Eternity in Death (In Death #24.5)(2)

“It looks like a DB. It looks like the vic had a date that went over the top. There’s going to be illegals in her system, something that dulled her down or hyped her up enough for her killer to jab something into her throat, or, yeah, sink his teeth into it if he had the incisors filed to points or was wearing an appliance. Then he bled her out, and she lay there and let him.”

“I’m just saying it looks like your classic vampire bite.”

“We’ll put out an APB on Dracula. Meanwhile, let’s find out if she was—just possibly—seeing someone with a heartbeat.”

“Just saying,” Peabody repeated, this time in a mumble.

Eve did another scan of the bedroom before stepping out and into the enormous dressing room area.

Bigger than a lot of apartments, she mused, and outfitted with a security screen, entertainment screen, full round of mirrors. The closet itself was a small department store, ruthlessly organized into categories.

For a moment, Eve stood with her hands on her hips and simply stared. One person, she thought, with enough clothes to outfit the Upper West Side, and more than enough shoes to shod every man, woman, and child in that sector. Even Roarke—and Eve knew her husband’s wardrobe was awesome—didn’t rate this high on the clothes-hog scale.

Then she just shook her head and focused on the job at hand.

Dressed for him, Eve thought. Slutty dress, f**k-me heels. So where was the jewelry? If a woman was going to deck herself out for a booty call, down to shoes, wouldn’t she drape on some glitters?

If she had, her killer had helped himself there.

She studied the drawers, the cabinets that ran below the rungs and carousels and protective domes. All locked, she noted, all passcoded, which meant valuables housed inside. There was no sign that she could see of any attempt to break in.

There were plenty of expensive bits and pieces sitting around in the penthouse: statuary, paintings, electronics. She’d seen nothing on her once-over of both levels that indicated anything had been disturbed.

If he was a thief, he was a lazy one, or a very picky one.

She stood for a moment, evaluating. Eve was a tall woman, slim in boots and trousers, with a short leather jacket over a white shirt. Her hair was short and brown, chopped around a lean face dominated by deep brown eyes. The eyes, as they studied, were all cop.

She didn’t turn at Peabody’s low whistle behind her. “Wow! This is like something out of a vid. I think she had all the clothes in all the land. And the shoes. Oooh, the shoes.”

“A few hundred pair of shoes,” Eve commented. “And she had the requisite two feet. People are screwy. Take head of building security, see if he’s got any knowledge or documentation of who she’s been seeing or entertaining in the last few weeks. I’ll take the maid.”

She moved through the apartment, down a level. The place was full of cops and crime-scene techs, of noise, of equipment. The busy business of murder.

In what she was told was the breakfast room, she found the maid with her red-rimmed eyes, clutching the small, ugly dog. Eve eyed the dog warily, then gestured for the uniforms to step out of the room.

“Ms. Cruz?”

At the mention of her name, the woman burst into fresh sobs. This time Eve and the dog exchanged looks of mild annoyance.

Eve sat so she and the maid were on the same level, then said, firmly, “Stop it.”

Obviously used to following orders, the maid instantly snuffled back the sobs. “I’m so upset,” she told Eve. “Miss Tiara, poor Miss Tiara.”

“Yes, I’m very sorry. You’ve worked for her for a while?”

“Five years.”

“I know this is hard, but I need you to answer some questions now. To help me find who did this to Miss Tiara.”

“Yes.” The maid pressed a hand to her heart. “Anything. Anything.”

“You have keys and passcodes to the apartment?”

“Oh, yes. I come in every day to do for Miss Tiara when she’s in residence. And three times a week when she’s away.”

“Who else has access to the apartment?”

“No one. Well, maybe Miss Daffy. I’m not sure.”

“Miss Daffy.”

“Miss Tiara’s friend, Daffodil Wheats. Her very best friend, except when they’re fighting, then Miss Caramel is her best friend.”

“Are you putting me on with these names?”

The maid blinked her swollen, bloodshot eyes. “No, ma’am.”

“Lieutenant,” Eve corrected. “All right, this Daffodil and Caramel were friends of Miss Kent’s. What about men? What men was she seeing?”

“She saw a lot of men. She was so beautiful, so young, and so vibrant that—”

“Intimately, Ms. Cruz,” Eve interrupted to stop both the eulogy and the fresh tears. “And most recently.”

“Please call me Estella. She enjoyed men. She was young and vibrant, as I said. I don’t know them all—some were just a moment, others longer. But in the past week or two, I think there was just one.”

“Who would that be?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him. But I could tell she was in love again—she laughed more, and danced around the apartment, and…” Estella seemed to struggle for a moment with her own code of discretion.