Haunted in Death (In Death 22.50)

"The bullets?"

"On their way to the lab. I ran them through my system first. Nine millimeter." Morris switched programs so that images of the spent bullets he’d recovered came on screen.

"Man, it messes them up, doesn’t it?"

"It doesn’t do tidy work on flesh, bone and organ either. The vic had no gunpowder residue on his hands, no defensive wounds. Bruising on the left knee, which would have been inflicted when he fell. As well as some scraping on the heels of both hands, consistent with the fall on the floor surface."

"So he didn’t fight back, or have the chance to. Didn’t turn away." She angled her own body as if preparing for flight. "No indication he tried to run when and if he saw the gun."

"That’s not what his body tells me."

Nor was it what it had told her on scene.

"A guy doesn’t usually snack on chips and pickles if he’s nervous or worried," Peabody put in. "Run of his entertainment unit showed he last viewed a soft porn vid about the time he’d have had the nibbles. This meet didn’t have him sweating."

"Somebody he knew and figured he could handle," Eve agreed. She looked at the body again. "Guess he was dead wrong about that one."

"Number Twelve," Morris said as Eve turned to go.

"That’s right."

"So the legend of Bobbie Bray comes to a close."

"That would be the missing woman, presumed dead."

"It would. Gorgeous creature, Bobbie, with the voice of a tormented angel."

"If you remember Bobbie Bray, you’re looking damn good for your age, Morris."

He flashed that smile again. "There are thousands of Web sites devoted to her, and a substantial cult following. Beautiful woman with her star just starting to rise vanishes. Poof! Of course, sightings of her continued for decades after. And talk of her ghost haunting Number Twelve continues even today. Cold spots, apparitions, music coming from thin air. You get any of that?"

Eve thought of the snatch of song, the deep chill. "What I’ve got, potentially, are her bones. They’re real enough."

"I’ll be working on them with the forensic anthropologist at the lab." Morris’s smile stayed sunny. "Can’t wait to get my hands on her."

* * *

Back at Central, Eve sat in her office to reconstruct Hopkins’s last day. She’d verified his lunch meeting with a couple of local movers and shakers who were both alibied tight for the time in question. A deeper check of his financial showed a sporadic income over the past year from a shop called Bygones, with the last deposit mid-December.

"Still skimming it close, Rad. How the hell were you going to pay for the rehab? Expecting a windfall, maybe? What were you supposed to bring to Number Twelve last night?"

Gets the call on his pocket ‘link, she mused. Deliberately spooky. But he doesn’t panic. Sits around, has

a snack, watches some light porn.

She sat back at her desk, closed her eyes. The security disc from Hopkins’s building showed him leaving at 1:35. Alone. Looked like he was whistling a tune, Eve recalled. Not a care in the world. Not carrying anything. No briefcase, no package, no bag.

"Yo."

Eve opened her eyes and looked at Feeney. The EDD captain was comfortably rumpled, his wiry ginger hair exploding around his hangdog face. "Whatcha got?"

"More what you’ve got," he said and stepped into the office. "Number Twelve."

"Jeez, why does everybody keep saying that? Like it was its own country."

"Practically is. Hop Hopkins, Bobbie Bray, Andy Warhol, Mick Jagger." For a moment, Feeney looked like a devotee at a sacred altar. "Christ, Dallas, what a place it must’ve been when it was still rocking."

"It’s a dump now."