he lifted it, Peabody rose, then hesitated. “I know you’re feeling like there’s nothing much you can do to help. You are helping by being there for Rochelle. If you want something, I don’t know, more tangible . . . People bring food for death. You could have food sent over to where her family lives so they don’t have to think about it. It would just be there.”
“That’s a fine idea, Peabody. I thank you for it.” They left him brooding into his brew while the holo band banged and the dancers gyrated.
“That was a good thought, Peabody,” Eve said when they walked back to the car. “It gives him something to do.”
“He looked so sad. Pissed, yeah, but sad, too. He loves her—I mean the big L. Jeez, he gave her ten thousand dollars earrings for V-Day.” She gave Eve an elbow bump. “What did I say about romance? Spring!”
“V-Day’s in the winter.” Eve returned the jab. “Shiny gifts equal follow-up sex, which equals body heat for some types. So what did I say?”
“Damn it. No, I’ve got better.” Peabody shot a finger in the air. “Romance knows no season.”
“We’re heading to the morgue. See what that does to romance.”
“It’ll still be spring.”
10
Dinnie Duff wouldn’t see spring, not this one or any other.
She lay on the slab with Morris’s precise Y-cut closed with his equally precise stitches.
He swiveled around from a short counter where he’d been working, rose.
“And here we three meet again, without the thunder, lightning, or the rain.”
“I know that.” Peabody lifted a finger. “Shakespeare, right?”
“It is indeed.” He crossed to the body on the slab. “Unfortunately for young Duff, she didn’t have the same outcome as the bard’s Macduff.
Since Eve didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, she focused on the body. “COD confirmed?”
“While several of these injuries, particularly the combined injuries would likely have caused death left untreated, it was, as you noted in your on-site, the skull fracture. The repeated slamming of same against the concrete and gravel. She had several pieces of both in the wounds. Broken ribs—and a punctured lung from the breaks. Broken nose, detached retina, fractured cheekbones—both—the bruising on her neck indicates repeated chokings.”
“Choke, let her come around, choke again. Probably during the rapes.”
“I can’t tell you how many violated her as they suited up, but she was repeatedly and forcibly violated. At least once postmortem.”
“Sick fucks.”
“I can’t disagree, though the sick fucks might not have fully realized she was dead. I’m finishing the report now, but I can tell you, in technical terms, they beat the crap out of her, raped the crap out of her, and killed her by beating her head against the ground until her skull cracked like an egg.”
“Suited up.” She’d held out a little hope they’d gone into her bare. “Either because they worried she’d give them an STD or because they were smart enough to worry about DNA. Or both. Did she fight back, get a piece of one of them?”
Morris gestured so they lowered their heads together over the body. “The bruising on the arms, the legs—mostly calf area or close to ankles?”
“One goes in, the others hold her down.”
“Yes. And though it’s hard to make out without goggles due to the extent of the facial damage, I also conclude a hand over her mouth at some points. Squeezing. And then the choking would have also prevented calling for help. I can’t tell you how many, as I said, but I’d say no less than three.”
“It’ll be the same three she let into Pickering’s apartment. Cut bait,” Eve murmured.
“Her tox came back positive for Zoner and Funk. I found no sign she’d been a habitual user of Funk, at least not long term.”
“Wanted her compliant,” Eve mused. “Maybe told her it was her usual mix.”
“A stingy amount of both, so while I agree on the compliance, they also wanted her awake and aware. And while they suited up, I found some hair, some fiber. No DNA match on record on my scan for the hair, but I’ve sent it all to the hair and fiber queen.”
“Harvo will run it down if it can be run.” And faster, Eve knew, than anyone else on-or off-planet. “Chilly last night. Why undress when you can just unzip? Sloppy again. If you’re smart, you pump her with the junk like you did Pickering, but hey, what’s the fun in that?”
Because it had told her all it had to tell, she stepped back from