Treachery in Death (In Death #32)(37)

“Perhaps. He’d eaten a decent enough meal, around midnight. Pizza with sardines.”

“You call that decent?”

Morris smiled. “He ate hearty, we’ll say, and washed it down with a couple beers.”

“There weren’t any takeout pizza boxes or brew bottles on scene. Maybe he ate out. We can work that. I wonder why he’d eat hearty, then a couple hours later hole up, crawl in a filthy tub, and jab himself with what he should have known, given his history, was a lethal dose.”

“So noted. I haven’t as yet made my determination, so it stands that COD is the overdose—all other injuries were nonlethal. But I cannot, at this time, with this data, determine accident, suicide, or homicide.”

“Just what I wanted to hear.”

“I believe I’ll need to do a further analysis of the wound below his left ear.”

“Couldn’t hurt.”

“You’ve something up your sleeve. Quite a nice sleeve today, I might add.”

“Just doing the job. We’ll let you get back to your brain.”

8

“HERE’S WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO.” EVE PULLED out in front of a Rapid Cab, zoomed through a yellow light—and had Peabody gripping the chicken stick. “Are we doing in a hurry?”

“What? I had plenty of room. We’re going to update the book with Morris’s preliminary findings, copy the commander as usual. You’re going to contact Renee and inform her of those findings and tell her I need the data and files we discussed, asap.”

Hand still gripping the chicken stick, Peabody blanched. “I’m going to talk to her?”

“I’m much too busy and important to trouble myself with this kind of follow-up. That’s how she thinks. I’m going to see if Morris has a spare spine lying around you can borrow if you’re scared to speak to that high-heel-wearing, smug-ass bitch, Peabody.”

“Not scared. Uneasy. I admit to uneasy.” To prove to herself she had that spine already, she loosened her grip on the stick. “So I tell her the chief medical examiner has determined COD, but cannot, at this time, determine self-termination, accidental overdose, or homicide. Therefore, Lieutenant Dallas requests—”

“Requires,” Eve corrected.

“Lieutenant Dallas requires the data and files on the victim, as discussed. What if she balks?”

“You courteously inform her that Commander Whitney has, per procedure, been copied on all notes and files, including your lieutenant’s notification to her, the vic’s handler, and the requirement for data.”

Peabody mulled it. “Courteously adds a dig.”

“You bet it does. If she carps after that, I’ll deal with her. But she won’t,” Eve added. “She wants this to go away, and the potential of me going over her head and bringing this more fully to Whitney’s attention spotlights her.”

“Better to cooperate and keep it low-level.” Peabody’s fingers crawled back to the stick when Eve swerved around a slow-poking maxibus.

“That’s how I’d play it in her place. Next, we get everything we need for the briefing, and spend a little time at it. If she’s got feelers out, and she damn sure does, I want to be seen working this. We’ll do a run by the vic’s flop on the way to HQ.”

“Why aren’t we doing that now?”

“Want to be seen—and I want to make sure her dogs have had time to go by, go through, look for anything that might tie them in.” She glanced over. “If Garnet and Bix weren’t heading to Keener’s flop when they left the squad room, you can bet your ass she tagged them and sent them there after my conversation with her.”

“But . . . If there was anything, they’d get rid of it.”

“Maybe there was—unlikely, as Bix should have hit the flop already and ditched anything that tied in. But maybe.” Eve shrugged it off. “I’m more interested in following their tracks.” She pulled into the garage at Central. “You should yammer like always in the bullpen about the case.”

Peabody tried on a mildly offended look. “I don’t yammer. I respectfully object to the term yammer.”

“All of you yammer, that’s how it’s done.” Eve turned into her slot. “Yammer and bitch, and with the yammering and bitching you play angles off each other. You handle this with the rest of the men just like usual. If you clam up, evade, they’ll smell something off. Bunch of cops get a scent, they can’t help but start digging for the source. And there’s no harm in mentioning our vic was Renee Oberman’s weasel. Someone might have some dish on her, an opinion, an interesting anecdote.”

“So I’d actually be doing the digging. It’s like spy stuff.”

“It’s like cop work,” Eve corrected, and got out of the car.

“It’s interesting about that welt behind the vic’s ear.” Peabody scanned the garage as they crossed to the elevator, lowered her voice. “Is it okay to talk about that?”

Eve just nodded. “It strikes me, given the location and angle of the wound, it could have come from a blow. Somebody, who knows what they’re doing or gets lucky, clips him at that spot, side of the hand.”

“Like a karate chop,” Peabody said as they loaded on, other cops loaded off.