Seduction in Death (In Death #13)(8)

"Really superior fat, too." She licked sugar off her fingers. She could've blackmailed him into a second doughnut, but figured she'd just get sick off it. "Got a sidewalk splat last night."

"Leaper?"

"Nope. Already dead when she went off. I'm waiting for the ME and some lab reports, but it looks like sexual homicide. She had a date with a cyber-guy, e-mail lovers. I got a visual of him going in and out of her place, but the ID search hasn't hit a match. I need you to track him through her computer."

"You got the unit?"

"Yeah. I'm holding it in Evidence. Victim's Bankhead, Bryna. Case-file H-78926B."

"I'll get somebody on it."

"Appreciate it." She paused at the door. "Feeney, if you bring McNab in, maybe you could ask him to, I don't know, tone it down around Peabody."

The glow the doughnut brought to his face faded into painful embarrassment. "Aw, jeez, Dallas."

"I know, I know. But if I have to deal with her, you've got to deal with him."

"We could lock them in a room together, let them hash it out."

"We'll keep that as an option. Let me know as soon as you find something on the victim's unit."

The search wasn't getting anywhere. Without much hope, Eve bumped it up to global. She wrote and filed her preliminary report for her commander, then shot it off through the interoffice system. After ordering Peabody to keep pushing on the lab and morgue, she headed to the courthouse to give her testimony in a case on trial.

Two and a half hours later, she stormed out, damning all lawyers. She flipped on her communicator and tagged Peabody. "Status."

"Test results still pending, sir."

"Fuck that."

"Rough day in court, Dallas?"

"Defense council seems to think the NYPSD splattered the victim's blood all over his innocent client's hotel room, clothes, person just to give psychopathic tourists who stab their wives a couple dozen times during a marital spat a bad name."

"Well, it is tough on the Chamber of Commerce."

"Ha-ha."

"We have identified the woman Bankhead spoke with on the 'link the night she died. CeeCee Plunkett. She worked with the victim in the lingerie department at Saks."

"Grab transpo. Meet me there."

"Yes, sir, and may I suggest their lovely sixth-floor cafe for lunch? You need protein."

"I had a doughnut." With an evil smile, Eve broke transmission on Peabody's shocked and envious gasp.

Being caught in the hell of lunch-shift traffic did little to improve her mood. Cars bumped and churned in place for so long she considered the possibility of just leaving her vehicle where it was and hoofing it across town.

Until she studied the jammed sidewalks.

Even the sky was packed -- ad blimps, airbuses, tourist trams vying for air space. The noise was ridiculous, but for some reason, the sheer weight of sound smoothed out the rough edges. So much so that when she was trapped at a light at the corner of Madison and Thirty-ninth, she leaned out the window and spoke pleasantly to the glide-cart operator.

"Give me a tube of Pepsi."

"Small, medium, or large, fair lady?"

Her eyebrows lifted, disappeared under her fringe of bangs. An operator that friendly was either a droid or new. "Make it large." She dug in her pocket for loose change.

When he leaned down to make the exchange, she saw he was neither droid nor new. She pegged him at a well-tended ninety, and his smile showed an appreciation of dental hygiene far superior to most glide-carters.

"Beautiful day, isn't it?"

She looked at the traffic, at the knots of vehicles that were all but blocking out the sky in this sector. "You gotta be kidding."

He only smiled again. "Every day you're alive's a beauty, miss."

She thought of Bryna Bankhead. "Guess you're right."

She popped the tube, sucked on it contemplatively as she inched her way up Madison. At Fifty-first, she cut over, double parked, and engaged her ON DUTY sign.

And girding her loins, strode into Saks and the gauntlet of cosmetic shills.

High-fashion droids glided by the doors in a pattern designed to dazzle the eye, and make it impossible to break through unscathed. Backing them up were human consultants who manned booths, counters, or patrolled the aisle looking, in Eve's opinion, for escapees. The air was choked with scent.

A female droid with a starburst of magenta hair slithered across the floor to block Eve's forward progress.

"Good afternoon, and welcome to Saks. Today our premiere fragrance -- "

"One drop goes on me, just one, and I'll ram that spritzer down your throat," she warned as the droid moved in for the kill.

"Indeed, madam, it only takes a drop of Orgasma to entice the lover of your dreams."

Eve flipped her jacket aside, tapped her fingers on her weapon. "It only takes one blast of this to put you in the recycle bin, Red. Now back off."

The droid backed off, with satisfying speed. Eve heard the call go up for Security as she plowed through the wall of customers and consultants. She flipped out her badge as a pair of uniformed droids rushed toward her.

"NYPSD. Official business. Keep those damn smell pushers off me."