“You know Jim’s Gym?”
“Shithole.”
“I hear that. What about Bodybuilders?”
“Ain’t no ladies there. Why I want to waste this body on a buncha men? ’Sides, man with my attributes gets hit on in a place like that. Then I have to be busting somebody’s face, and I use up my valuable time. Me, I use Zone to Zone. Man can get himself a full massage—a full massage—after his workout if he’s inclined.”
“But you know the other places, and you could check them out from the inside, if you were so inclined?”
His grin spread. “Could, if a skinny white girl cop asked me to.”
“I’m looking for a guy, between six four and six eight, around two-seventy. Light-skinned. Woman hater. Loner. Seriously strong.”
“Maybe if I moseyed into those places, like I was maybe considering changing my fitness allegiance, I’d see somebody like that.”
“Maybe you would. Then you could tell me.”
“See what I can do.”
Chapter 13
Eve banked an hour’s sleep at her desk. When she woke, she was almost disappointed to find the lab reports holding in her incoming. There would be no way to justify trouncing the chief lab t
ech.
She read them over, listened to the interoffice memo from Peabody clearing the follow-ups, then scanned her voice and e-mail.
A message from the commander’s office informed her she was required at a media conference at sixteen hundred. She’d seen that one coming. And she was going to be both unprepared and late if she didn’t get her butt in gear.
She scrubbed her hands over her face, and put through a call to Morris at the morgue.
He was at his desk, and answered himself.
“What can you tell me?” she asked him.
“I’m about to send you the report, but I can tell you Lily Napier had a short life, that it was ended in the same manner as Elisa Maplewood’s, and in my opinion by the same individual. There was more violence to the face and body, which would lead me to believe his rage is increasing.”
He shifted, and she could see him bring up a file. “Your on-site was thorough, as always. To that I can add she consumed some pork-fried rice four hours prior to her death, and was mildly anemic. There was no semen. I found fibers inside the vagina. My guess would be they’re from her panties, and were carried inside during the rape. There were other fibers that will likely be identified as textile, and almost certainly be from her own clothing. Grass and dirt under her nails, in accordance with your observation. She dug them into the ground. No hair, other than her own.”
“Hair from Maplewood turned out to be from the dog, and a squirrel,” Eve told him. “Dog’s obvious, and it’s probable she picked up the squirrel hair on the grass in the park. Dickhead’s report IDs the fibers under Maplewood’s nails as man-made, black. Ubiquitous black cloth. We’ll match it when we get him, but for now we’ve got nothing from him.”
“Lunatics are, unfortunately, rarely stupid.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Morris.”
She was about to try Mira’s office when she felt her blood sugar bottom out. Since her chocolate supply was tapped for the moment, vending was her only choice. She walked out to the hallway and stared at a snack machine with pure dislike.
“Problem?”
She glanced over, saw Mira. “No. I was just going to grab something, then tag you.”
“I had a consult in this section. Thought I’d come to you.”
“Good, fine.” After a brief hesitation, Eve pulled credits out of her pocket. “Do me a favor? Get me a Booster Bar.”
“All right.” But she waved Eve’s credits away. “My treat.”
“Thanks.” Eve stuck them back in her pocket, jiggled them. “I’m avoiding contact with machines unless absolutely necessary. It’s an experiment.”