[In Death 08] - Conspiracy in Death Read online

  “Putz,” Eve muttered, then rubbed at the tension building at the base of her neck. “Early retirement?” She glanced at Peabody. “Find out how early.”

  An hour later, Eve was pacing the corridors of the morgue, waiting to be cleared in to Morris. The minute the locks snicked open, she was through the doors and into the autopsy room.

  The smell hit her first, hard, making her suck air between her teeth. The sweet, ripe stink of decomposing flesh blurred the air. She glanced briefly at the swollen mass on the table and grabbed an air mask.

  “Jesus, Morris, how do you stand it?”

  He continued to make his standard Y cut, his breath coming slow and even through his own mask. “Just another day in paradise, Dallas.” The air filter gave his voice a mechanical edge, and behind the goggles, his eyes were big as a frog’s. “This little lady was discovered last night after her neighbors finally decided to follow their noses. Been dead nearly a week. Looks like manual strangulation.”

  “Did she have a lover?”

  “I believe the primary is currently trying to locate him. I can say, with relative certainty, she’ll never have another.”

  “A laugh riot as always, Morris. Did you compare the Spindler data to Snooks?”

  “I did. My report’s not quite finished, but since you’re here, I assume you want answers now. My opinion is the same hands were used on both.”

  “I’ve got that. Tell me why the Spindler case was closed.”

  “Sloppy work,” he muttered, slipping his clear-sealed hands into the bloated body. “I didn’t do the PM on her, or I’d have clicked to it right away when I saw your body. Of course, if I’d done the PM, I would have had different findings. The examiner who did the work has been reprimanded.” He looked up from his own work and met Eve’s eyes. “I don’t believe she’ll make a similar mistake again. Not to excuse her, but she claims the primary pushed her through, insisted he knew how it went down.”

  “However it happened, I need the full records.”

  Now Morris stopped and looked up. “Problem there. We can’t seem to locate them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they’re gone. All her records are gone. I wouldn’t have known she came through here if you hadn’t been able to access the primary’s files. We’ve got nothing.”

  “What does your examiner have to say about that?”

  “She swears everything was filed properly.”

  “Then she’s either lying or stupid or they were wiped.”

  “I don’t see her as a liar. And she’s a bit green at the edges, but not stupid. The records could have been inadvertently wiped, but the search and retrieve found nothing. Zip. We don’t even have Spindler on the initial sign in.”

  “Purposely wiped then? Why?” She hissed through her breathing tube, jammed her hands in her pockets. “Who has access to the records?”

  “All the first-level staff.” For the first time, his concern began to show. “I’ve scheduled a meeting, and I’ll have to implement an internal investigation. I trust my people, Dallas. I know who works for me.”

  “How tight’s the security on your equipment?”

  “Obviously, not tight enough.”

  “Somebody didn’t want the connection made. Well, it’s been made,” she said half to herself as she paced. “That idiot from the one sixty-second is going to have a lot to answer for. I’ve got like cases, Morris, so far in Chicago and Paris. I’m afraid I’m going to find more.”

  She paused, turned. “I’ve got a possibility, a strong one, of a connection with a couple of high-class health centers. I’m trying to slog through a bunch of medical articles and jargon. I need a consultant who knows that stuff.”

  “If you’re looking at me, I’d be happy to help you. But my field is a different channel. You want a straight—and smart—medical doctor.”

  “Mira?”

  “She’s a medical doctor,” Morris agreed, “but her field’s also in a different channel. Still, between the two of us—”

  “Wait. I think I might have someone.” She turned back to him. “I’ll try her first. Somebody’s screwing with us, Morris. I want you to make disc copies for me of all the data you have on Snooks. Make one for yourself and put it someplace you consider safe.”

  A smile ghosted around his mouth. “I already have. Yours is on its way to your home via private courier. Call me paranoid.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” She pulled off the mask and headed for the door. But some instinct had her looking back one more time. “Morris, watch your ass.”

  Peabody got up from her seat in the corridor. “I finally accessed some data on McRae from Chicago. It’s easier to get the scoop on a psycho than a cop.”

  “Protect your own,” Eve mumbled as she strode to the exit door. That was worrying her.

  “Yeah, well, our colleague’s barely thirty—only had eight years in. He retires on less than ten percent of his full pension. Another two years, he could’ve doubled that.”

  “No disability, no mental fatigue, no admin request to resign?”

  “None on record. What I can get.” The wind slapped Peabody in the face with glee as she stepped outside. “What I can get,” she said again once she had her breath back, “is he was a pretty solid cop, worked his way up the ranks, was in line for a standard promotion in less than a year. He had a good percentage rate on closing cases, no shadows on his record, and worked Homicide the last three years.”

  “Got any personal data—spousal pressure might’ve pushed him out of the job, money problems, threat of divorce. Maybe he boozed or drugged or gambled.”

  “It’s tougher to get personal data. I have to do the standard request and have cause.”

  “I’ll get it,” Eve said, slipping behind the wheel. She thought of Roarke and his skills. And his private office with the unregistered and illegal equipment. “When I have it, you’d be better off not asking how I came by it.”

  “Came by what?” Peabody asked with an easy smile.

  “Exactly. We’re taking a little personal time now, Peabody. Call it in. I don’t want our next stop on the log.”

  “Great. Does that mean we’re going to hunt up some men and have disgusting, impersonal sex?”

  “Aren’t you getting enough with Charles?”

  Peabody hummed in her throat. “Well, I can say I’m feeling a little looser in certain areas these days. Dispatch,” she said into her communicator. “Peabody, Officer Delia, requesting personal time on behalf of Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.”

  “Received and acknowledged. You are off log.”

  “Now, about those men,” Peabody said comfortably. “Let’s make them buy us lunch first.”

  “I’ll buy you lunch, Peabody, but I’m not having sex with you. Now, get your mind off your stomach and your glands, and I’ll update you.”

  By the time Eve pulled up in front of the Canal Street Clinic, Peabody’s eyes were sober. “You think this goes deep, a lot deeper than a handful of dead street sleepers and LCs.”

  “I think we start making a safe copy of all reports and data, and we keep certain areas of investigation quiet.”

  She caught sight of a sleepy-eyed brewhead loitering in the doorway and jabbed a finger at him. “You have enough brain cells left to earn a twenty?”

  “Yeah.” His bloodshot eyes brightened. “For what?”

  “My car’s in the same shape it is now when I come out, you get twenty.”

  “Good deal.” He hunkered down with his bottle and stared at her car like a cat at a mousehole.

  “You could’ve just threatened to kick his balls into his throat like you did with the guy the other day,” Peabody pointed out.

  “No point in threatening the harmless.” She breezed through the doors of the clinic, noted that the waiting area looked very much as it had on her previous visit, and walked straight to the check-in window.

  “I need to speak with Dr. Dimatto.”

  Jan the nurse
gave Eve a sulky look. “She’s with a patient.”

  “I’ll wait, same place as before. Tell her I won’t take much of her time.”

  “Dr. Dimatto is very busy today.”

  “That’s funny. So am I.” Leaving it at that, Eve stood at the security door, lifted a brow and stared down the nurse.

  She let loose the same gusty sigh as she had on Eve’s first visit, shoved out of her chair with the same irritable shrug of motion. What, Eve wondered, made so many people resent doing their jobs?

  When the locks opened, she stepped in, met Jan’s eyes on level. “Gee, thanks. I can see by your cheerful attitude how much you love working with people.” She could see by Jan’s confused expression it would take a while for the sarcasm to sink in.

  Eve went through and settled into the cramped little office to wait for Louise.

  It took twenty minutes, and the doctor didn’t look particularly pleased to see Eve again. “Let’s make this fast. I’ve got a broken arm waiting to be set.”

  “Fine, I need you as an expert consultant on my case for the medical end of things. The hours suck, the pay’s lousy. There may be some possibility of risk, and I’m very demanding of the people who work with me.”

  “When do I start?”

  Eve smiled with such unexpected warmth and humor, Louise nearly goggled. “When’s your next day off?”

  “I don’t get whole days, but I don’t start my rotation tomorrow until two.”

  “That’ll work. Be at my home office tomorrow, eight sharp. Peabody, give her the address.”

  “Oh, I know where you live, Lieutenant.” It was Louise’s turn to smile. “Everyone knows where Roarke lives.”

  “Then I’ll see you at eight.”

  Satisfied, Eve headed back out. “I’m going to like working with her.”

  “Do you want me to put in the request and papers to add her as consult?”

  “Not yet.” Thinking of wiped records, of cops that didn’t seem particularly interested in closing cases, she shook her head as she climbed back into her vehicle. “Let’s keep this unofficial for awhile yet. Put us back on log.”

  Using her best pitiful look, Peabody said only, “Lunch?”

  “Hell. All right, but I’m not buying anything in this neighborhood for internal consumption.” A woman of her word, she headed uptown and stopped when she saw a fairly clean glide-cart.

  She made do with a scoop of oil fries while Peabody feasted on a soy pocket and vegetable kabob.

  Eve put her vehicle on auto, letting it drive aimlessly while she ate. And she thought. The city swirled around her, the bump and grind of street traffic, the endless drone of air commuters. Stores advertised their annual inventory clearance sales with the endless monologue from the blimps overhead or huge, splashy signs.

  Bargain hunters braved the frigid temperatures and shivered on people glides as they went about their business. It was a bad time for pickpockets and scam artists. No one stood still long enough to be robbed or conned.

  Still, she spotted a three-card monte game and more than one sneak thief on airskates.

  If you wanted something badly enough, she mused, a little inconvenience wouldn’t stop you.

  Routine, she thought. It was all a routine, the grifters and the muggers and the purse grabbers had theirs. And the public knew they were there and simply hoped they could avoid contact.

  And the sidewalk sleepers had theirs. They would shiver and suffer through the winter and hope to evade the lick of death that came with subzero temperatures while it lapped at their cribs.

  No one paid much attention if they were successful or not. Is that what he’d counted on? That no one would pay much attention? Neither of her victims had had close family to ask questions and make demands. No friends, no lovers.

  She hadn’t heard a single report on the recent killing on any of the news and information channels. It didn’t make interesting copy, she supposed. It didn’t bump ratings.

  And she smiled to herself, wondering how Nadine Furst would feel about the offer of a one-on-one exclusive. Munching on a fry, she put a call through to the reporter.

  “Furst. Make it fast and make it good. I’m on air in ten.”

  “Want a one-on-one, Nadine?”

  “Dallas.” Nadine’s foxy face glowed with a smile. “What do I have to do for it?”

  “Just your job. I’ve got a homicide—sidewalk sleeper—”

  “Hold it. No good. We did a feature last month on sleepers. They freeze, they get sliced. We do our public interest bit twice a year. It’s too soon for another.”

  “This one got sliced—sliced open, then his heart was removed and taken from the scene.”

  “Well that’s a happy thought. If you’re working a cult angle, we did a feature in that area in October for Halloween. My producer’s not going to go for another. Not for a sleeper. Now, a feature on you and Roarke, on what it’s like inside your marriage, that I could run with.”

  “Inside my marriage is my business, Nadine. I’ve got a retired LC who ran ponies. She was sliced open a couple of months back. Somebody took her kidneys.”

  The slight irritation in Nadine’s eyes cleared, and they sharpened. “Connected?”

  “Do your job,” Eve suggested. “Then call my office and ask me that question again.”

  She disengaged and shifted the car back to manual.

  “That was pretty slick, Dallas.”

  “She’ll dig up more in an hour than six research droids could in a week. Then she’ll call and ask me for an official statement and interview. Being a cooperative kind of woman, I’ll give it to her.”

  “You ought to make her jump through a few hoops, just to keep up tradition.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll keep the hoops wide and I’ll keep them low. Put us back on log, Peabody. We’re going to check out Spindler’s place, and I want it on record. If anybody has any doubt the connection’s been made, I want them to know it has. I want them to start to sweat.”

  The crime scene had been cleared weeks before, but Eve wasn’t looking for physical evidence. She wanted impressions, the lay of the land, and hopefully, a conversation or two.

  Spindler had lived in one of the quick-fix buildings that had been tossed up to replace those that had crumbled or been destroyed around the time of the Urban Wars.

  The plan had been for fast, temporary housing to be replaced by more solid and aesthetically pleasing structures within the decade, but several decades later, several of the ugly, sheer-sided metal buildings remained in place.

  A street artist had had a marvelous time spray painting naked couples in various stages of copulation over the dull gray surface. Eve decided his style and perspective were excellent, as was his sense of place. This particular building housed the majority of street LCs in that area.

  There was no outside security camera, no palm plate. If there had ever been such niceties in place, they had long ago been looted or vandalized.

  She walked into a cramped, windowless foyer that held a line of scarred mailboxes and a single elevator that was padlocked.

  “She had 4C,” Peabody said, anticipating Eve, then looked at the stained stairwell with its swaybacked treads. “I guess we walk up.”

  “You’ll work off your lunch.”

  Someone had turned their choice of music entertainment up to a scream. The nasty sound of it echoed down the staircase and deafened the ears on the first-floor landing. Still, it was better than the sounds of huffing and puffing they heard through one of the thin doors on the second floor. Some lucky LC was earning her fee, Eve imagined as she headed up.

  “I guess we can deduce that soundproofing isn’t one of the amenities of this charming little unit,” Peabody commented.

  “I doubt the tenants give a damn.” Eve stopped in front of 4C, knocked. Street hookers worked twenty-four/ seven, but usually in shifts. She thought someone would be around, and unemployed.

  “I’m not working till sundown,” came the respo
nse. “So blow off.”

  In answer, Eve held her badge up to the security peep. “Police. I want to talk to you.”

  “My license is up to date. You can’t hassle me.”

  “Open the door, or you’ll see just how fast I can hassle you.”

  There was a mutter, curse, the rattle of locks. The door opened a slit and a single bloodshot brown eye peered out. “What? I’m not on for hours, and I’m trying to get some sleep here.”

  From the look in that single eye, she’d been getting that sleep with a little chemical aid. “How long have you lived in this apartment?”

  “A few weeks. So the fuck what?”

  “Before that?”

  “Across the hall. Look, I got my license, my health checks. I’m solid.”

  “Were you one of Spindler’s?”

  “Yeah.” The door opened another fraction. The other eye and a hard mouth appeared. “So the fuck what?”

  “You got a name?”

  “Mandy. So the—”

  “Yeah, I got that part. Open up, Mandy, I need to ask you some questions about your former boss.”

  “She’s dead. Been dead. Those’re the only answers I got.” But she opened the door. Her hair was short and spiked. Easier, Eve imagined, for her to don one of the many wigs street LCs liked to play with. She was probably no more than thirty, but looked ten years older if you went by the face.

  Whatever profit Mandy made obviously went into her body, which was lush and curved, with huge, uptilted breasts that strained against the thin material of a dingy pink robe.

  It was, Eve decided, the right investment for a woman in her field. Johns rarely looked at the face.

  Eve stepped inside and noted that the living area had been converted so that it accommodated both ends of the business. A curtain was drawn down the center, cutting the room in two. In one half were two beds on casters with rates and services clearly posted on a board between them.

  The other half held a computer, a tele-link system, and a single chair.

  “Did you take over Spindler’s business?”

  “Four of us got together to do it. We figured, hell, somebody’s got to run the stables, and if it’s us, we can cut back on street time.” She smiled a little. “Be like, executives. Trolling for johns in the winter’s murder.”