Vendetta in Death (In Death 49)

At last judgment called his name,

And he has no one else to blame.

LADY JUSTICE

Eve took an evidence bag from the kit, untacked the sign, slid it into the bag, sealed it.

McNab hustled out of the house on his plaid airboots. “House is clear, LT. Nobody’s in there, but it looks like somebody was expecting some company in the master bedroom. Fire’s going, bed’s turned down, a bottle of wine, two glasses, and, ah, several sex toys lined up beside the bed.”

“You sealed?”

“Sure.”

“Help me turn him.”

McNab stepped up to assist. “There’s a house droid, but it’s been shut down since about nineteen hundred. And the security cams were shut down about an hour later. Roarke’s taking a look, but we can’t get anything from twenty hundred on. Jesus,” he muttered as they turned the body facedown. “Somebody was seriously pissed off”

“She went at him harder than McEnroy. Sodomized him with the prod. She didn’t go that far with the first. No time off between hits, either. Major escalation.”

She picked up her kit, pushed to her feet. “Wait for Peabody, would you? And go ahead and call in the wagon, the sweepers. I want a look at the house.”

“Security hub’s main floor in the back, off the kitchen. Droid station’s there, too.”

With a nod, Eve started for the house. Nice place, she thought, three-story brownstone, well maintained. And with top-of-the-line security.

No sign of forced entry.

And, she thought as she stepped in, no sign of struggle in the entranceway. A long, narrow hall—a delicate-looking table along the left wall with a slim vase of fresh flowers on it.

“Vic was a well-built man,” she said for the record. “If a man his size and build had put up any sort of a fight in this space, there’d be signs.”

She continued back—rooms to the right and left. Fancy living space to the right with what she thought of as a lot of fluffy, female touches. Lots of pillows, more flowers, dust catchers. Big wall screen in the room on the left, a built-in bar, read a bit more masculine.

“No sign of struggle, no visible signs of robbery.”

A formal dining room, a kind of little sitting room that didn’t look as if anyone routinely sat in it.

In the kitchen, white as a laboratory with a lot of gleaming silver, Roarke stood examining what she thought of as a Summerset droid. Silver hair, bony face, black suit.

Roarke glanced at her. “Just checking to see if anyone tampered with it, and it doesn’t appear so. I can reengage him if you like.”

“I’d like.”

Roarke reengaged manually. The dark eyes of the droid flickered to a simulation of life.

“Scan the badge,” she ordered it. “This is a police investigation.”

“I require a warrant as well to allow you access to the home.”

“No, you don’t. Not when Thaddeus Pettigrew is lying dead outside.”

“I see. This is unfortunate.”

“Yeah, I bet he’d agree. When did you last see or speak to Mr. Pettigrew?”

“Mr. Pettigrew shut down my services at nineteen-thirteen this evening.”

“Is that usual?”