Conspiracy in Death (In Death #8)(58)

She waited a beat, straining to hold her own snapping temper in check. "Peabody, notify Bowers's lieutenant that she has been relieved and ordered from the scene. Request another uniform to be sent to our location to assist Officer Trueheart in crowd control."

"I go, he goes."

"Bowers, if you are not behind the sensors in thirty seconds, you will be put in restraints and charged." Not trusting herself, Eve turned away. "Peabody, escort Officer Bowers back to her vehicle."

"My pleasure, sir. Horizontal or vertical, Bowers?" she said pleasantly.

"I'm going to take her down." Bowers's voice shook with rage. "And you're going with her." Already composing her follow-up complaint, Bowers stomped through the snow.

"You all right, Dallas?"

"I'd be better if I could've pounded on her a while." Eve hissed a breath out through her teeth. "But she wasted enough of our time. Let's do our job."

She approached the crib, crouched, pulled back the tattered plastic that served as a doorway.

Blood, rivers of it, had spilled, pooled, congealed. Reaching into her field kit, Eve took out Seal-It. "Victim is female, black, age between ninety and one ten. Visible wound in abdomen appears to be cause of death. Victim has bled out. There are no apparent signs of struggle or sexual abuse."

Eve inched into the crib, ignoring the blood that stained the tips of her boots. "Notify the ME, Peabody. I need Morris. At a guess, I'd say her liver's gone. Jesus, but he wasn't worried about being neat this time. The edges of the wound are straight and clean," she added after she fixed on microgoggles, bent closer. "But there is no clamping as evidenced on other victims. No sealing to prevent bleeding."

She was still wearing her shoes, Eve noted, the hard, black slip-ons many of the city's shelters handed out to the homeless. There was a miniplayer beside the thin mattress and a full bottle of street brew.

"No robbery." she murmured and continued to work. "Time of death, calculating lowest ambient temperature is established on scene at oh two-thirty." She reached out, found an expired beggar's license.

"Victim is identified as Jilessa Brown, age ninety-eight, of no fixed address."

"Lieutenant, can you move your left shoulder? I need to give a full body shot for record."

Eve shifted to the right, eased in another inch, and felt her boot scrape something under the pool of blood. Reaching down, she closed her sealed fingers over a small object. And drew out a gold pin.

The coiled snakes of the caduceus ran with blood.

"Look what we have here," she murmured. "Peabody, on record. A gold lapel pin, catch apparently broken, was found near the victim's right hip. Pin is identified as a caduceus, a symbol of the medical profession."

She sealed it, slipped it into her bag. "He was very, very sloppy this time. Angry? Careless? Or just in a hurry?" She moved back, let the plastic fall back into place. "Let's see what Trueheart knows."

Eve wiped the blood and sealant from her hands as Trueheart reported. "Mostly they called her Honey. She was well liked, kind of motherly. No one I've spoken with saw anything last night. It was rough out here, really cold. The snow finally stopped about midnight, but the winds were vicious; that's why we've got all these drifts."

"And why we'll never get any casts worth a damn." She looked at the trampled ground. "We'll find out what we can about her. Trueheart, it's up to you, but if I were in your shoes, I'd request another trainer when I got back to your station. When the dust clears some, I'm going to recommend your transfer to Central, unless you have other ideas."

"Sir. No. I'm very grateful."

"Don't be. They work your butt off at Central." She turned away. "Peabody, let's go by Canal Street before we head in. I'd like to see if Jilessa Brown was a patient there."

Louise was out in the medi-van doing on-site treatments for frostbite and exposure. Her replacement in the clinic looked young enough to have still been playing doctor in the backseat of a souped-up street buggy with the prom queen.

But he told her that Jilessa Brown was not only a patient, but a favorite at the clinic. A regular, Eve mused as she fought traffic and clogged streets on her way to Central. One who'd come in at least once a week just to sit and talk with others in the waiting room, to charm some of the lolly-tape the doctors kept in a jar for children.

She'd been, according to the doctor, a sociable woman with a sweet tooth and a mental defect that had gone untreated during her prime. It had left her speech slurred and her mental capacity on level with an eight-year-old.

She'd been harmless. And she'd been receiving treatments over the last six months for cancer of the liver, advanced stage.

There had been some hope for remission, if not reversal.

Now there would be neither.

Her message light was glowing when she stepped into her office, but she ignored it and tagged Feeney.

"I've got another one."

"So I hear. Word travels."

"There was a lapel pin at the scene -- it's this medical symbol. I took it by the lab, sat on Dickhead until he verified it was gold. The real thing. Can you run it for me? See if you can find out who sells them?"

"Will do. You talked to McNab?"