. I was thinking how Yost used the wire to help him get off during the rape. So even if the guy goes for Mozart and fine wine, he's got some experience with  p**n  or licensed companions who'll skirt the sexually deviant line. If he's a loner, it's most likely he gets into it at home with VR or video or holo. You gotta have programs or discs. You can get some through legitimate sources, and the darker versions -- right down to snuff  p**n , which it strikes me he'd go for -- through the black market."

"You sure seem to know a lot about it," Peabody commented.

"I worked in Vice awhile and stuff." Still he squirmed a little under her stare and gave his attention to Eve. "I could start hunting in that venue. Like you said, he's a collector. They even got some of this stuff that leans toward the art film side. I could start with that."

"McNab, sometimes you surprise me. Do it."

"Want to watch some dirty discs, She-Body?" he whispered, and Eve pretended, mostly for her own sake, she didn't hear.

"Son of a bitch." Feeney pocketed his communicator. "We got a break. I've been running the like crimes, couldn't find any in London or England for the time frame you wanted. I put a man on it to run variations of the pattern, just in case. He got a hit."

"Where?"

"It's a place in Cornwall, along the coast. Cops found some bodies out in the moor. They were in pretty bad shape -- exposure and they've still got, you know, wild life around there. Thing was, they were garroted, but there was no wire, so I didn't get the pop. Plus the locals there hadn't hooked it into the network until two months after the crime."

"Why do you tag it as Yost?"

"Timing fits, once they were able to determine time of death. Kill pattern fits. Both victims, male and female, were beaten badly, especially around the face. Both tranqued. Both raped. My man brought up the dead shots and compared the neck wounds, what could be made of them, and that fits. Hiker who called it in didn't hang around for the cops. Could be he took the wires."

"Did they ID the victims?"

"They did. Couple of badass smugglers who kept a base in a cottage up there. I can follow up on this, get more data, talk to the primary."

"Yeah, and pass it all through to my home unit. I'm going to feed this one to the feds, too. It might get them off my back, and better yet, off my turf for a while. With that in mind, let's pick this up at eight hundred tomorrow, my home office. Anybody gets anything between now and then, contact me."

She hit Dickie, the chief lab tech, and hit him hard. He whined, but it was almost casually. She threatened him, then bribed him with a bottle of Jamaican rum, which completed their relationship dynamic. He agreed to put her bathroom drains on top of his workload.

Next she reported to Whitney, got his go-ahead to feed her selected data to Jacoby and Stowe. And as expected, was told she would be needed at a press conference scheduled for fourteen-thirty the following afternoon.

She brooded about that all the way back down to her office where she settled down and contacted Stowe.

The agent came on screen, her attractive face showing annoyance. "Lieutenant, why did I have to hear on a public news report of a murder that most certainly appears to be perpetrated by Sylvester Yost?"

"Because news travels, Agent Stowe, and I've been busy. I'm contacting you now to bring you up-to-date on this latest incident. But if you'd rather break my balls, you're just wasting my time."

"You should have informed me or my partner before you left the scene and had it sealed."

"I don't recall seeing that directive written down anywhere. This is a courtesy call, and I'm starting to feel pretty discourteous."

"Cooperation -- "

"You want cooperation, then shut up and listen."

Eve paused, saw Stowe simmer, then swallow her wrath. "I have some data that might be of help to your investigation, and to mine, and which I believe your agency can track more quickly than mine. You want to deal, let's deal. I'm going to be at a downtown club, the Down and Dirty, in twenty minutes. Bring something to trade."

She cut transmission before Stowe could respond.

And she made certain she got to the D and D in fifteen, just in case.

An enormous black man with tattoos and feathers and a head as bald and shiny as a bowling ball grinned wide enough to split his remarkably ugly face when she walked in.

"Hey there, white girl."

"Hey back, black boy."

It was too early for the bulk of the clientele an all-nude club like the Down and Dirty appealed to. Still, there was a scatter of customers hulking at tables and a single bored dancer working up just enough energy to shake her impressive br**sts to the beat of recorded music.

Crack, all seven feet of him, ran the club, but would concentrate on bouncing the more irritating of the customers out on their heads when the action heated up. He'd gotten his name for the sounds those heads made as they met concrete.

For now, he loitered behind the bar, and came up with a nasty-looking cup of black coffee.

He slid it over to Eve. "Don't see your skinny ass in here awhile, I get to missing it."