Midnight in Death (In Death #7.5)(16)

Subject Wainger’s central nervous system had been severely damaged. Subject suffered minor cardiac infarction during abduction and torture period. Anus and interior of mouth showed electrical bums. Both hands crushed with a smooth, heavy instrument. Three ribs cracked.

The list of injuries went on until Morse had confirmed the cause of death as strangulation. And the time of death as midnight, December twenty-fourth.

She spent an hour at Carl Neissan’s, another at Wainger’s. In both cases, she thought, the door had been opened, Palmer allowed in. He was good at that. Good at putting on a pretty smile and talking his way in.

He looked so damn innocent, Eve thought as she climbed the steps to her own front door. Even the eyes—and the eyes usually told you—were those of a young, harmless man. They hadn’t flickered, hadn’t glazed or brightened, even when he’d sat in interview across from her and described each and every murder.

They’d taken on the light of madness only when he talked about the scope and importance of his work.

“Lieutenant.” Summerset, tall and bony in severe black, slipped out of a doorway. “Do I assume your guests will be remaining for lunch?”

“Guests? I don’t have any guests.” She stripped off her jacket, tossed it across the newel post. “If you mean my team, we’ll deal with it.”

He had the jacket off the post even as she started up the stairs. At his low growl of disgust she glanced back. He held in his fingertips the gloves she’d balled into her jacket pocket. “What have you done to these?”

“It’s just sealant.” Which she’d forgotten to clean off before she shoved them into her pocket.

“These are handmade, Italian leather with mink lining.”

“Mink? Shit. What is he, crazy?” Shaking her head, she kept on going. “Mink lining, for Christ’s sake. I’ll have lost them by next week, then some stupid mink will have died for nothing.” She glanced down the hallway at Roarke’s office door, shook her head again, and walked into her own.

She was right, Eve noted. Her team could deal with lunch on their own. Feeney was chowing down on some kind of multi-tiered sandwich while he muttered orders into the computer and scanned. Peabody had a deep bowl of pasta, scooping it up one-handed, sliding printouts into a pile with the other.

Her office smelled like an upscale diner and sounded like cops. Computer and human voices clashed, the printer hummed, and the main ‘link was beeping and being ignored.

She strode over and answered it herself. “Dallas.”

“Hey, got your rope.” When she saw Dickie shove a pickle in his mouth, she wondered if every city official’s stomach had gone on alarm at the same time. “Nylon strapping cord, like I said. This particular type is top grade, heavy load. Manufactured by Kytell outta Jersey. You guys run the distributor, that’s your end.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” She broke transmission, thinking Dickie wasn’t always a complete dickhead. He’d come through and hadn’t required a bribe.

“Lieutenant,” Peabody began, but Eve held up a finger and walked to Roarke’s door and through it. “Do you own Kytell in New Jersey?”

Then she stopped and winced when she saw that he was in the middle of a holographic conference. Several images turned, studied her out of politely annoyed eyes.

“Sorry.”

“It’s all right. Gentlemen, ladies, this is my wife.” Roarke leaned back in his chair, monumentally amused that Eve had inadvertently made good on her threat to barge in on one of his multi-million-dollar deals just to annoy him. “If you’d excuse me one moment. Caro?”

The holo of his administrative assistant rose, smiled. “Of course. We’ll shift to the boardroom momentarily.” The image turned, ran her hands over controls that only she could see, and the holos winked away.

“I should have knocked or something.”

“It’s not a problem. They’ll hold. I’m about to make them all very rich. Do I own what?”

“Did you have to say ‘my wife’ just that way, like I’d just run up from the kitchen?”

“So much more serene an image than telling them you’d just run in from the morgue. And it is a rather conservative company I’m about to buy. Now, do I own what and why do you want to know?”

“Kytell, based in New Jersey. They make rope.”

“Do they? Well, I have no idea. Just a minute.” He swiveled at the console, asked for the information on the company. Which, Eve thought with some irritation, she could have damn well done herself.

“Yes, they’re an arm of Yancy, which is part of Roarke Industries. And which, I assume, made the murder weapon.”

“Right the first time.”

“Then you’ll want the distributor, the stores in the New York area where large quantities were sold to one buyer within the last week.”

“Peabody can get it.”

“I’ll get it faster. Give me thirty minutes to finish up in here, then I’ll shoot the data through to your unit.”

“Thanks.” She started out, turned back. “The third woman on the right? The redhead? She was giving you a leg shot—another inch of skirt lift and it would have been past her crotch.”

“I noticed. Very nice legs.” He smiled. “But she still won’t get more than eighty point three a share. Anything else?”