Connections in Death (In Death 48)

She noted a street LC picking up a john near the east corner, and the guy hovering in a doorway toward the west corner who was practically wearing a sign announcing: Illegals Dealer Waiting for a Mark.

A couple of boys trying to look tough swaggered by across the street, hoods up, hands in pockets. Aiming for the dealer, she concluded.

Might as well gum up those works.

“Hey!” She held up her badge. “NYPSD!”

The boys took off in a non-tough trot. The dealer melted away.

“You know they’ll be back inside the hour.”

“Sure.” She shrugged that off. “But those assholes have to go change out of the pants they just pissed in first.”

She walked to the building, shook her head at the locks. “Why bother?”

Before she could try one of the three keys, Roarke took out a tool, went through the locks in seconds.

The entranceway—small, dark, smelling of old piss—had a stairway straight up, and a chain over the skinny door of an elevator that likely hadn’t operated since they’d thrown up the building.

“She’s on the second floor,” Roarke said as they started up a stairway just as dark and smelly as the entrance.

Someone had cared enough to try to paint over the graffiti tagging the walls, and she caught a whiff of something like bleach, so maybe the same somebody had tried to eradicate the stewing germs.

As they moved above the first floor she heard music banging, a screen show muttering, an argument in midstream.

On the second, she heard someone laughing in what sounded like genuine enjoyment, a buzz of voices.

She studied the locks on the Pickering door.

“They’re decent.” She engaged her recorder. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Roarke, entering the premises with the permission of the tenant to investigate a suspicious death.”

For the record, she used the keys, opened the door.

It smelled of lemon-scented cleaner and death.

The lights were on full. The living area held a sofa, two chairs, a couple of tables, some photos, and dust catchers. It stretched—barely—to include a tiny eating area off what she assumed was a kitchen.

Lyle Pickering slumped in one of the chairs and, as Crack had told her, had a syringe in his lap, a homemade tourniquet on his left arm where the sleeve of his sweatshirt had been shoved up.

The sweatshirt announced him as a Knicks fan. He wore baggies and well-worn high-tops. Vomit, crusting, ran down the shirt.

She turned from him to study the locks. “No sign of forcing, locks or jamb. No signs of struggle in here.”

Out of the kit, she took a can of Seal-It, sprayed her hands, her boots, handed it off to Roarke.

“Must I?”

“Yeah. Take a look at the kitchen, then the bed

rooms while I deal with the body.”

She went step-by-step, confirming ID. “Victim is identified as Pickering, Lyle, age twenty-six of this address.”

“There’s a glass of water overturned on the counter in the kitchen,” Roarke told her. “And what I’d assume is the victim’s ’link on the floor.”

“That’s interesting. Like this small, shallow nick on the vic’s throat and the faint bruises on his wrist are interesting.”

“Should I contact Peabody for you?”