Immortal in Death (In Death #3)(11)

“Long enough to get the shit beat out of him.” Idly Eve scanned the walls. Several illegal invitations and anatomically doubtful suggestions were inscribed. One of the authors had a spelling deficiency and consistently left the c out of f**k.

Still, the message was clear enough.

“Homey little place, huh?”

“Reminds me of my granny’s house.”

At the door of 3C, Eve glanced back. “Why, Peabody, I think you made a joke.”

While Eve chuckled and took out her master code, Peabody flushed scarlet. She had herself back in line by the time the locks disengaged.

“Bolted himself in, didn’t he?” Eve muttered as the last of the three Keligh-500s opened. “And didn’t go for cheap. These babies cost about a week of my pay each. For all the good they did him.” She let out a breath. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, entering victim’s residence.” She pushed the door open. “Damn, Boomer, you were a pig.”

The heat was enormous. Temperature control in the flop consisted of closing the window or opening it. Boomer had opted for closed, and had trapped stifling summer inside.

The room smelled of bad food gone over, stale clothes, and spilled whiskey. Leaving Peabody to do the initial scan, Eve walked into the center of what was little more than a box and shook her head.

The sheets on the narrow bed were stained with substances she wasn’t keen to analyze. Boxes of take-out food were piled beside it. From the small mountain of dirty clothes heaped in corners, she assumed laundry hadn’t been high on Boomer’s list of household chores. Her feet stuck to the floor and made little sucking sounds as she wandered the room.

In self-defense, she fought the single window open. The sounds of air and street traffic poured in like a flood.

“Jesus, what a place. He made decent money weaseling. No way he had to live like this.”

“He must have wanted to.”

“Yep.” Wrinkling her nose, Eve eased open a door and studied the bathroom. There was a stainless steel toilet and sink, a shower stall built for the height disadvantaged. The stench roiled her stomach. “Worse then a three-day corpse.” She breathed through her mouth, turned back. “There’s where he put his money.”

In agreement, Peabody joined Eve at a sturdy counter. On it was a pricey data and communication center. Attached to the wall above was a viewing screen and a shelf overflowing with discs. Eve chose one at random, read the label.

“Boomer was into culture, I see. Bodacious Boobs of Bimbo Bitches.”

“That took the Oscar last year.”

Eve snorted and tossed the disc back. “Good one, Peabody. You want to keep that sense of humor going, ‘cause we’re going to have to run all this shit. Box up the discs, record number and labels. We’ll scan them back at Cop Central.”

Eve engaged the ‘link and searched through for any calls Boomer had saved. She zipped through food orders, a session with a video prostitute that had cost him five thousand. There were two calls from a suspected dealer of illegals, but the men had merely chatted about sports, heavy on baseball and arena bash. With some curiosity, she noted that her office number was logged twice in the last thirty hours, but he’d left no message.

“He was trying to get in touch with me,” she murmured. “He disengaged without leaving a message. That’s not like him.” She pulled out the disc and handed it to Peabody to put in evidence.

“There’s nothing to indicate he was afraid or worried, Lieutenant.”

“No, he was a true weasel. If he’d thought someone was going to pin him, he’d have camped on my doorstep. Okay, Peabody, I hope your immunizations are up to date. Let’s start going through this mess.”

By the time they were finished, they were filthy, sweaty, and disgusted. At Eve’s direct order, Peabody had loosened the stiff collar of her uniform and rolled up the sleeves. Still, sweat rained down her face and had her hair curling madly.

“I thought my brothers were pigs.”

Eve toed aside dirty underwear. “How many you got?”

“Two. And a sister.”

“Four of you?”

“My parents are Free-Agers, sir,” Peabody explained with twin notes of apology and embarrassment in her voice. “They’re really into rural living and propagation.”

“You continue to surprise me, Peabody. A tough urbanite like you springing from Free-Agers. How come you’re not growing alfalfa, weaving mats, and raising a brood?”

“I like to kick ass. Sir.”

“Good reason.” Eve had left what she considered the worst for last. With unconcealed revulsion, she studied the bed. The thought of body parasites scrambled through her head. “We’ve got to deal with the mattress.”

Peabody swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

“I don’t know about you, Peabody, but I’m heading straight for a decontamination chamber when we’re done here.”

“I’ll be right behind you, Lieutenant.”

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

The sheets came first. There was nothing but smells and stains. Eve would leave them for the sweepers to analyze, but she’d already ruled out any possibility that Boomer had been killed in his own flop.

Still, she was thorough, shaking out the pillow, manipulating the foam. At her signal, Peabody hefted one end of the mattress and she the other. It was heavy as a rock, and with a grunt they flipped it.