Betrayal in Death (In Death #12)(6)

"Yes, all right." He slipped the PPC back in his pocket, engaged the clip recorder.

"The victim is identified as Darlene French, female, age twenty-two, employed as housekeeper, The Roarke Palace Hotel. Apparent homicide, this location, Suite 4602. Present and acting as primary, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Also present and acting as temporary aide in recording this log, Roarke. Dispatch has been notified."

Now Eve approached the body. "The scene shows little sign of struggle, but the body shows bruising and lacerations consistent with a violent beating, particularly around the face. Blood spatter pattern indicates that beating was administered while the victim was on the bed."

She glanced around the room again, noted the beeper on the floor just outside the bath.

"The right arm is broken," she continued. "Other bruising on the victim's thighs and vaginal area indicates pre-mortem rape."

Gently, Eve lifted one of the limp hands. Wishing for microgoggles, she examined it carefully. "Got a little skin here," she murmured. "Managed to get a swipe in, didn't you, Darlene? Good for you. We have skin, possibly hair and fiber under victim's fingernails."

Meticulous, she moved up the body. The uniform was still buttoned over the br**sts. "He didn't bother with much foreplay. Didn't rip at her clothes or bother to take them off her. Just beat her, broke her, raped her. A thin wire, silver in appearance, has been used, garrote-style, to strangle the victim. The ends of the wire were crossed in front, then twisted into small loops, indicate the killer strangled her face-to-face, while he was ranged over her, and she was down. Have you got this from all angles?" she asked Roarke.

"Yes."

With a nod, she lifted the victim's head, tilting her own so that she could see the back of the wire. "Get this," she ordered. "It might shift a little when we turn her. The wire's unbroken in the back, and the bleeding's minimal. He didn't use it until he'd finished the beating, until he'd finished the rape. Straddling her," she said, narrowing her eyes to bring it into focus. "One knee on either side. She's not putting up much of a fight, if any, by this point. He just slips the wire over her head, crosses the ends in front, then pulls, opposite directions. It wouldn't have taken long."

But she'd have bucked, her body instinctively struggling to throw off the weight, her throat burning from the wire and the trapped screams of pain and terror. Her heart would have pounded, and that storm-at-sea sound would have exploded in her ears at the lack of oxygen.

Heels drumming, hands clawing for air. Until the blood begins to burst in the head, behind the eyes, and that frantic heart surrenders.

Eve stepped back. There was little more she could do without a field kit. "I need to know who this room is registered to. What the housekeeping routine is. I'll need to talk to Hilo," she added as she walked to the closet, glanced in. "And it would help for me to be able to interview anyone on staff who knew her well." She checked the dresser.

"No clothes. Not even a lint ball. A couple of used towels she might have dropped or simply set down on her way out of the bathroom. Was anyone registered to this room?"

"I'll find out. You'll want her next of kin."

"Yeah." Eve sighed. "Husband, if she had one. Boyfriends, lovers, exes. Nine times out of ten that's what you find in a sexual homicide. But I think this is number ten. Nothing personal about this, nothing intimate or passionate. He wasn't mad, wasn't particularly involved."

"There's nothing intimate about rape."

"There can be," Eve corrected. And she knew that, better than most. "When there's knowledge between the assailant and the victim, any sort of history -- even just a fantasy on the part of the assailant, it lends intimacy. This was cold. Just ram it in and get off. I bet he spent more time beating her than he did with the rape. Some men enjoy the first more. It's their foreplay."

Roarke switched off the recorder. "Eve. Turn the case over to someone else."

"What?" She blinked herself back to the moment. "Why would I do that?"

"Don't put yourself through this." He touched her cheek. "It hurts you."

He was being careful, she noted, not to mention her father. The beatings, the rapes, the terror she'd lived with until she was eight.

"They all hurt if you let them," she said simply, and turned back to look at Darlene French. "I won't turn her over to someone else, Roarke. I can't. She's already mine."

CHAPTER TWO

The suite was registered to one James Priory of Milwaukee. He'd checked in that afternoon at three-twenty, and had booked his accommodations three weeks in advance with a planned two-night stay.

Payment for the room, and any incidentals, was to be made through his debit card, which had been recorded and verified at check-in.

In the parlor of that suite while the crime scene unit and sweepers handled the crime scene, Eve watched the security disc Brigham had sent up to her.

The check-in recording showed Priory to be a mixed-race male, mid to late forties, dressed in the conservative dark suit of the successful businessman who could afford a high-priced suite in a high-priced hotel for a couple of nights. An expense account look, Eve noted.

But under the natty suit and well-styled hair, she saw thug.

He was burly, wide-chested, and easily weighed twice what his victim had. His hands were square, the fingers long and blunted. His eyes were the color of the scrim that forms on street puddles in January. A cold and dirty gray.