Imitation in Death (In Death #17)(33)

It was sad, she thought. It was always sad to see those bits and pieces of a life when the life was over.

But she tried to shake it off. Dallas would shake it off, she knew. Or bury it, or use it. But she wouldn't let herself be distracted by the pity.

Peabody looked again, making the deliberate shift from woman to cop. "Do you think there's more than one killer? A team?"

"No, there's only one." " Eve lifted one of the victim's hands. No polish, she noted. Short nails. No rings, but a faint pale circle where one had been, and habitually. Third, finger, left hand. "He's just showing us how versatile he is."

"I don't understand."

"I do. See if you can find where she kept her jewelry. I'm looking for a ring, band style."

Peabody started on the dresser drawers. "Maybe you could explain what you understand, so I can."

"Victim is an older woman. No sign of forced entry or struggle. She let him in because she thought he was okay. He was probably suited up as maintenance or repair.. She turns her back, and he hits her over the head. She's got a laceration on the back of the skull, and there's some blood on the living room rug."

"Was she an LC?"

"Doubtful."

"Got her jewelry." Peabody lifted out a clear-sided box with insets of varying sizes. "She liked earrings. Got a few rings, too."

She brought the case over, holding it while Eve poked through. Exposure to Roarke, and his propensity for dumping glitters on her had taught her to spot the real stuff from the costume. Lois's body adornments were mostly costume, but -there were a few good pieces as well.

He hadn't bothered with those. Unlikely he'd even looked. "No, I don't think so. I think she was wearing a ring, a kind of wedding ring, and he took it off her finger. A symbol, a souvenir."

"I thought she lived alone."

"She did. Another reason he picked her." She turned away from the box of pretty stones and metal, looked back at Lois Gregg. "He carries her in here. He's got his equipment again, likely in a toolbox this time. Restraints for her hands and feet. Strips off her robe, ties her up. Finds what he wants to use to rape her. He's going to wake her up then. He didn't get to play with the other, but this one's different."

"Why?" Peabody set the jewelry box back on the dresser. "Why is she different?'

"Because that's what he's looking for. Variety. She screams when she comes around and realizes-when it comes into her like a flood what's happened, and what will happen. Even though part of her rejects it, refuses to believe, she screams and struggles, and begs. They like it when you beg. When he starts on her, when the pain spurts into her, hot, cold, impossible, she screams more. He'd get off on that."

Eve lifted one of Lois's hands again, then moved down to her feet. "She bloodied her wrists and ankles trying to get free, straining and twisting against the restraints. She didn't give up. He'd have enjoyed that, too. It's exciting for them when you fight, makes their breath come fast in your face, makes them hard. It gives them power when you fight and can't win."

"Dallas." Peabody kept her voice low, laid a hand on Eve's shoulder as her lieutenant had gone pale and clammy.

Eve shrugged, carefully took a step back. She knew everything Lois Gregg had felt. But it wouldn't take her down, not now, into the memory, into the nightmare. The blood and the cold and the pain.

Her voice was level and cool when she continued. "When he's done raping her, he takes the sash from her robe. She's incoherent now, from the pain and the shock. He gets on the bed, straddles her, looks into her eyes when he strangles her, listens to her fight to breathe, feels her body convulsing under his in that sick parody of sex. That's when he comes, when her body bucks under his and her eyes bulge. That's when he gets his release.

"When he comes back to himself, he ties the sash into a bow, wedges the note between her toes. He takes the ring off her finger, amused by it. Such a female thing, to wear the symbol when there's no man to go with it. He slips the ring in his pocket, or puts it in his toolbox, then checks how it all looks, and he's pleased. Just as it's supposed- to. An excellent imitation."

"Of what?"

"Of who," Eve corrected. "Albert DeSalvo. The Boston Strangler."

She stepped out into the hallway, where cops were milling around, doing what they could to keep people from the neighboring apartments inside.

And there was Roarke, she thought. There was a man with more money than God sitting cross-legged on the hallway floor, his back supported by the wall as he worked with his PPC.

And would probably be content to do so, for reasons she could never understand, for hours.

She moved to him, squatted down so their eyes were level. "I'm going to be here awhile. You ought to go on home. I can catch a ride into Central."

"Bad, is it?"

"Very. I've got to talk to the son, and he's...." She let out a long breath. "They tell me the MT gave him something, but he's still pretty messed up."

"One is, when their mother's murdered."

Despite the presence of other cops, she laid a hand over his. "Roarke-"

"Demons don't die, Eve, we just learn to live with them. We've both known that all along. I'll deal with mine, in my.way."