Forgotten in Death(64)

“Do that. I owe you a sticky bun.”

“I like sticky buns.”

“You’d be crazy not to. Thanks.”

“Get the bastard, Dallas, save our world. Cha.”

Peabody continued to scroll on her PPC. “It’s still work, I swear. And I was listening, so I got that we got.”

“We got a lot. Tag Leonardo, since that one’ll be quick and easy. Have him check what he used the fabric for—that dye lot of it.”

Eve paused because she’d scanned the lab and saw Dickhead standing, waving an arm in the air.

“The bribe paid off. He’s got something.”

Once again, she wound her way to his workstation. “Were you waving or having a seizure?”

“Funny. You got lucky.”

“Did I? I’m not the one with sticky bun breath.”

He grinned at that. “Those bastards are awesome. But you got lucky. Full analysis isn’t complete, but the concrete—and that’s floor, ceiling, outer wall—it’s substandard and preformed shit. Wouldn’t have passed code pre-Urbans, wouldn’t pass it now. Only passed it during that period because they relaxed the codes. But…”

He went for the dramatic pause.

“The area from the approximately three-by-eighteen-feet area between the interior and exterior walls is high-grade poured concrete.”

So Roarke, and Mackie, hit that one, Eve thought.

“Tell me about the brick, Berenski.”

“I’m going to tell you, for Christ’s sake. Brick’s top grade. Natural clay. You got barium carbonate in there for adding resistance to the elements, and your colorants added to sand for the shade. Samples we got are uniform, so they were molded, fired, cooled, and whatnot. They weren’t slapped together. The mortar samples are top grade, too.

“Had to cost, especially back then, see? A lot of money for one wall when the rest of the place went up on the cheap.”

“Yeah, I see.” She saw very well. “Send me what you’ve got so far. I’ll take the rest as it comes in. Tell your lab rats I appreciate it.”

“Hey, I got it done.”

“You already ate some of my appreciation. It’s coming together, Peabody,” she said as they walked away.

“Leonardo’s going to check on the fabric. He’s weirded out, because he’s Leonardo, that he might have designed something for a killer.”

“Then he’ll feel better, if that’s the case, when we lock said killer in a cage. Start contacting the others on Harvo’s list. They won’t be as quick and easy, but we’ll nail it down.”

“Dead Delgato? It plays for me like he didn’t do the killing—it doesn’t give him a pass. But it plays like since he was on that job, he probably saw her around sometime, and the statements from the super, the wife paint him as nonviolent. A loser, a cheat, a gambling addict, but like somebody who’d have tried talking his way out of it. Making up a story she might have even bought. Then he ends up dead because he freaked.”

“It plays like that,” Eve agreed. “But if he hadn’t been a loser, a cheat, a gambling addict—add thief and liar—he wouldn’t have been up there with someone who killed Alva, then killed him.”

When they got in the car, Eve picked up a small white bag, held it out to Peabody.

“You didn’t! You did! I can smell it!” Bouncing in the seat, Peabody opened the bag and inhaled lavishly. “Jacko’s sticky bun!”

“Don’t make me sorry. And don’t make me sorry I’m giving you five minutes—five—to blather on about tiles and counters and the rest of that crap. Five.”

“Best partner ever.” Peabody sighed. “You have to take half of this. I’ll hate myself later if I eat it all. They’re huge.”

If she hadn’t smelled them most of the morning, Eve could’ve said no. “A third. I’ll take a third. And your five minutes starts now.”

With the care usually reserved for cutting diamonds, Peabody tore a section off the bun, passed it to Eve. “We’re going sort of soft in the kitchen. I thought I wanted strong and bold, but when I saw the soft, I fell for it. So the cabinets are going to be this soft, but deep, sage green. I didn’t want wood tones or white. But two-toned because we’re going cream on the lower cabinets of the island.”

She took a tiny bite of the bun, made a yummy noise. “And we’re reversing that on the counters. Creamy white, except the island top will echo the green.”

Eve drove, ate her portion of the bun while Peabody rhapsodized about backsplash tile and cabinet hardware, kitchen sinks, faucets and pot fillers.

Eve had always figured a faucet was a pot filler.

“Time,” Eve called in the middle of an ode to walk-in pantries. But she added, “It sounds nice, Peabody. It sounds like you.”

“It feels like me, and McNab’s all about the sound and security systems, the lighting, so we’re merging it all really well. At least right now.”

She ate her last bite as Eve pulled into Central’s garage.

“You should see what Mavis and Leonardo are doing in the main house.”

Eve thought about it. “I can definitely wait.”

“It’s going to be a showstopper.”