Promises in Death (In Death #28)(20)

They started up. “The stairs are clean. No litter, no graffiti, no hand smudges on the rail or the walls—the kind you’d get from long, regular use. Most people probably take the elevator.” Eve paused on the next landing. “Here’s where I’d have taken her. Keep behind the stairs. You’d hear her coming down, be able to judge her speed. She turns here, to round for the next level, you’re facing her. Close. Blast. Done. You haul her up, or you and your accomplice haul her up, carry her down two levels. It’s not likely you’d run into anybody that time of night, but if you do, you’re armed. You just take them down, too.”

Eve narrowed her eyes, studied Peabody. “You weigh more than she did.”

“Thanks for reminding me of the eight pounds I can’t get off my ass.”

“She was more my weight,” Eve continued, ignoring the sulk. “Shorter, but we weighed in close to the same. You’ve got a strong back. Haul me down to the basement.”

“Huh?”

“Over the shoulder. Firefighter’s carry. That’s the way he’d have done it. Leave his weapon hand free if he needs it.” Eve pressed back against the wall, imagining slapping against it from a hard stun. And let herself slide to the floor. “Haul me up, cart me down.”

“Man.” Peabody rolled her shoulders. She squatted, grunted. It took her two tries to get Eve’s deadweight over her shoulder. And another long grunt to straighten back up.

“I feel stupid,” she muttered as she trudged to the stairs. “Plus you’re heavier than you look.”

“She wouldn’t’ve been a feather.” Eve lay limp over Peabody’s shoulder. “Unconscious, carrying two weapons, her ’link, her communicator, restraints. Whatever else she took out with her. You’re making good time,” she added, as Peabody turned on the last landing. “Even bitching about it. If the killer was male, he probably had more muscle, more height than you. Plus he’s got purpose. Get her down, through the door fast. He wants to get it done.”

“Okay.” Puffing only a little, Peabody stopped at the basement door. “What now? Door’s sealed.”

“Break the seal, use your master. He’d have used his, or her key card to open the door.” Eve scowled as Peabody bumped her up, shifting the weight to dig out what she needed. When they were in, she closed the door with her self-maligned butt.

“Okay, you’re going to kill me shortly. What do you do first?”

“I dump you on the floor.”

“But he didn’t. She’d have had more bumps and bruises if he’d just dumped her. He laid her down. Lay me down.”

“Jeez.”

She managed it, then just crouched, bent forward with her elbows on her thighs.

“You need more gym time, pal.” Eve lay where she was. “He disarms her. I’ll break your fingers if you try it,” she warned Peabody. “Takes her badge, her ’link. Takes it all. Brings her around with a stimulant.” Frowning again, Eve checked the time. “She left the apartment—we’ve got to estimate about twenty-three twenty-two. Maybe she fooled around after she turned the droid off, but we’ve got to estimate that. No more than a minute or two to get down the stairs. Ambush, cart her down. Less than three minutes with you hauling me. Make it twenty-three-twenty-five to get to this point. Even adding time in to take the weapons, the badge, jewelry, add more for the stimulant—which would’ve jumped her right back—that leaves ten minutes or so before TOD. That’s a long time.”

“He had things to say.”

“Yeah, or things he wanted her to say. A conversation? Emotional torture? He does her, but he doesn’t rush the leaving. He didn’t unjam the cameras for another ten minutes.”

“Maybe he didn’t take her weapon and the rest until after he killed her?”

“Disarm first. SOP. You’d be stupid to leave her weapons on her—just in case. He was checking his tracks after he’d finished her. Making sure, I’d say. Making sure he didn’t leave any trace, make any mistakes.” Eve sat up, studied the room from her vantage point. “So far as we can tell, he didn’t. Unless he’s idiot enough to try to hock her ring, her weapon, he left nothing behind.”

She got to her feet. “Let’s take another pass through her place, then we’ll go back to Central, hook Feeney into it, and put together what we have.”

She wished it was more, Eve thought as she sat back at her desk at Central. A full day’s work, and most of what she had was impressions—how people saw the victim, felt about her. She had her own image of Coltraine to add to it. She could walk in her footprints, create what she believed was a fairly accurate time line of events. But she couldn’t know who or what had drawn the dead cop out of her apartment.

The hour she and Peabody had spent searching, hoping to find an answer, or a hidey-hole where Coltraine had stashed some secret, hadn’t given her any more.

She had Feeney and some of his best e-geeks on research and cross-check. She had several of her own men pouring over Coltraine’s cases, past and present. She had Coltraine’s backup date book, with no entry on the night she died.

It just wasn’t enough.

She copied all data to Dr. Mira, the department’s top profiler, and requested a meet at the doctor’s earliest convenience. She copied all data to her commander, then to her home unit.