Haunted in Death (In Death 22.50)

Nine

"You have to feel for the guy." Peabody bundled her scarf around her neck as they walked back outside.

"We’ll pass off the copy of his ‘link calls to a couple of burly uniforms, have them knock on some doors and issue some stern warnings. About all we can do there for now. We’re going back to Central. I want a quick consult with Mira, and you can update the Commander."

"Me?" Peabody’s voice hit squeak. "Alone? Myself?"

"I expect Commander Whitney would be present as you’re updating him."

"But you do the updates."

"Today you’re doing it. He’s going to want to set up a media conference," Eve added as she got into their vehicle. "Hold him off."

"Oh my God."

"Twenty-four hours. Make it stick," Eve added and pulled out into traffic as Peabody sat pale and speechless beside her.

* * *

Mira was the top profiler attached to the NYPSD for good reason. Her status kept her in high demand and made Eve’s request for a consult without appointment similar to trying to squeeze her head through the eye of a needle that was already threaded.

She had a headache when she’d finished battling Mira’s admin, but she got her ten minutes.

"You ought to give her a whip and a chain," Eve commented when she stepped into Mira’s office. "Not that she needs one."

"You always manage to get past her. Have a seat."

"No thanks, I’ll make it fast."

Mira settled behind her desk. She was a sleek, lovely woman who favored pretty suits. Today’s was power red and worn with pearls.

"This would be pertaining to Number Twelve," Mira began. "Two murders, nearly a hundred years apart. Your consults are rarely routine. Bobbie Bray."

"You, too? People say that name like she’s a deity."

"Do they?" Mira eased back in her chair, her blue eyes amused. "Apparently my grandmother actually heard her perform at Number Twelve in die early Nineteen-seventies. She claimed she exchanged an intimate sexual favor with the bouncer for the price of admission. My grandmother was a wild wom

an."

"Huh."

"And my parents are huge fans, so I grew up hearing that voice, that music. It’s confirmed then? They were her remains?"

"Lab’s forensic sculptor’s putting her money on it as of this morning. I’ve got the facial image she reconstructed from the skull, and it looks like Bray."

"May I see?"

"I’ve got it in the file." Eve gave Mira the computer codes, then shifted so she, too, could watch the image come on-screen.

The lovely, tragic face, the deep-set eyes, the full, pouty lips somehow radiated both youth and trouble.

"Yes," Mira murmured. "It certainly looks like her. Something so sad and worn about her, despite her age."

"Living on drugs, booze and sex tends to make you sad and worn."

"I suppose it does. You don’t feel for her?"

Eve realized she should have expected the question from Mira. Feelings were the order of the day in that office. "I feel for anyone who gets a bullet in the brain - then has their body closed up in a wall. She deserves justice for that - deserves it for the cops who looked the other way. But she chose the life she led to that point. So looking sad and worn at twenty-couple? No, I can’t say I feel for that."