The In Death Collection Books 26-29 - J.D. Robb [59]
Roarke carried back plates of bacon and eggs. Galahad feigned disinterest. “You’ll have to get the coffee if you’re after more. If I take my eyes off these plates for two seconds, this food will be in the cat’s belly.”
Eve frowned at the plates. “I was going to grab—”
“Now you’re not. Get the coffee, I’m after more.”
She could’ve argued. Thinking about the case made her want to argue, blow off the steam of it. But she wanted another hit of coffee. She got two mugs, came back, and plopped down.
“I got nothing. I got nothing on her. No connection that works. And I’m talking myself into circles.”
“Maybe you’ll come up with something more linear when we see her at the memorial today.”
The eggs were there, so she stabbed a forkful. “You’re going?”
“Ben and I are friendly. Anders Worldwide is in my building. I’ll pay my respects. And maybe I’ll catch something you’ve missed. Fresh eyes.”
“Fresh eyes.” She picked up a piece of bacon, then swore. “Fresh eyes, damn it. I forgot. I promised Baxter I’d take a look at a case file for him. Going cold. I’ve been putting him off. Damn it.” She bit into the bacon. “I’ll have to do it this morning.”
“That might be a good thing. Put your mind on that for a bit, let it rest on the other.”
“Maybe. I told him some of them get by us. We can’t close them all. It burns my ass to think this one could get away from me.”
Galahad bellied over an inch, two inches, his bicolored eyes fixed on Roarke’s plate. Roarke simply shifted his gaze, stared, and Galahad rolled onto his back to paw lazily at the air. “No one believes you’re innocent,” he said to the cat.
“Everyone believes she is,” Eve murmured. “Hmm. What happens if somebody doesn’t?” Turning that over in her mind she ate her breakfast before Galahad made his next move.
Before her shift began, Eve sat in her office at Central with Baxter’s murder book on the Custer case. She studied the crime scene photos first, as if coming to it fresh, without the input of the ME, the sweepers, the investigator’s notes, the interviews.
Somebody, she thought, had done a quick, hard number on one Ned Custer. The room itself looked like a typical sex flop. Cheap bed, sagging mattress where Christ knew what microscopic vermin partied in a variety of body fluids. Particleboard dresser, fly-spotted mirror, dull, yellowing floor, crappy paper drapes at the crappy little window. A bad joke of a bath with a rust-stained, wall-hung sink and a toilet where more vermin partied.
The cliché of sex flops, she thought.
What kind of man was Ned Custer, who needed to get his rocks off in an ugly little dump while the wife and kiddies waited at home?
A pretty damn dead one. The slash across the throat went deep, went long. Sharp blade with some muscle behind it. And some height, she mused, checking the angle. Vic topped off at five-nine. The killer…Eve closed her eyes, put herself in the nasty room, put herself behind Custer. Had to be at least the same height, probably an inch or two taller.
Tall for a woman then, but a lot of street whores went for high platforms and heels. Still, not a shortie.
And no one who owned a delicate stomach. It took steel-lined to hack off a guy’s dick.
The blood spatters and pools told the story clearly enough. The killer stepped out of the excuse for a bathroom, attacked the victim from behind. One fast slash. No hesitation. Had to get some backsplash from that kind of blood jet. More blood from the homemade castration. With no blood in the drains, the killer either exited carting the blood—no trail, so unlikely—or came out of the bathroom sealed and protected.
Not a street whore. Not even one pumped up on illegals. Too prepared, too vicious. A whore wants to roll a mark, maybe she sticks him, but more likely she gets herself a zapper off the black market, immobilizes and cops his money and jewelry. Walks away.
Custer was dead before he walked in that room, he just didn’t know it. Would anyone have done? she wondered. Or was it target specific?
She dug deeper, shooting out a message for Baxter and