“She’s with me until this all shakes out. You’re with me, Sim, don’t worry about it.”
That started fresh waterworks, so Eve opened the door. “Go down with Officer Cho,” she told Sima. “Trina will be right down.”
Once Eve got Sima out, she turned to Trina. “Spill.”
“Okay, I wanted to be careful around her. He was an asshole. I’m sorry he’s dead and all that, but that’s mostly for her. Look, he’d barely rolled off Alla before he rolled onto Sima. Guy was a player, and a user. Some of the stuff in here? It’s hers, but she didn’t think of saying hey, my stuff. She did all the work around here, you know what I’m saying? Picking up after him, stocking the AutoChef, seeing about the laundry and the dry cleaning. Fucker dry-cleaned his freaking socks.”
“Get out.”
“Hand to God! You’re going to find a lot of slick clothes in his closet, lots of top-drawer face, hair, body products. Asshole was a peacock. He looked good, I’ll give him that, but he swept women up, then swept them out after he got what he was after—and not just sex.”
“What else?”
“You can bet he didn’t buy those wrist units for himself, or half that slick wardrobe. He scouted out rich, older women. Clients, like I said. Or that’s the word. Probably one of them jammed that knife in his heart, but it wasn’t Sim. She didn’t kill him.”
“I know that.”
“She couldn’t—oh. Well, solid.”
“Do you know who belongs to the shoes and the polka dots?”
“No, but I could maybe find out.”
“Leave that to me. Go home. And next time you do a bunch of shots, go home.”
Emboldened, Trina ticked off points on her festively tipped nails. “She paid the rent. She had a key. Some of her stuff’s still here. She’s got a right to come in.”
“Got that. But the itching powder could be considered assault, the socks destruction of property and the golf club theft. It’s inventive payback, but it’s not worth the legal fees.”
Trina shrugged it off. “Anyway, thanks for handling it.” Trina narrowed her eyes, got the look in them that chilled Eve’s blood. “You could use a little shaping on the do, and a hydrating facial. Winter’s a bitch on skin.”
“Push it, Trina, and I’ll have you taken into Central, put in the box and make you go through all this again.”
“Just saying what I know. We’ll give you the works before your big bash.” She stepped to the door, paused. “Sim’s a little naive and way trusting. Some people never get over that, even when they end up covered with bruises.”
True enough, Eve thought.
Eve walked back toward the bedroom, picked up her field kit. She’d gotten over any naivete and excessive trust long, long ago, she decided as she pulled out a can of Seal-It to coat her hands, her boots.
A cop did better cynical and suspicious. Considering herself armed with healthy portions of both, she went in to deal with death.
She took a slow scan to allow her lapel recorder to document the scene, including the blood spatter on the wall, the smears of it on the floor. And the gore clinging to the base of what appeared to be another trophy.
An open suitcase holding precisely folded clothes sat on the foot of the bed, opposite side from the body.
“It appears the vic was packing—nearly done with it—for a scheduled trip. Wits state a work-related seminar in Atlantic City. A lot of clothes for a couple days,” she commented. “Which would coincide with wits’ opinion of vic as a peacock. Nice threads, top line,” she said after a quick look. “Also verifying wits’ statements.”
She poked in a little more, came up with a small baggie filled with dried leaves.
“What have we here? It looks like . . . tea leaves.” She opened it, sniffed—and had a flash of the flowery tea Mira, the department shrink, swore by. “Smells like tea. Doesn’t look like any illegal substance I’ve come across. Bagging for analysis. Not a priority as we’re not going to bust the dead guy for possession.”
She crossed back, crouched to examine the large trophy with the figure of a seriously ripped male, clad only in compression shorts, flexing both biceps. “A couple trophies like this in the living room. The blood and gray matter on this one—Personal Trainer of the Year, 2059—indicates it was used to strike the victim on the left side of the