Vendetta in Death (In Death 49)

“Struck me the same,” Eve agreed.

“I feel like our luck’s turned.”

“Yeah. So did Kagen’s—the wrong way. I talked to Kagen’s ex last night. Might have been talking to her when he got taken. Fuck it.” She wanted to scrub her hands over her face, to yank at her own hair. Barely resisted. “I hauled Baxter and Trueheart out of bed to check on her—and her neighbor, who’s also in the group.”

“Rachel Fassley. I read your report. We’ve got names, Dallas. Luck is turning.”

“Not soon enough,” Eve said as she mastered into Kagen’s apartment.

Peabody took one look at the space—efficiency-style room with an unmade pullout with questionable bedding, the scatter of dirty clothes, the empty beer bottles, the pile of unwashed dishes. Sighed.

“Just your average pigsty. Why do average male pigsties smell like old beer farts and grungy socks?”

“Because both have a home there. Suck it up, Peabody. We do what we have to do. Then we’re going to wake up whoever runs a local bar where the wit—who lives down the hall—says Kagen liked to drink the beer he farted out in here.”

“Great. Just a mag way to start the day.” Peabody mimed rolling up her sleeves. “At least it’s a small apartment.”

It didn’t make the job more pleasant, but they’d finished the search by the time McNab and Roarke came to the door.

“Got the feed.” McNab held up a disc. “We have the vic exiting just after nineteen hundred. Alone, and wearing a brown jacket, brown pants, tennis shoes. Another male exited at the same time, walked in the opposite direction.”

“That’s our wit,” Eve told him. “Former cop, lives down the hall. He’s clear. No house ’link on premises, no pocket ’link. You’ve got that bargain-basement comp to work with. No hidey-holes, no happy clues, no illegals.”

“No sense of hygiene from the look and aroma,” Roarke added. “The range of the door cam doesn’t reach to where his body was left.”

“And the killer would’ve known that. She’s not stupid. She does her research. Flag the comp for transport, McNab, for what it’s worth. Peabody, go down and give Nadine her camera time. She’s bringing coffee.”

McNab’s face lit. “What kind of coffee?”

“You’ll get yours, Detective. Flag the comp, and when it’s in EDD, dig in.” She looked at Roarke. “You should go home—or wherever you planned to be. We’re done here for now.”

“I could use some coffee.”

“You’ll get yours, too.”

She walked out with him.

“You’re asking yourself if you could have saved him,” Roarke said as they started down the steps. “You couldn’t have. He’d left before you had his ex-wife’s name, before you knew he existed.”

“No, we couldn’t have saved him. It doesn’t make it any easier, but we couldn’t have saved him.”

She walked over to where Nadine and Jake waited, took the black coffee Nadine held out.

“Doughnuts, too. Jake insisted.”

“You’re all right, Jake,” Eve decided as she took a cream filled.

“Anybody who starts the day like you did earned a doughnut.”

Eve glanced at Peabody, shook her head as she watched her partner carefully applying lip dye. “What’s that we say, Detective Face?”

“About what— Oh. Yeah.” Peabody smiled a little. “Our day begins when yours ends.”

“Jesus.” Jake just shook his head. “Cops.”

While Peabody did the one-on-one, Eve stepped aside to check in with Baxter.

“Is that a doughnut?” Baxter demanded when he came on-screen. “Where’d you get it? Are there more?”