Visions in Death (In Death #19)(74)

"Get an address for Grande. We'll take him after we see her mother."

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Eve wasn't sure which was worse, telling a mother her daughter was dead and watching her shatter, or telling a man his woman was dead and watching him dissolve.

They'd woken him. He'd come to the door sleepy-eyed, rumpled, and mildly annoyed.

"Look, I turned the music down. I don't play it loud after ten o'clock. Nobody complains on this floor. I don't know what bug's up the ass of that guy upstairs. He's so freaking hyped, he can spring for soundproofing."

"This isn't about a disturbance or complaint, Mr. Grande. We're going to need to come in."

"Well, shit." He backed up, gestured impatiently. "If Bird got busted for Zoner again, it's got nothing to do with me. We do sessions together. We're not joined at the damn hip."

"We're here about Annalisa Sommers."

" Annalisa?" His mouth quirked. "Did she and her girlfriends get polluted and do something stupid last night? I gotta bail her out or something?"

"Mr. Grande, I'm sorry to tell you, Ms. Sommers was killed last night."

The tickled smile dropped off his face. "That's not funny. What the hell's wrong with you to say something like that?"

"Mr. Grande, her body was found this morning, in Greenpeace Park."

"Come on. Come on." He retreated as he said it, his hands coming up as if begging her to stop.

"Let's sit down."

" Annalisa?" Tears flooded his eyes. "Are you sure it's Annalisa? It could be somebody else."

Anybody else, he'd be thinking, Eve knew. Anybody but mine.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Grande. There's no mistake. We need to ask you some questions now."

"I just saw her yesterday. Grabbed lunch with her yesterday. We've got a date Saturday. How can she be dead?"

"We're going to sit down now." Peabody took his arm, led him to a chair.

The room was crowded with instruments. Some sort of keyboard, a music comp, a couple of guitars, sound boxes. Eve snaked between them to sit across from him. "You and Annalisa were seeing each other."

"We're going to get married. As soon as I ask her. I was going to ask her at Christmas. Wait until Christmas, make it special. What happened to her?"

"Mr. Grande, tell us where you were last night."

He had his hands to his face, and the tears were trickling through his fingers. "You think I could hurt her? I couldn't ever hurt her. I love her."

"No, I don't think that, but I need to ask."

"I had a session, ran until midnight, maybe later. After we hung around the studio, had some brews, some pizza, jammed. Got home, I don't know, around three. Jesus, did somebody hurt her?"

"Yes, somebody hurt her."

His face was already splotchy from weeping, but now it went white under the stain. "You said the park. Oh, my Jesus Christ. You said the park. Those other women. It was like those other women? Annalisa?"

"Tell me where you had your session, and who was there, and we'll get that out of the way."

"Tunes, on Prince. Um. Bird. God, God." His hands were all over his face, into his hair, fingers trembling. "John Bird, and Katelee Poder and I can't think straight. Her mother, have you told her mother?"

"We've just come from there."

"They're tight. Really tight. Gave me the once-over about five times. But she's okay. We get along good. I gotta go over there."

"Mr. Grande, do you know if anyone was bothering Annalisa? Someone you noticed, someone she mentioned."

"No. She'll mention if her nose itches, so she'd say if there was. I've gotta go see her mom. I've gotta go be with her family. We need to go see Annalisa together. We need to do that together."

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She'd had a solid seven hours' sleep, Eve thought, and had ended the previous day with a nice dinner with friends, and very satisfying sex. Despite all that, she carried a vicious headache with her into Mira's section.

Mira's admin informed her, with more amiability than usual, that the doctor was in session with Ms. Sanchez, but she would let them know Lieutenant Dallas had arrived.

"Let them finish," Eve told her. "It's better I'm not in there anyway. I've got some things I can take care of while I wait."

She checked her messages first, and found one from Berenski in the lab, gleefully relating that he'd nailed her shoe from the imprint.

"My genius knows no borders or boundaries. Took your pathetic imprint on grass, worked my magic, and reconstructed the tread. Matched the tread. Big foot was in a size fifteen Mikon, style called Avalanche. It's a modified hiking boot, and there's not a lot of wear on this one. Retails at about three-seven-five. Eleven outlets in the city deal with that brand and carry it in that size. Got your list attached. You can come in and plant a big, wet one on me later."

"Yeah, that'll happen."