Treachery in Death (In Death #32)(27)

“ME to confirm TOD.”

Peabody said what she believed she’d have said if they’d come across the body by a tip. “It looks like an OD. You can see his track marks. He went old school, but it’s not his first trip to Neverland.”

“Why the tub? There was a mattress in the next room, what could loosely be called a bed. He’s got bruising, a scraped elbow.”

“He could’ve gotten those seizing, banging against the tub. I think it’s cast iron.”

“Yeah. He’s got a sheet, and wasn’t a stranger to illegals. Maybe he screwed up his pop, or maybe he got something hotter than he knew.” She shook her head. “He’s got an address on record, and this isn’t it. So why here?”

“Maybe he came to shoot with somebody, OD’d, and the somebody put him in here and went rabbit.”

“Those are questions and possibilities. Well, Juicy’s ours now. So we’ll have to get the answers. ME will determine COD, but for now this is a suspicious death, and our case. Let’s get to work.”

6

SHE CAUGHT THE GRIMACES WHEN SHE SENT the uniforms out to canvass and knock on doors. It wasn’t the type of neighborhood where cops were greeted with an offer of coffee, or even a pretense of respect. Nor was it likely anyone would admit to seeing anything or anyone even if they’d been a magical fly on the wall of the crime scene.

But it had to be done.

When the sweepers arrived, she hunted up the head CSI. “I’m going to want a full-level sweep, all three levels.”

Eve got the beady eye. “Is this a joke?”

“No. And I tagged the lock on the front door. I need make, model, and an analysis of when it was installed.”

“Petrie put you up to this, didn’t he? He’s got a sick sense of humor.”

“Do you have a problem being thorough, Kurtz?”

Behind her goggles, the woman rolled her eyes. “Next thing you’ll tell me is that isn’t some dead chemi-head but the Prince of Monaco or some shit.”

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s some dead chemi-head. He’s also my dead guy, and I need what I need.”

“You’ll get what you need, but it’d be better all around to just burn everything in here. Purify.”

“Don’t light the match until after the sweep.”

That, at least, got a smile out of Kurtz before Eve left the scene to the sweepers and the body to the morgue team.

On her way out she sent a text to Morris, the chief medical examiner, requesting he take the body himself.

“There’s going to be some muttering about going top level on this,” Peabody commented once they were outside, recorders off.

“Just what I had in mind.”

She got behind the wheel and headed off to a sex club to rat out Renee Oberman.

When she walked into the Down and Dirty, Crack stood huge behind the bar. His shaved head gleamed like polished onyx, and his chest, his muscled arms, bared but for a sleeveless vest, rippled with tattoos.

He shot her a steely stare. “You screwed my beauty sleep, white girl.”

“Black man, just how much prettier do you want to be?”

“Smart answer.” He inclined his head toward a corner table. “Got a rat in the house.”

“Yeah.” She’d already spotted Webster. “I’ve got reasons. I owe you one, Crack. I’ll owe you two if you keep the place shut until I’m done.”

“This time of day that ain’t no thing. Figure one and a half. Want coffee?”

Experience told her the coffee here was as lethal as the booze. “Maybe water?”

He snorted, but pulled two bottles from under the bar, then after a moment’s hesitation added a third. “Rats get thirsty, too.”

“Appreciate it.” Eve passed a bottle to Peabody, carried the other two across the room to Webster.

“Too early for entertainment,” he commented.

She glanced toward the stage. In a couple hours a holoband would set the rhythm for the strippers on early shift, and the scatter of customers would insult their deteriorating stomach linings with hard drinks and cheap brew.

By midnight, the place would be ass-to-ass and elbow-to-elbow under swirling lights. Upstairs in the privacy rooms people—many who’d just met—would be humping away at each other like crazed rabbits.

“I could ask Crack to put on a couple virtual strippers, but I think what we’ve got for you is entertaining enough.”

“It better be. How’s it going, Peabody?”

“I guess we’re going to find out.”

“We’re here with the commander’s full knowledge and authorization, and with his directive that, at this time, the information we’re about to give you isn’t reported to anyone else.”

“We’re not lone wolves in IAB, Dallas.”

She figured he had a recorder running. And also figured if he didn’t agree to terms, she’d give him nothing to record.

“Yeah, I get that Bureau is short for bureaucracy, but that’s the directive.”

“My captain—”

“Is not to be apprised at this time.”

He sat back, a good-looking man with cop’s eyes even, Eve thought, if he’d traded the streets for internal sniffing. He’d thought he’d loved her once, which had been an embarrassing and ... fraught situation.