Memory in Death (In Death #22)(54)

"How you work, how you think, the routine. The steps and stages of an investigation. We'll talk about the Icove case—"

"Hasn't that horse been beaten dead yet?"

"Not as long as people are interested, and they are. I'm going to start working with a writer on the book, and the vid script. I need you to meet with her."

Eve lifted a finger, slashed it through the air. "Line drawn."

Nadine's smile was sly. "It's going to get done with or without you, Dallas. You want to make sure it's done right, don't you?"

"Who's playing you in the vid?" Peabody wanted to know, and attacked the orange blossom chicken on her plate the minute it was in front of her.

"Don't know yet. We're just getting started."

"Am I in it?"

"Sure. The young, steady detective who hunts murderers alongside her sexy, seasoned partner."

"I'm going to boot," Eve muttered, and was ignored.

"This is too frosty! Entirely. Wait 'til I tell McNab."

"Nadine, this is good for you. Another round of big congrats and all that." Eve shook her head. "But it's not the kind of thing I want to get tangled in. It's not what I do, what I am."

"Be iced if we could do some of the shoot for the show and the vid at your house. Dallas at home."

"Not in this lifetime."

Nadine grinned. "Figured as much. Think about some of it, anyway, will you? I'm not going to push it on you."

Eve sampled pasta, gave Nadine a wary look. "No?"

"No. I'll nag a little, finagle where I can, but I won't push. Here's why," she said, tapping her fork in the air. "Remember that time you saved my life? When that psycho Morse had me in the park, ready to slice me to pieces?"

"I have a vague recollection."

"This is bigger." Nadine signaled the waiter. "Another round here. So I'm not going to push," she continued. "Much. But if you could catch a juicy case mid-February when we debut, it wouldn't hurt."

"Mavis is due then," Peabody commented.

"God, that's right. Mama Mavis," Nadine added with a laugh. "Still can't get around it. You and Roarke started your coaching classes yet, Dallas?"

"Shut up. Never mention it again."

"They're dragging butt over it," Peabody told her. "Procrastinating."

"The word's 'avoiding,'" Eve corrected. "People always want you to do stuff that's not natural."

"Childbirth's natural," Peabody put in.

"Not when I'm involved."

* * *

Going to the lab to boot some ass, Eve thought. That was natural. She found Dick Berenski, of the spidery fingers and egg-shaped head, at a work station, slurping coffee through his flabby lips.

"Gimme data."

"It's always 'gimme' with you cops. Always think your shit's the priority."

"Where are my fibers?"

"In the fiber department." He snorted, obviously amused with himself as he rolled on his stool to a screen, gave a few taps. "Harvo's working on it. Go hound her. She did your hair already. Out of the drains, out of both the rooms. Must not clean out the pipes in that shithole but every decade. Got the vic's, and other unidentified—for now—on crime scene. No Wood traces in the drains of the second room, just the vic's on crime scene, bathroom sink. ID'd hair from vic, son of vic, daughter-in-law of vic, hotel maid, couple of former tenants already listed on your report. All the blood on crime scene was the vic's. Surprise, surprise."

"In other words you can't tell me anything I don't already know."

"Not my fault. I can only work with what you give me."

"Let me know when you've compared hair and prints from the hotel scene and the bar."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Cheery today," Peabody muttered as they headed through the glass-wall maze of the lab.

They found Harvo at her station studying the screen. Her red hair was stiff with spikes that contrasted with her pale, almost translucent skin. There were little Santas dangling from her ears.

"Yo," she said.

"That my fiber?"

"One and the same. Hair's turned in."

"Yeah, I got that from Dickhead. I thought you were the Queen of Hair, not fiber."

"Queen of Hair," Harvo agreed with a snap of her chewing gum. "Goddess of Fiber. Fact of it is, I'm just f**king brilliant."

"Good to know. What've we got?"

"Synthetic white poly with traces of elastizine. Same constitution as the particles found in the unfortunate vic's bone and gray matter. What you're looking for is either a sock or a tummy tamer. But I'd say not a girdle—not enough elastizine."

"Sock," Eve said.

"And you'd win the prize. Compared fibers to a lone white sock taken from the scene. You got your match. New sock, never worn, never washed. Still traces of gum on the lone one, from the tag, and I got me a tiny bit of plastic jammed in the toe. You know how they snap the socks together with the little plastic string?"

"Yeah, I hate those."