The In Death Collection Books 16-20 - J. D. Robb [407]
“I need to talk to Powell and Sibresky.”
“I’m going with you. I need to follow this through, Dallas,” he said before she could object. “This is my house. The guests may be dead, but they’re still mine.”
“All right. Get Crime Scene in here, Peabody. And let’s get Feeney to pick us a hotshot from EDD to look at Morris’s unit. I want to know if any of the data’s been altered in the last twenty-four.”
They got a very irritated Sibresky out of bed. Though he mellowed a bit when he saw Morris, he still scratched his butt and bitched.
“What the hell? Me and the old lady work nights. You gotta sleep some time. You day people think everything runs on your clock.”
“Real sorry to disturb your sleep, Sibresky,” Eve began, “and I’m real sorry you didn’t use a mouthwash before this little conversation.”
“Hey.”
“But the fact is I’m conducting one of those pesky daytime investigations. You took a delivery to the crematorium early this morning.”
“Yeah, so what? That’s my fricking job, lady. Hey, Morris, what the fuck?”
“Sib, this is important. Did you—”
“Morris,” Eve interrupted, more gently than she might have with anyone else. “How many did you take in?”
“Just the one run from the city morgue. We do ’em in groups if it’s under five. Five or more, you gotta take it in two trips. More of that in the winter when the sleepers kick off from exposure and shit. Good weather like this, it’s pretty slow.”
“How many in the run?”
“Shit.” He poked out his bottom lip in an expression Eve gauged as concentration. “Three. Yeah, three. Two Johns, one Jane. Jesus, we went through the routine, the logs, the paperwork, the sign off, sign in, and shit. Not my fault if somebody decided to claim one of the bodies after the forty-eight.”
“Who authorized the transport for you and Powell?”
“Sal, I guess. You know, Morris, Sally Riser. She logs ’em out usually from Staging. It was already done when I clocked in, but it wasn’t Powell.”
“What wasn’t Powell?”
“Powell called in sick, so the new guy was working. Real hotdogger,” Sibresky said with a grimace. “Had all the paperwork done when I clocked on. Don’t matter a shit to me. I just drive ’em.”
“What was the new guy’s name?” Eve demanded.
“Shit, I gotta remember everything at ten in the fricking morning? Angelo, I think his name was. What the hell do I care, he was just filling in for Powell. Wanted to do all the paperwork himself, and that’s fine with me. Like I said, he was a real hotdogger.”
“I bet he was. Peabody.”
Understanding, Peabody pulled photos of Blair and Carter Bissel out of her file bag. “Mr. Sibresky, are either of these the man you know as Angelo?”
“Nah. Hotdogger had a big, stupid mustache, lots of eyebrows, hair all slicked back and hanging to his butt like some kinda fag-ass vid star. Scar on his face, too.” He tapped a finger on his left cheek. “Nasty one, went from the corner of his eye nearly to his mouth. Teeth bucked out, too. Guy was pretty damn ugly.”
“Sibresky, I’m going to ruin your day,” Eve told him. “You’ll need to get dressed, and come down to Central. I need you to look at pictures and work with a police artist.”
“Ah, come on, lady.”
“That’s Lieutenant Lady. Go get your pants on.”
16 SHE WASN’T SURPRISED to find herself standing over Joseph Powell’s body, but she was furious. She had to control the fury, coat it thickly before it clouded judgment.
He’d lived alone, and that had been one of the many breaks for his killer. He’d been scrawny, with little meat on his bird bones and a crop of hair cut short around the ears and trained, somehow or other, to stand up straight from his head in a six-inch crown dyed lightning blue.
From the looks of his place, he’d liked music and cheese-flavored soy chips. He was still wearing his headphones, and an open bag of the chips was in bed with him.
There were no privacy screens on the single bedroom window, but a shade, blue as his hair, had been drawn. It blocked out the sun