Thankless in Death (In Death 37)

“Death’s cruel. Crueler yet at times when family traditionally gathers.”

“Yeah. And about that. They’re going to want to come in, see her. I don’t know how much you can do, considering, but they shouldn’t see her like this.”

“Don’t worry.” He touched a hand briefly to Eve’s arm. “We’ll take care of her, and them.”

“Okay. Good. So.” She had to put it away, out of her head, and do her job. “The way it pieces together, he had keys, or he’d made copies. He went in when the neighbor went out. We have him sitting in a café across the street where he had a good view of the building. It was the vic’s regular day off, and from statements she usually went out, ran errands, shopped, hooked up with a friend. When he saw the chance he went in. He’d been shopping. We’ve got him coming and going on his hotel security cams. He bought the tape, the cord. And I’m thinking another baseball bat.”

“I’d agree with that. The head injury’s consistent with a bat. It would have knocked her unconscious, but it wasn’t a killing blow.”

“Or meant to be,” Eve added.

“He used good quality cord. Strong and pliable. As you see from the ligature marks, he tied it as tightly as possible, much more than necessary to restrain her. She struggled, but it didn’t help her. The tape, also good quality. She left teeth marks and blood inside. Some of that would be from the lip, opened from a blow. He struck her with his fist.”

Morris balled his own. “In the face, in the abdomen, in the right side. There’s slight bruising around her nose, and a deeper bruising on the nipple. From pinching.”

“I missed the nose.”

“Very slight. You’d need the microgoggles. This slight cut here, thin, sharp blade with a serrated edge. I can’t tell you what sort. It’s just a nick.”

“A warning. Just showing what he could do.”

“Most likely, yes.” As if to comfort, he laid a hand on Lori’s shoulder. “But the lab may be able to identify the type of knife from the shorn hair.”

“I’ve got Harpo on the hair.”

“You couldn’t do better. He cut it before killing her.”

“Yeah, part of the torture.”

Shifting, Morris turned his attention, and Eve’s, to the throat wounds. “Considerable force was used in the strangulation. He put his back into that. You can see how deeply the cord cut into her. From the angles, and the crime scene record, he would’ve straddled her, looped it around her neck, twisting the lines in front.” He pulled his fisted hands apart sharply to demonstrate. “Leaving this pattern of bruising here where the lines of cord crossed.”

She could see it perfectly, the positioning, the movements, the joy and the terror. “It’s what got him off. That connection. Being on top of her, cutting off her air, feeling her body convulse under him. Being able to see her face while she fought for air, while she lost the fight.

“Then he raided her kitchen for snack food.”

“He thinks he’s outwitting you.”

She brought herself back to the moment. “What?”

“He thinks he’s smarter than you, than the police. He has no idea how well you already know him, and how deeply you can go.”

“I know him,” she agreed. “But if I don’t find him today, I’ll be back in here tomorrow, and we’ll have this conversation over another body. He’s got a long list, Morris, and he’s not going to wait to feel what he felt with her again. This is the biggest rush of his life, and now he’s a man who loves his work.”

Rather than wait for the report, Eve swung by the lab next. She didn’t need to consult with Dickhead—Berenski, the chief lab tech—so wound her way through the maze of glass-walled rooms to Harpo’s domain.

Harpo had changed her hair. She’d gone for the short, straight bowl, almost identical to what Peabody used to wear. But Harpo had opted for shimmering ice blue.

For reasons Eve would never be able to articulate or comprehend, it worked.

Harpo had tossed a white lab coat over a purple skin-suit, added a trio of dangling silver earrings to one ear and a series of tiny purple studs to run up the other.

She wore clear knee boots, which Eve assumed was a newly breaking style that showed off toes polished the same color as her hair and a foot tattoo—temp or permanent, who knew—in the shape of a long-legged bird.

Whatever her wardrobe choices, Eve had reason to know when it came to hair and fiber, Harpo ranked genius.

And right now, Harpo sat at her work counter, a sample of auburn hair in her scope, and its microscopic counterpart enhanced on her screen.

“Is that my vic’s?”