Apprentice in Death (In Death 43)

No one was more surprised than she was when she pulled out a jacket a few shades darker than the trousers that had that dark green subtly woven through.

She snagged boots, a belt, considered it done.

“I’ll be in Midtown most of the day,” he told her when she came out to dress. “I have a walk-through at An Didean this afternoon.”

She thought of the youth shelter he’d built. “How’s that going?”

“We’ll see with this walk-through, but it’s been going very well. We should be able to take residents in by April.”

“Good.” She hooked on her weapon harness, shrugged into the jacket, then sat to pull on the boots. Caught his glance. “What? What’s wrong with these clothes?”

“Absolutely nothing. You look perfect, and completely a cop.”

“I am completely a cop.”

“Precisely. You’re completely my cop, so have a care.”

He sat, finishing his coffee, the cat sprawled beside him. And he smiled at her, in just that way. She went to him, caught his face in her hands, kissed him.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

“Catch the bad guys, Lieutenant, but stay safe doing it.”

“That’s the plan.”

She found her coat, the snowflake hat she’d become weirdly attached to, a made-by-Peabody scarf, and fresh gloves on the newel post.

Her car, heater running, waited outside.

She glanced in the rearview mirror once at the warmth and comfort of home, then headed out to the morgue and the dead.

The sleet didn’t wait for afternoon and started to fall, mixed with snapping little bits of ice, by the time she fought her way downtown.

That didn’t stop the ad blimps blasting about cruise wear, white sales, inventory clearances, but it did cause the already lumbering maxibuses to slow to a crawl. And since even the thought of winter precipitation caused the majority of drivers to lose any shred of competency they might own, she spent most of her trip avoiding, leapfrogging over, and cursing every cab and commuter.

The long white tunnel leading to the dead came as a relief, even when she passed an open door and heard someone’s cackling laugh.

To her mind no one should cackle in the dead house. The occasional chuckle, fine. But cackling was just creepy.

She pushed through the doors to the autopsy room, into the cool air and the quiet strains of classical music.

The three victims lay on slabs, almost side by side.

Morris had a protective cloak over his steel-gray suit. He wore a royal blue shirt that picked up the needle-thin lines in the suit jacket and had twined cord of the same color through the complex braid of his dark hair.

Microgoggles magnified his eyes as he glanced up from the body of Ellissa Wyman.

“A cold, dreary morning to start our day.”

“It’s probably going to get worse.”

“It too often does. But for our guests, the worst is over. She made me think of Mozart.” He ordered the music down to a murmur as he lifted the goggles. “So young.”

He’d already opened her, and gestured with a sealed hand smeared with blood toward his screen.

“She was healthy, had exceptional muscle tone. I see no signs of illegals or alcohol abuse. She had a hot chocolate—soy milk, chocolate substitute—and a soft pretzel about an hour before death.”

“A snack before she hit the ice. They have carts selling that kind of thing right outside the park. She’d been skating just under twenty-five minutes before she took the hit.”