Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(78)

“Son of a bitch,” he said for a third time, and met her eyes. His ears had gone faintly pink. “  ’Preciate it.”

“Sure.”

He bent to gather up his old coat, the box, and looked at her again. “Really appreciate it.”

“Really sure.”

“Wait till the wife gets a load of this.” He skimmed one hand down the leather. “Let’s go get some bad guys, kid.”

“It’s what we do.”

They walked out. She heard him murmur “son of a bitch” yet again as they peeled off to their separate vehicles.

The instant she was in the car, Peabody leaned forward from the backseat she shared with McNab. “Is that a magic coat? Did you get Feeney a magic coat? Awww!”

“What’s a magic coat?” Banner demanded. “What kind of magic?”

“It’s totally frosted. See?” Peabody opened her pink coat to show off the lining. With some relief Eve let them ramble about body armor while she drove.

McNab slid up, spoke quietly near Eve’s ear. “That would’ve meant a lot to him, coming from you.”

He touched her shoulder lightly, then slid back. Either knowing she’d welcome a distraction or because he was greedy, he lifted his voice again.

“Who wants hot chocolate?”

And that took care of that.

She dumped Banner and McNab at Central, waited for Peabody to switch to the front seat for the trip to the lab.

On the way, she took a tag from Santiago.

“We’re at the garage now, but Hanks is out on a service call. Due back in a few. We took a little poke at his head mechanic, but he’s tight-lipped. We can poke at a couple of the others – the woman he’s got running the service counter’s got the wide eyes. She’d spill.”

“If he’s not back in a few, poke. Otherwise, keep it all easy.”

“No hits on the APB?”

“Not yet. I’ll let you know. Get me a name, Santiago. One name.”

“Working on it. He’s rolling in now. Back at you.”

“You can feel it falling,” Peabody said, “piece by piece.”

“There are two people it can’t fall fast enough for.”

She’d do whatever she could to speed it up, she thought as she moved quickly through the warren of the lab to DeWinter’s level.

Eve found the three doctors, all in lab coats. DeWinter’s was a metallic bronze that nearly matched her hair. She’d gone with ruler-straight, slicked back to leave her arresting face unframed.

Like Mira, she wore boots with scalpel-thin heels, hers in a deep green. Eve saw it matched the body-hugging dress under the lab coat.

DeWinter must have a hundred of them, Eve thought – dresses and lab coats.

Morris had chosen slate-gray over a suit of the same hue, and a single braid coiled up in poppy-red cord. And Mira had the traditional white over a suit as quietly blue as her eyes.

They made an interesting triad, Eve thought, standing around the white bones of the dead.

“Pretty clean,” Eve commented.

“The remains were in advanced decomp,” DeWinter began. “Morris worked with what flesh there was.”

“We ran reconstructions, of course,” he told Eve, before his colleague could recount chapter and verse. “And a number of tests you don’t want to hear about. We’re overruling the previous findings. The victim didn’t die in a fall. There was evidence of torture.”

“A thorough autopsy, a comprehensive one, should never have concluded accidental death.” DeWinter’s tone sharpened, as did the contempt in her eyes. “There are injuries obviously caused by implements, tools – several fingers were crushed – blunt force. A hammer, most probably. If you find the weapon I could match it. I would match it,” she corrected.

“There was also dehydration,” Mira put in. “We estimate the victim went at least thirty-six hours without water prior to death. If, indeed, he had suffered these injuries in a fall, he would have died instantly, not survived for more than a day.”

“Okay, that’s what I needed to hear.” She looked down again, at what remained of Little Mel. Justice would come, she thought. “What about the other one?”

“I’ve just started on tests, in the next room. Dr. Mira and I have already concluded a visual exam, and begun preliminary testing.” He glanced at Mira.

“It’s too soon to give you firm results and conclusions, but we both feel we’ll have a similar story to tell you.”

Thinking it through, Eve circled the table, the remains of Melvin Little, war vet, lost soul. Harmless.

“Here’s how I want to handle this. I’m going to wait until you have solid conclusions, until you put it all down, detail by minute detail, before I notify the feds. Right now, you’re reassessing, testing, examining, and if we even hint where this is going, the feds might be inclined to zip in and take over after they red tape it to death. The red taping may impede us, so we’ll just red tape it first.”

She glanced up, saw Morris with a slight smile, DeWinter with a more pronounced frown. “I’d be fine with them taking it over if it would speed this up, help us find the two people who are going through what this one went through. But it won’t. Objections?”