Thankless in Death (In Death #37)(78)

Amused, and since he knew her feelings about candy, touched, he unwrapped it while he began the work.

Interesting, he thought after his initial scan. And challenging, he added after a second, deeper one.

He lost track of time with that interest and challenge, pausing only to make or take ’link tags if they were relevant or important enough.

He came out of his work zone when Eve opened the car door again.

She sat, put her head back, shut her eyes.

So he set the work aside altogether, laid a hand over hers, said nothing.

“Morris figures he had her for about eighteen hours. Taped and tied to a chair in her home office. He’d bashed her good, back of the head first. A bat again. She had a mild concussion, probably a blinding headache. She was severely dehydrated so it’s unlikely he gave her any food or water. Several blows to the face—hand, fist. Some of the blood and urine in her lap was canine. She had a little dog. He’d busted it up some, it’s at the vet. She’d torn her wrists, back of her hands, her ankles.”

Ah, God, he thought, but said nothing.

“She tore the skin off trying to get the tape loose. Dislocated shoulder. We think she did that right before or when he was killing her, smothering her with a plastic bag over her head. We think she managed to tip the chair over so it fell on his foot. He has a couple of broken toes and a hairline fracture in his foot. I think she did that. She didn’t let him stroll away. She made him pay a little. At least a little.”

“Who was she?” Roarke asked quietly.

“A good teacher, a good neighbor. A woman who loved her damn dog. I think he used that. Everyone said she loved the dog, the dog was her family. I don’t see her just doing whatever he wanted, but if he threatened to hurt what she loved, threatened her family, she probably would. At least try to stall him. And then hurt him when she knew she wouldn’t live through it.”

“You’ll find him.”

She glanced at the comp. “Will I?”

“You will, yes. This part may not be quick, but it’ll be done. This unit wasn’t wiped by an amateur. It’s thorough and professional.”

“He must’ve forced her to do it.”

“When did she die? The time, I mean.”

“Right about sixteen hundred.”

“Then no. It was done shortly after.”

“No way he could do it if you say it’s thorough and professional. He doesn’t have the chops. It’s … the droid,” she realized. “She had a droid, and she would’ve programmed it herself. He had the droid wipe the comps. There’s nothing there?”

“There’s always something. It’s the bringing it back, the finding it that’s the trick. I’ll do better with this in my own lab. I’ll work the financial data Feeney’s sent me until we get home.”

She nodded, straightened, then called up the list Peabody had sent her, and followed the computer’s suggestion for route.

She was tired, Eve realized when she came to the last address. At this point she just wanted home, just to get inside her own space, work this thing through.

“I’ll go in with you this time,” Roarke said. “I’ve done most of what I can this way.”

“Okay. This is Reinhold’s former Little League coach. He benched Reinhold for not listening, so Reinhold basically picked up his bat and went home.”

“And you think he’d kill this man for something that happened when he was a child?”

“I know he would,” Eve corrected. She lifted her badge to the security scanner of the squat, six-unit building. Waited for verification and clearance.

“They’re on two,” she told Roarke when they went inside. “Wayne Boyd, his wife Marianna. Two offspring, one in grad school, one in college.”

She chose the whistle-clean stairway, then knocked on 2-B, held her badge up to the security peep.

“Lieutenant Dallas?” came through the speaker.

“That’s right. I spoke with you earlier.”

“There’s someone with you?”

“My civilian consultant.”

It took another moment, but locks cleared, the door opened. Boyd stood cautiously studying both her and Roarke, a fit man in his late fifties who’d let a little gray sprinkle through his deep brown hair. He had a strong face, clear blue eyes, and beside him stood a burly, ugly dog whose study was anything but cautious.

“All right, Bruno, rest.”

The dog immediately leaned against Boyd’s side, and his tongue rolled out in a strange and goofy grin.

“We’re a little edgy since we heard about Ms. Farnsworth.”

“Understood. Can we come in?”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s okay, Marianna! It’s the police. I told her to go upstairs, in case. Our kids are here, for the holiday.”

He closed the door, stepped back into a large, high-ceilinged living space ringed by a railing along the second level.

The dog padded over to a square of dog-haired red rug and immediately began gnawing on some sort of bone.

Three people appeared on the second level—a slim blonde, a broad-shouldered man, early twenties, and a willow-slim brunette, a couple years younger than the man.

“They’re old enough to argue,” the blonde told Boyd, “and I’m outnumbered.”