“Any record of her using credits in the last twenty-four hours?”
“No.” Feeney sighed. “Still, if she decided to go off planet, it takes longer to access.”
“She didn’t go off planet. She’d want to stay close. Damn it, I should have known she’d do something stupid. I could see how ripped she was. I could see it in her eyes.”
Frustrated, Eve dragged her hands through her hair. Then her fingers curled in, went tense. “I could see it in her eyes,” she repeated slowly. “Oh my Jesus. The eyes.”
“What? What?”
“The eyes. He saw her eyes.” She leaped toward her ’link. “Get me Peabody,” she ordered, “Field officer at the—shit, shit—what is it? The four oh two.”
“What have you got, Dallas?”
“Let’s wait.” She rubbed her fingers over her mouth. “Let’s just wait.”
“Peabody.” The officer’s face flipped on screen, irritation showing around the mouth. There was a riot of noise on audio, voices, music.
“Christ, Peabody, where are you?”
“Crowd control.” Irritation edged toward a sneer. “Parade on Lex. It’s some Irish thing.”
“Freedom of the Six Counties Day,” Feeney said with a hint of pride. “Don’t knock it.”
“Can you get away from the noise?” Eve shouted.
“Sure. If I leave my post and walk three blocks crosstown.” She remembered herself. “Sir.”
“Hell,” Eve muttered and made do. “The Kirski homicide, Peabody. I’m going to transmit a picture of the body. You take a look.”
Eve called up the file, flipped through, sent the shot of Kirski sprawled in the rain.
“Is that how you found her? Exactly how you found her?” Eve demanded over audio.
“Yes, sir. Exactly.”
Eve pulled the image back, left it in the bottom corner of her screen. “The hood over her face. Nobody messed with the hood?”
“No, sir. As I stated in my report, the TV crew was taking pictures. I moved them back, sealed the door. Her face was covered to just above the mouth. She had not been officially identified when I arrived on scene. The statement from the witness who found the body was fairly useless. He was hysterical. You have the record.”
“Yeah, I’ve got the record. Thanks, Peabody.”
“So,” Feeney began when she ended the transmission. “What does that tell you?”
“Let’s look at the record again. Morse’s initial statement.” Eve eased back so that Feeney could bring it up. Together they studied Morse. His face was wet with what looked like a combination of rain and sweat, possibly tears. He was white around the lips, and his eyes jittered.
“Guy’s shook,” Feeney commented. “Dead bodies do that to some people. Peabody’s good,” he added, listening. “Slow, thorough.”
“Yeah, she’ll move up,” Eve said absently.
Then I saw it was a person. A body. God, all the blood. There was so much blood. Everywhere. And her throat . . . I got sick. You could smell—I got sick. Couldn’t help it. Then I ran inside for help.
“That’s the gist of it.” Eve steepled her hands, tapped them against her jaw. “Okay, run through to where I talked to him after we shut down the broadcast that night.”
He still looked pale, she noted, but he had that little superior smirk around his mouth. She’d run him through the details much the same as Peabody had and received basically the same responses. Calmer now. That was expected, that was usual.
Did you touch the body?
No, I don’t think—no. She was just lying there, and her throat was wide open. Her eyes. No, I didn’t touch her. I got sick. You probably don’t understand that, Dallas. Some people have basic human reactions. All that blood, her eyes. God.