Treachery in Death (In Death #32)(36)

“And we’re the kick-ass murder cops.”

“We are. We’ll see what the ME has to say. We could get lucky and find the sweepers report waiting for us when we get back.”

“I admire your optimism.”

They talked shop in general until they were in the garage, in the vehicle, and driving out.

“Did you get wired?” Eve asked her.

“Yeah, I’m set. What about Renee, really?”

“She’s smooth, hard, cold. And she’s quick. She had to decide on the spot whether to admit Keener was her weasel, then how to play me when I said I was looking at murder instead of OD. Her squad room looks like the reception area of a big-shot office, and her office is the big shot. We’ll go over it all at the briefing, including Mira’s analysis and eval, but the upshot is she’s a stone bitch with daddy issues and a thirst for power, status, and money.”

“I got the stone bitch part from the locker room.”

“There was a detective Garnet took out with him right after he came out of a meet with Renee—in her big, fancy, shuttered office—which was right after she was told I was there to see her. Blond and blue, early thirties, about six four, maybe two-thirty. Garnet called him Bix. See what you can get.”

“All over it. You think he’s her muscle.”

“Odds are. There was another, female, mixed-race, also early thirties. Detective Strong. My vibe was she isn’t a big fan of her boss.”

May be able to use that, Eve thought, turn that.

“Bix,” Peabody announced, “Detective Carl, age thirty-two—you got the height dead on, two pounds under on the weight. Ten years on the force, out of the Army where he served from age eighteen to age twenty-two. Born in Tokyo where his parents—both also Army—were stationed at the time. Has a sib, a brother, four years older. Assigned to Illegals under Lieutenant Oberman for the last four years. Did a year in Vice after making detective. I’d have to go deeper to get any more,” Peabody told her.

“Hold off on that for now. Army brat, older brother, four years in the military. Used to taking orders from his superiors. Combat training, worked the streets if he had time in Vice and Illegals.”

“Strong, Detective Lilah,” Peabody continued when Eve parked at the morgue. “Age thirty-three, five-six, a hundred and twenty-two. Born Jamaica, Queens, to single mother. No father of record. Two sibs, older brother, younger sister. Brother listed as dead, 2045—age seventeen. Partial scholarship aided with education assistance to NYU. Major law enforcement. Ten years on the job, seven in Illegals. Recently transferred from out of the one-six-three to Central, and Lieutenant Oberman. Like six months ago.”

“New then. Yeah, maybe an asset. How’d the brother die?”

“Ah, wait.” Peabody ran it as they walked down the familiar white tunnel. “Killed during what looks like a drug deal gone wrong. Multiple stab wounds. He’s got a sealed juvie.”

“Dealing or buying the junk,” Eve concluded. “Likely a user, and dead before he can vote. Sister turns this into a career working against what killed her brother. Yeah, if that plays out, she could be an asset.”

She pushed through to Morris’s suite.

He had a laser scalpel in his hand, blood on his protective cloak, and still managed to look stylish in a collarless suit of midnight blue and his hair braided in a looping queue.

“We’re having a two-for-one sale,” he told her. “Yours is right there.” He lifted his chin toward the body with its neatly closed Y cut. “Just let me finish removing this brain, and I’ll be right with you.”

“No problem.” Eve walked to Keener.

They’d washed him, so he actually looked better on the slab than he had in the tub. Old track marks ran lividly down both arms, circled his ankles. Comparatively, the bruising he carried was minor.

Eve put on a pair of goggles and began to search the body for any signs of stunner marks, pressure syringe. But there were other ways, lots of ways, for a man trained in combat to incapacitate a man he outweighed by more than a hundred pounds.

She sealed her hands and probed his head, his scalp, ignoring where Morris or one of his techs had stitched it back together.

“Doing my job now?”

“Sorry.” Eve glanced over. “There’s a knot back here, just behind his left ear.”

“Yes.” Morris weighed the brain, recorded it, then walked to the sink to wash. “He has several bruises, some knots, as you say. He would have seized with that much in him. His system was loaded with what they call Fuck You Up. Have you heard of that one?”

“Horse tranquilizer base, right?”

“Yes, and he had enough to take down a four-hundred-pound stallion. And just for the hell of it the Zeus lacing was barely pushed. The combination was absolutely lethal—as we all can plainly see.”

“This knot. If he took a blow here, by someone who knew how and where, it would take him down, put him out.”

Morris lifted his eyebrows. “It could, done properly. You prefer murder to overdose.”

She wished she could lay it out for him. “I’ve got questions, yeah. Why the tub? You said he had enough in him to kill him a couple of times. Look at his tracks. He’s a junkie, but he’s a junkie with experience. Why take so much of something so risky—and even if you’re an idiot, wouldn’t you want to spread out the high? He’s not in his flop, but locked in this hole instead, and it looks like he made himself a little camp there. And that says he’s hiding. So maybe somebody found him.”