Thankless in Death (In Death #37)(38)

“No coincidence. He’d been watching the building, working out how to get in and up without anyone who knew about the breakup spotting him. Or maybe he was just watching for the vic, then took the opportunity to slither in when Crabtree left.”

“Fifteen-minute window,” Peabody commented. “He hit some luck on that.”

And we didn’t, Eve thought. “I want the uniforms to check out any place across the street or close enough where he could’ve waited it out. Relay that, talk to the wit again. Mira’s coming in, and I need to be here when she gets here.”

“Coming in here?” Peabody glanced toward the body, winced.

For whatever reason it made Eve feel less foolish to know Peabody had the same reaction she’d had herself. “She’s seen DBs before.”

“Yeah. I’ll relay to the uniforms and go talk to the wit.”

“No ’link on the premises, as you thought.” Roarke stepped up beside her. “I ran a quick check on her financials to see where she used her cards today, so you can follow her steps. I sent the list to you.”

“I can use that. Did he try any siphoning that you can see?”

“No, not as yet. But he may as he has her comp. EDD can watch for that easily enough.”

“Maybe we’ll catch a break and he’ll be just that stupid.”

“You don’t think so.”

“No, I don’t. I have to go into Central when I’m done here. You should go home, get some sleep.”

“I’ll see what pieces I can pick at around here, and leave when you do. I’ve sent for your vehicle so it’ll be here for you when you’re ready.”

“You’re pretty handy.”

“Just consider it all part of our non-date date night.”

She managed a smile that faded when she spotted Mira.

“Thanks for coming down.”

“It wasn’t a problem. Roarke.”

Apparently Mira didn’t consider the cheek kiss she and Roarke exchanged before he helped her off with her coat unprofessional behavior at a crime scene.

Mira wasn’t in one of her pretty, stylish suits and ankle-breakers. Instead she wore slim dark pants with a steel-blue sweater and short gray boots that looked soft as melting butter.

Her mink brown hair fluffed around her attractive face, and her lovely blue eyes stayed cool and assessing as they scanned the scene.

“I saw Peabody downstairs and she helped me seal up. Am I cleared to examine the body?”

“Yeah, you’re clear.”

Eve went with her, rattling off basic information. Age, name, TOD, COD. “I haven’t found whatever he used to knock her out. He may have taken it with him, may have brought it with him. He likes a baseball bat, and the injury may indicate that. Morris will know.”

“Yes, I’m sure. He brought the tape, the cord, you said.”

“Yeah, he prepped for it.”

“Planned rather than impulse. More like his father than his mother. But different than that, too. He didn’t just want to kill her, destroy her. He wanted to hurt her, terrorize her, humiliate her. And I imagine you’ve concluded the same.”

“Yeah, but it’s good to have the opinion. Cutting her hair this way. There’s a meanness there, a small-minded one, from one who understands what a woman’s hair means to her.”

“Yes. I agree.”

“I’m pretty sure she’d just gotten it done, changed the color and style.”

“Ah, even more so. She isn’t allowed to look attractive. I see no overt signs of sexual abuse—but for this bruise on her right nipple.”

“He came in his pants, left his boxers in the bathroom after he cleaned up.”

Mira nodded. “The killing aroused him, or the torture. Both would have. He left evidence of that, as well as his DNA behind. He wants you to know he’s a man—not gender, but a man. You understand me?”

“Okay, yeah.”

“He struck her, primarily the face. To hurt her, to mark her, to feel the power of it. Shopping bags. She’d been shopping?”

“Yeah. I figure he dumped the stuff out, tore it up.”

“She can’t have anything, and he’d have done that before he killed her. Hurting her again. New shoes … wearing them so she looks  p**n ographic perhaps.”

“That’s my take.

“The strangulation, face-to-face. That’s intimacy. The bow he’s tied there, that’s small-minded again, mean again. Eve, I think he took some of her hair.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I don’t want to touch anything, but you see the length of some of these hanks he cut off? I think there should be more hair. Your sweepers will confirm that if I’m right.”

“So he took something of her, a trophy. I didn’t see anything like that at the first scene. Maybe I missed it.”

“I doubt it. She meant more to him than they did. They were just in the way, an annoyance, and dead a means to an end.”

“That’s how I saw it,” Eve agreed.

“She was more important than that. He slept with her in this bed, had sex with her in this bed. And she denied him, rejected him, sent him, like a little boy, back to his parents. And she shops for new things, gets new hair? No, that would never do.