Calculated in Death (In Death 36)

“You want me to tell Berenski to run five hundred dollars in small bills, which have surely been passed through many fingers, for a set of prints. A set belonging to we don’t know who.”

“That’s right. If we get a decent likeness, we can run a secondary search. He’s Alexander’s, we know that, but he’s not his head of security. The head of security doesn’t match the description. I think this is personal security, and not necessarily on the company payroll. Not that it shows. He’s Alexander’s strong-arm, probably travels with him, or travels ahead to clear the road. We’re not going to find him on the company directory. I already tried that. So we’ll try this.”

“He’s going to want a bribe. Dickhead, I mean.”

“Tell him to go . . .” Eve reconsidered. “No, tell him I’ll clear him for two tickets to the premiere deal tomorrow. VIP section. I think I can do that.”

“That’s a good one.”

“Don’t toss it out until he wheedles, and make it like you’re going to have to pry it out of me. He’ll think it’s a bigger deal. I’ll check with Morris, then meet with Mira. If we’re lucky either Yancy or Dickhead will hit, and we can go after this bastard before he buys a skill saw.”

“Eeww.”

Eve couldn’t argue.

“Feeney and I caught a hacksaw job a few years back, before you. Before he took over EDD. This guy killed his wife—she threatened divorce, and she was the money train. So he bashed her with this brass statue of a mermaid, then oh shit, she’s dead, what do I do? He sawed her up into small pieces with a hacksaw he had in his little workshop, put it all in big waste bags, then dumped her in the river.”

“I repeat. Eeww.”

“It wasn’t pretty. He told everybody she’d gone to Europe. But, oops, one of the bags got caught in this other guy’s boat hook thing. It took awhile to put her back together, and not long to hook the husband. He tried the temporary insanity, diminished capacity, fugue fucking state bull crap. But since we had the saw, and CI determined it would take about six sweaty hours to cut her into the more compact and portable pieces, that didn’t fly.”

Peabody said nothing for a moment. “Do we lead interesting lives or really disgusting ones?”

“Both, depending. Out,” she said as she swung toward the curb near the lab. “Get me prints.”

SHE FOUND MORRIS, WITH SOME SORT OF bass-heavy rock bumping out of his speakers, working on the seriously bludgeoned Jake Ingersol. Parzarri, chest still wide open, lay on a second slab.

“Two slabs,” Morris said as he poked around in Ingersol’s chest. “No waiting.”

“I bet they’d have been happy to.”

“No doubt. Your accountant had a standard mix of painkillers and relaxants in his system. He would’ve been quite happy before having his air supply so rudely cut off. Manually, and with a large hand.”

“Any chance of prints?”

“Sorry, no. We can give you a reasonable reproduction of the size and shape of his right thumb and forefinger from the bruising, and estimate the size of his hand. I believe you’ll be able to say with confidence, it’s the same hand that bruised the first victim’s face.”

“That couldn’t hurt.”

“This second vic’s hands and feet were restrained during the attack, and despite the drugs, the victim had a strong survival instinct. He struggled hard as you can see from the bruising on his wrists and ankles. As for the third victim, he never had a chance to struggle at all.”

Morris, his hair in a long, sleek tail today, offered Eve microgoggles. “Your observation at the crime scene was correct. You can see the discoloration from a stun stream, mid-body. A full charge from the look of it. He never felt what came after.”

“I want to hear Mira’s take, but I don’t think he stunned him unconscious to spare him pain. He was dealing with a man this time, and not one hurt, doped up, or restrained. So he put him out.”

“Taking no chances? Careful then, and you could say cowardly.”

“I do.”

“A careful coward with this much rage? A dangerous combination.”

“Maybe. Rage, sure, but fun, too. Knees, groin—that one’s personal—chest, face, head, hands.”

“My analysis is the hands were crushed rather than broken.”

“Crushed. More stomped on than hammered?”

“I believe so.”