Thankless in Death (In Death #37)(71)

“She’s got a droid. Neighbor spotted it carting electronics away. Record on.”

“Shit,” Peabody said again, drew her weapon.

They went through the door, Peabody right, Eve left.

“Ms. Farnsworth,” Eve called out as she moved through the first floor, clearing. “This is the police.”

She saw spaces on shelves and tables where the lack of balance told her something might have stood. She saw the destruction in the kitchen. And not a single comp or ’link on the first floor.

She knew, head and gut, before they started upstairs, she knew they were too late.

She smelled the urine, and the death, motioned Peabody to take the right again as they topped the stairs. She went left and into the home office.

Barely cold, she thought as she checked the body. Another mean, ugly death, with her swimming in its wake.

Then she put it aside, straightened.

“We got a body,” she called out, and pulled out her comm to call it in.

“Second floor’s clear, except for …” Peabody walked in, carrying a whimpering bundle. For a stunned instant Eve thought it was another baby.

“What the hell?”

“He was under the bed. I heard him crying when I went in to clear. And there was this little blanket, so I wrapped him up. He’s hurt, Dallas. I don’t know how bad.”

“However bad, she’s worse.”

“It’s her little dog. The neighbor said she walked Snuffy several times a day, but not today.”

“No, she won’t be walking Snuffy anymore. We need field kits. I called it in.”

“I’ll get them, but we have to do something for Snuffy.”

Eve dragged a hand through her hair. She saw the dog clearly enough now, and pain in its soft brown eyes. “What?”

“I’ll see if I can tag a vet while I’m getting the kits. He’s really hurt. Okay, Snuffy,” Peabody crooned as she walked away. “We’re going to take care of you. It’s okay.”

On a sigh, Eve turned back to the body. “I guess that leaves you and me. Victim is Caucasian female,” she began for the record.

She glanced over when Peabody came back with the kits. “What did you do with the dog?”

“The father next door—the house you took—he came out when he saw me. He knows the vet. It’s only a couple blocks away, so he took Snuffy and he’s running him there right now.”

They sealed up.

“Take this floor first,” Eve told her. “Nobody saw her today, so it’s likely he got in last night after she walked the dog. He probably put a lot of hours in here. He slept somewhere. Let’s see if he left anything behind. And see if you can find the droid. I didn’t see one when we cleared.”

Eve confirmed ID for the record, took out her gauges for time of death. Forty-three minutes, she noted. She’d been less than an hour behind him.

“He had you all night, most of the day,” she murmured. “Bashed you first, didn’t he?” She checked the back of the head through the plastic, studied the wound, the dried blood. “That’s his way. Walking your dog. Just taking your dog out before bed. He was waiting for you—like his father, like his ex. You come back, open the door, and he attacks from behind. Then he’s inside in seconds, and can take his time. What did he do, kick the dog, heave it, use it for a little batting practice?”

She examined the body as she spoke. “Hauled you upstairs. There’s a reason for that. You’re a big woman, and why cart you all the way up here? Office equipment. This is your office—desk, chair, small couch. Computer Science teacher. You probably had good equipment.”

She examined the blood, the skin tears on the wrists and arms, the ankles. “You tried. Looks like you tried pretty damn hard. Kept you alive all that time, so he had a use for you.”

“Dallas? It looks like he used her bedroom. I checked the recycler in the bath, and I can see some of the packaging, the stuff he bought. Hair product, skin product. Some hair, too. He cut his hair.”

“Okay.”

“Uniforms are here.”

“Give them a copy of the morph for the canvass. I want them to show his ID shot and the morph.”

Peabody nodded. “Do you think he pushed her over like that? Maybe she fell over, struggling.”

“Hard to say, but she sure as hell didn’t just sit and take it. She ripped skin off trying to get out of the tape.”

“The neighbors I talked to like her. You could tell.” Peabody drew in a breath. “There’s no droid up here. I still have to go over the main floor, but I didn’t see one down there either.”

“He kept it. Handy to have a droid. Clean up after him, run errands. He’d like that. Let’s find out what she had, get a BOLO out there, too.”

“On it. He could come back, Dallas. It’s a nice place, a big house. It’d make a good base.”

“Neighbors. They’d have started asking questions in another day or two. About her, the dog. Or she’d have an appointment. He got what he wanted here.”

Face grim, Peabody looked down at the body. “Because she flunked him in Computer Science. In high school.”

“Because she pissed him off. It’s all he needs now. And money. Get the uniforms started.”