Born in Death (In Death 23)

“I’m not sending you up there to play grab-ass with McNab.”

“Aw.”

“Run the names, Peabody. Anything pops, tag me. Otherwise, send the results back to my unit here, and at home. Clock out when you’re done. You can go home and play grab-ass.”

“He doesn’t have much to grab, but what there is—”

To save herself, Eve cut the transmission. She saved herself again by taking the glides rather than the elevator to EDD. At change of tour, the elevators were a box of bodies and odors. The glides were bad enough, jammed with cops coming on, going off, bringing in subjects for questioning, hauling others down to Booking.

Eve squirmed her way off and took the stairs to the last level. She came out into the corridor of the EDD unit and was all but blinded by the wild squiggly pattern of blue lightning bolts on violent pink that only Ian McNab would call a shirt.

“I want to know where you shop,” she demanded.

“Huh? Hey, Dallas.”

“Because I never want to make the lethal mistake of going there.” She dug out credits. “Get me a tube of Pepsi from that sarcastic, sadistic thing people call a vending machine.”

“Sure.” He caught the credits she tossed him.

Peabody was right, at least about the fact he didn’t have much ass. He was built like a reed, dressed like a circus star, and had the soul of an e-geek.

His hair was slicked back in a blond tail leaving his thin, pretty face unframed. There were countless silver hoops in his left ear. She wondered why he didn’t list to that side when he walked.

“I caught your case,” he told her, and tossed her the tube. “Just on my way back from making a pit stop. About to tag you.”

“You got something for me?”

“Got the first vic’s trans, seven days back. Can get you more. See, even when you clear the ’link, the trans are on the hard drive for—”

“I don’t want a nerd lesson, just the results.”

“Come on back.”

If Homicide was business casual, EDD was haute couture. On Venus. McNab’s lightning bolts sizzled among a storm of clashing colors, shiny materials, gel-boots, and pounds of body adornments. Where Homicide hummed, EDD sang. Shrieked, actually, Eve thought, with beeps and buzzes, voices, music, and electronic whistles.

She’d go mad in an hour under these conditions and often wondered how her old partner, Feeney, captain of the division, survived. In fact, she corrected, thrived among the peacocks and passion flowers.

McNab grabbed a disc from his workstation. “We’ll take a booth.”

He wound his way through the jungle. Most of EDD danced around, talking on headphones. It gave her the jitters. She followed McNab through glass doors where a dozen clear booths were lined up like soldiers. More than half of them were occupied.

McNab snagged one, then slid the disc into a slot on a sleek little comp unit. “Most of the trans are to the second vic. Some to her mother, her sister, the office. Others to shops and stuff—she was getting married, right?”

“That was the plan.”

“Yeah, doing checks on flowers, the dress, that kind of stuff.”

“Can we skip those?”

“Figured as much so I made two files. This one just has the trans to the boyfriend. You can review the other if you need it. Replay,” he ordered.

The computer recited the date of the transmission, the time, the codes used. Byson came on screen, as he would have on Natalie’s pocket unit.

He’d been a good-looking guy, Eve mused, before he’d had his face smashed in.

Hey, Nat.

Bick. Are you alone?