Brotherhood in Death (In Death 42)

5

They cleared the house, every step on record. While Peabody called it in, Eve located the mechanism for lowering the chandelier. Something she only knew about because she’d seen them work in her own foyer.

“You can clean it and stuff without hauling in a ladder,” she told Peabody.

“Handy. Man, they messed him up good before they hanged him.”

“I’d say he was alive when they hauled him up there. Gouges on the neck likely self-inflicted. Skin and blood under his nails is likely his. ME will determine that and COD.”

As Peabody had brought in their field kits, Eve opened hers. While they sealed up, she studied the body. “Beat his face, his genitals, stripped him naked. That says personal, really pissed, and probably sexual.”

“Sure doesn’t read trying to score a bunch of money. One of the women he diddled with, but like you said before, getting him in and out? Probably had to have a partner.”

Eve got out tools and gauges, first verified his identity for the record with the Identi-pad.

“Victim is Mira, Edward James, age sixty-eight. Severe facial contusions and lacerations. Looks like both cheekbones are broken as well as some teeth.” She put on microgoggles. “Check TOD, Peabody. I don’t think these were caused by fists,” she said as she peered closer. “Maybe a sap, likely weighted. Same with the genitals, but there’s some . . . almost like punctures in the groin area.”

“TOD oh-three-thirty-six.”

“So, worked on him for while. Bruising on the wrists, look at the pattern.” Rigor mortis had yet to pass, so she used her own wrists to demonstrate, holding them up and together, palms facing. “Looks like he was restrained, hung up, see the pattern? Restrained by the wrists, hoisted up. No sign of bruising on the ankles. Kicked him in the balls, repeatedly. Those shallow punctures? I’m betting shoes with those ridiculous pointed toes.”

“That says female killer.”

“I’ve seen plenty of those stupid shoes on guys’ feet, but, yeah, this reads female to me. And sexual motives. Going to kick your balls till they fall off, you fucker. That’s what it says to me.

“And they sodomized him.”

Peabody’s shoulders hunched up. “What?”

“You didn’t look at him from the back. His anus is torn, bloody. They used something to sodomize him. It’s very sexually motivated. It’s personal, and it’s planned out. Bringing him back here where they probably intended to do it all in the first place.”

“But Mr. Mira came in.”

“They had a place to take him, and the transportation. Maybe that was always backup, maybe they always intended to haul him off, haul him back, and hang him.”

She sat back on her heels. “I bet they waited to hoist him up, waited until he was coming to, waited until he could be aware, could know and feel. Then they pushed that button, let him struggle as he went up, watched him choke, watched him tear at his own throat. You don’t go this personal and not want him to feel death, not want to watch it happen.”

“But do you go that vicious over ending an affair? Do you think someone could be that pissed about being dumped?”

“Sure. Of course, that means she’s batshit crazy, but there’s no lack of batshit crazy in the world. It would have to mean whoever helped her is equally batshit.”

Eve got to her feet, closed her eyes a moment to help herself see it.

“Okay. Yesterday they conned the vic into coming here, talking about selling the house he couldn’t sell without Mr. Mira’s approval, which he wasn’t going to get. He lets them in. Maybe the batshit crazy ex—if so—has hid the crazy and hooks him up with this Realtor. Or maybe she comes as a surprise at his door. One way or the other, they get him back to the study.”

She moved around the body, a few paces down the foyer.

“No restraints—or Mr. Mira doesn’t think so, ME will verify—so they have a weapon on him. One holds it on him, the other smacks him around. Mr. Mira comes in, calls out, walks down. They don’t use the weapon on him, are careful to keep out of sight until they can knock him out.”

She paced as she worked it through because there were variables. The pictures changed depending on how she juggled them in.

Dissatisfied, she started again.

“Back up, consider the timing. When the vic first arrived, when Mr. Mira came in. There’s a solid gap of time.”

“You said they’d started on the vic. That Mr. Mira saw he was injured.”

“Yeah, but . . . They walked around with the vic some first. Black eye, bloody lip when this is your endgame? They’d barely gotten started, so they walked around, didn’t force him back to the study, that was just part of the tour, the place they jumped him.”