Indulgence in Death (In Death 31)

“Okay.”

“Maybe you could help me. Just give me a pointer or two.”

Eve continued to study the body. She didn’t need the ME to give her cause of death, not from the pattern of bruising around the throat. Manual strangulation, she thought, and her instincts pointed her toward violent argument, crime of the moment, desperate cover-up.

Too soon, not enough data.

“Get the ME’s opinion on cause of death, time of death.”

The ME, who with his lion’s mane of snowy hair and eyes she thought would have been described as merry under other circumstances, glanced up.

“She was throttled, good and proper. Beaten a bit about the face first, then . . .” He demonstrated by lifting his hands, curling his fingers in a choke hold. “She’s some skin and blood under her nails, so I’d say she got a piece of him before she went down. And she died just after two this morning, rest her soul. Not here,” he added. “Not from the way the blood settled. I’ll take her in, of course, when you’re ready for that, and do the rest of it.”

“Ask him if he’s calling it homicide.”

“Sure and it’s murder, no question there. Someone brought her here after, miss, and left her.”

“Lieutenant,” Eve said automatically.

“Um, if she scraped the skin off him, it’d show, wouldn’t it?” Leary asked. “Seems she’d go for his face or his hands, wouldn’t she? So he’d have marks on him that show.”

He’s thinking now, Eve decided. Trying to see it.

“And wouldn’t bringing her here this way, without even trying to bury her, mean it was all done paniclike?”

“Well, I’m not a detective, Jimmy, but that seems logical enough. Would you say, Lieutenant?”

“Even a shallow grave would’ve bought him time, and the ground’s soft so it wouldn’t have taken that much effort. She’s listed a Limerick address, but that’s miles from here according to my data. Panic and stupidity probably merged on this, but not enough for me to buy the killer drove a dead woman all this way.”

“So . . .” Leary’s brow creased. “They were nearby when he killed her.”

“I’d say the probability’s high. You should run that. She’s dressed for a party or a fancy night out. So you try to run down where she might’ve gone, with whom. You show her ID picture around, check to see if anyone knows her or saw her. And when you notify next of kin, you ask about boyfriends.”

“Notify . . .” He didn’t turn green this time around but sheet white. “I’m to do that? To tell her mother?”

“You’re currently primary of this investigation. They’ll run the skin and blood under her nails, and with any luck you’ll get an ID through the DNA bank.”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “Look, whoever did this isn’t very bright, and it’s botched so badly it was probably a first kill. Your ME’s going to check for sexual assault, but she’s fully dressed, underwear’s in place, so it’s not saying rape to me. It’s going to be a boyfriend or somebody who wanted to be, somebody who used to be. You have the data—where she worked, lived, went to school. You run it down. Either she or the killer had some sort of a connection with the area.”

“Tulla?”

“That or the surrounding area, one of the towns within, most likely, an hour’s drive. Run the probabilities, connect the data, use the data. You’ve probably got your killer with what’s under her nails, but until you have an ID, and a suspect to bring in to interview, you work the case.”

“Well, her mother lives in Newmarket-on-Fergus, that’s not far at all.”

&

nbsp; “Start there,” Eve advised.

“Go to her mother and tell her . . .” Leary glanced at the body again. “You’ve done that before.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you tell me how, the best way?”

“Quick. Take a grief counselor, or,” she said, remembering where she was, “maybe a priest. Maybe the mother has a priest you could take with you. Then you say it, get it done, because when she sees a cop and a priest, she knows it’s bad news. You identify yourself—rank, name, division, or whatever it is around here. You’re sorry to inform her that her daughter, Holly Curlow, has been murdered.”

Leary looked at the body again, shook his head. “Just like that?”