“Fine, fine, whatever—just eat yours fast.”
“You want?”
“I don’t—” Then she remembered she’d told Roarke she’d eat, and didn’t think a third of a muffin qualified. “Egg pocket.”
15
Once again, Eve walked the white tunnel, this time with Peabody carrying a go-box.
“I gotta say, I don’t know how anybody could eat in a room with bodies on slabs and in drawers.”
Eve glanced over. “Do you eat in the bullpen?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“Work’s work. You don’t see the bodies when you eat, but you’re standing for them.”
She pushed open the doors and found Morris standing for, and over, Anna Hobe.
“The saying is the early bird catches the worm,” Morris began.
“I guess that means the bird starts the day with murder,” Eve finished, and made him laugh.
“I suppose it does. Hers ended before this one dawned, as you know.”
“We brought you some breakfast.” Peabody made a wide circle around the slab and the body on it to set the go-box on his counter.
“That’s very considerate of you, and I’ll enjoy it when we’re done here. Your on-scene observation on the wrist lacerations coincides with my exam. You also note the fresh lacerations and bruising don’t appear on the ankle.”
“Yeah. I thought.” Eve pounded a fist in the air. “Maybe beating on something, because they don’t look like she got them trying to pull out of the cuff.”
“Indeed they don’t. Bang, bang, bang—sharp movements that had the cuff slapping against her wrist. Pounding against a door perhaps, or wall, and over the last thirty-six hours before TOD.”
“Why’d she wait? That’s the question. Wouldn’t you start off with the beating and pounding? ‘Let me the fuck out!’ Then gradually give it up? She tries to pry off the cuff, pull her hand through, you can see the marks, but she gave that up to start pounding something.”
“You have a theory.”
“I wonder if we’ll find something similar on Covino when we find her. Maybe they started banging on a door, a wall, something to try to communicate with each other. He has to have them separated, but in the same place. Nothing else makes sense.”
“A good theory.” With his protective cape over a pale gray suit with brighter, bolder needle stripes of blue, Morris studied the body.
He hadn’t braided his hair, Eve noted. Hadn’t had time—it must take a lot of time—because he’d come right in. He had it pulled back in a sleek tail instead.
“She had a meal at approximately nineteen hundred thirty. Pasta primavera, about four ounces of water, and another six of ginger ale. I don’t have the tox report as yet. I sent samples—makeup, hair, and so on—to the lab, flagged for the same techs who worked on Elder’s.”
“Appreciate it. How long ago, do you figure, he inked her, pierced her?”
“No more than five days. It’s the same precise work, as is the stitching on her throat. I would say the same thread, but the lab will tell that tale. The wound, however…”
“From behind.” Eve held up her left hand, yanked it back, sliced the right. “One hand pulling her head back for a bigger target, the other—the right—making the slice.”
“Yes, I agree with your on-site there as well. From behind, slightly above. I would say he struck quickly and, again, precisely. She didn’t have time to struggle, or, if he dosed her, may have been too passive to do so.”
“I’m going with the second choice. He doses his victims to keep them in line. If he’s going to get that close, with a weapon, he wanted her dulled up—probably put something in the food. She’s got a free hand, right, he only cuffs one. Why risk her struggling and maybe, just maybe, getting that free hand on the blade, using it on him?”
She studied Hobe. “He knew he was going to kill her, but he fed her.”
“Barely an hour between the meal and TOD,” Morris agreed.
“That’s a waste unless you consider it as a vehicle. Something to put the drug into, to keep her complacent. There’s a coward in him. He doesn’t just cuff a hand to keep them in place, he drugs them, and he cuffs an ankle. That way, he can stay out of their reach, doesn’t risk them taking a punch at him.”
“I’ll rush the tox through for you. Otherwise, I can tell you she was healthy, no signs of alcohol or illegals abuse. She bit her nails.”