Holiday in Death (In Death #7)(59)

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’ll entertain them if you’re running a bit late.” Ignoring her next curse, he slipped outside.

She ended with a hiss, then gathered her field kit, called to Peabody, and sealed the scene. “I want to run the hair and fiber to the lab and light a fire under Dickhead,” she said as they climbed into her vehicle. “We’ll push the ME, too, though I don’t think we’re going to find out anything from the postmortem that we don’t already know.”

She slid a sidelong glance at her aide as she drove. “It’s going to be a long day, Peabody. You might want to take some approved ups to get through. You can requisition some Alert-All.”

“I’m okay.”

“I need you sharp. I want you transformed and under by nine. You have to pull off your bit with Piper. We’ll hold the release of Holloway’s name as long as possible.”

“I know what to do.” Peabody stared out the window, watching the night sweep by. There was a lone glide-cart on the corner at Ninth, the operator warming himself in the steam from his grill.

“I’m not sorry I broke his goddamn nose,” she said abruptly. “I thought I would be. I thought when I saw him there, saw what had been done to him, that I’d be sorry.”

“One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.”

“I thought it would. I thought it should. I was afraid to go in that room. But once I was in there, doing the job, I didn’t feel all the stuff I thought I would.”

“You’re a cop. A good one.”

“I don’t want to be the kind who stops feeling.” She turned her head, studied Eve’s profile. “You’re not. They’re not just slabs to you, they’re people. I don’t want to stop remembering they’re people.”

Eve glanced right and left as she approached a red light, then seeing her way clear, breezed through it. “You wouldn’t be working with me if I thought you would.”

Peabody took a long, slow breath and felt her stomach settle. “Thanks.”

“Since you’re grateful, contact Dickhead. Tell him I want his skinny ass in the lab within the hour.”

Peabody grimaced, shifted in her seat. “I don’t know if I’m that grateful.”

“Make the call, Peabody. If he balks, I’ll take over and bribe him with a case of Roarke’s Irish beer. Dickie’s got a weakness for it.”

It took two cases and a threat to tie his tongue around his neck, but at three a.m. Dickie was in his labcoat and testing hair and fiber.

Eve paced the lab, barking into her communicator as the assistant ME claimed a holiday backup on autopsies. “Look, you little drone, I can call Commander Whitney and fry your ass. This is Priority One. You want me to let it drop to the media that my investigation was delayed because some AME wanted to read his Christmas cards instead of doing a cut?”

“Come on, Dallas, I’m working a double. I got stiffs stacked like bricks in the drawers here.”

“Put my brick on the table and have the report to me by oh six hundred or I’m coming over there and I’m going to show you what a Y cut feels like.”

She cut transmission and turned around. “Gimme, Dickie.”

“Don’t crowd me, Dallas. You don’t scare me. I don’t see no Priority One tab on this evidence.”

“There will be by nine.” She walked over and gave his hair a hard quick yank. “I haven’t had my f**king coffee, Dickie. You don’t want to mess with me here.”

“Jeez, get some then.” Behind his microgoggles, his eyes were as big as an owl’s. “I’m running the damn stuff, aren’t I? You want it quick or you want it right?”

“I want it both.” Because she was desperate, she walked over and ordered a cup of the lab sludge pretending to be coffee and forced down a swallow.

“Hair’s human,” he called out. “Treated with a salon fixer and an herbal disinfectant.”

That perked Eve up enough to have her drinking more coffee as she crossed to him. “What kind of fixer, what’s it for?”

“To preserve color and texture. It’ll keep the white from yellowing or getting stiff. Two of your samples have some adhesive on one end. These hairs likely came from a wig. A good, expensive one. This is real human hair, and that puts it high-end. I’ll have to run more to tag the adhesive. Might be able to get you a brand name on the fixer after some more tests.”

“What about the fibers, the stuff Peabody got from the drains?”

“I haven’t done it yet. Jesus, I’m not a droid.”

“Okay.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I need to go to the morgue, make sure Holloway’s on the table. Dickie.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. He was a pain in the ass, but he was the best. “I need everything you can get me, and I need it fast. This guy’s taken out four, and he’s already looking for number five.”

“I’ll get it to you a hell of a lot faster if you stop breathing down my neck.”

“I’m leaving. Peabody.”

“Sir.” Peabody jerked from her doze in a lab chair and blinked blindly.

“We’re moving,” Eve said shortly. “Dickie, I’m counting on you.”