J. Robb - Innocent In Death

“It’s the little ones that trip you and send your face into the concrete. Let’s go to the morgue.”

SHE SWUNG THROUGH THE BULL PEN, THEN into her office for her coat. Stopped, kicked the desk lightly. She wasn’t answering those messages. She wasn’t a frigging saint. But she could do something about something else.

Pulling on her coat she walked back into the bull pen and straight to Baxter’s desk where he was slugging back cop coffee and reading a sweeper’s report.

“I saw you closed the underground case. Got a Murder Two. Trueheart handle the interview?”

“Yeah. He did good.”

She glanced over to the cube where the undeniably adorable Officer Trueheart was pecking away at paperwork. “Trueheart.”

He swiveled around immediately, blinked at her. “Sir.”

“Nice work on the Syke’s interview.”

He flushed. “Thanks, Lieutenant.”

“Taught him all he knows,” Baxter claimed with a grin.

“Hopefully, he’ll overcome that. As for earlier, I appreciate the sentiment. Let’s leave it there.”

“Got that.”

Satisfied, she left to study the dead.

Welcome back. Can I offer you some refreshments?” Morris was in pewter today, with a purple shirt and braided pewter tie. His hair was in a long tail that made Eve think of glossy thoroughbreds.

“Rather have a ruling.” Eve glanced down at Williams’s body. “Homicide.”

“I have fudge brownies. Home-baked by the lovely hands of a Southern goddess.”

Eve’s eyes narrowed on the mention of brownies. She swore she heard saliva pool in Peabody’s mouth. Then the Southern goddess mention struck. “Detective Coltraine?”

Morris laid a hand on his heart, thumped it to mime a beating heart. And Eve thought, Whatwas it with men and blondes with big tits?

Morris wiggled his dark, sharp eyebrows. “Our transplanted magnolia bakes for relaxation, it seems.”

“Huh.” Eve cocked her head. “What, you smitten, Morris?”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“I could eat, like, a half a brownie.”

Morris smiled at Peabody. “In the personal friggie over there. Help yourself.” Then he turned to Eve. “Accident or murder? You be the judge.”

“It’s murder.”

“Well, well.” He stepped back from the body, gestured. “What do we see? A superficial wound under the chin.”

“Cracked it on the pool edging. Sweepers found some of his skin on the tile. It would’ve smarted, but I’m damned if it knocked him unconscious and caused him to drown.”

“Hmm. More superficial wounds on the back.”

“Consistent with injury sustained when he was dragged out of the pool. More skin found. That’s postmortem.”

“It is, it is, my canny student. We have a very fit individual, other than his being dead, of course. Excellent muscle tone. Your on-scene notes indicated he was a swimmer, that there was no sign of struggle. Yet you cry murder.”

“I say it, straight out.”

“And knowing you, knowing you wouldn’t send me a body unless you had strong cause, we’ve proceeded accordingly. His tox screen isn’t back yet. Shortly, as I flagged it.”

“What do you think’s in him, and how did it get there?”

“For the what, we’ll wait. For the how. Have a look.”

He handed her goggles, then gave her a finger curl. When she walked to Williams’s head, she noted Morris had shaved a circle of hair away on the crown.

“Man, would he hate that. Bald spot. And lookie, lookie.” She bent closer, and with the goggles could just make out the faint mark. “Pressure syringe,” she said. “Barely shows, and on the scalp, with a headful of hair, the naked eye isn’t going to see it.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Now she glanced over at Morris, grinned. “Yours excepted. I missed it. I looked over his body, between his fingers and his toes, even checked his tongue, the inside of his cheeks, but I missed this. Nice catch.”

“I ate a whole brownie,” Peabody confessed.

“Who could blame you?” Morris patted her arm when she joined them.

“We got our homicide, Peabody. Vic’s doing laps, maybe finishes up, or just stops when he sees someone. Grips the edging. Maybe says something…‘Hey, what’s up?’ But there’s no time for conversation. Have to get it done, get out. It’s a risk, but like with Foster, calculated. All you do is bend down, pump the syringe.”

Drawing off the goggles, she pictured it. “Had to be quick. No poison this time. He didn’t show any symptoms of any poison I know. Maybe the shock of the buzz on the scalp had him lose his grip, rap his chin. But…not a sedative. Too slow. He might have been able to make it out, or try. If he’d clawed at the edging, we’d have seen signs of that on his hands, his fingers. Numbed him, that’s what it did. Like the stuff MTs and doctors use to block pain and movements for some treatments. You’re awake, even aware on some levels, but you don’t feel anything, you can’t move anything.”

“And we are, once more, in accord.” Morris nodded. “I believe the tox results will come back with a standard surgical paralytic substance, injected through the scalp. Strong, fast-acting, and quite temporary.”

“Not temporary enough for him. He would’ve struggled. Strong guy, he’d have been able to keep his head up for a while, maybe try to float. There’s a set of stairs about five feet from where the sweepers found the skin. If he’d thought of it, tried to get there, prop his head…The killer might have had to help him out a little, hurry the process before someone wandered in. There are some long poles in there. Nets, brushes. Wouldn’t have taken much to nudge him under, keep him under until it was done.

“Then you just walk out, slide right back into the mainstream.”

“Slime bitch,” Peabody said, with relish. But Eve frowned.

“Morris, do you figure they keep paralytics in the nurse’s station at a private school?”

“They would probably have low doses of a basic number, for pain relief. But I can’t imagine they’d be authorized to have anything like this.”

“More likely the killer brought it in rather than took it from the school. So, impulse, passion is again unlikely. Prepared and calculated and controlled, while able to take risks.”

She’d run probabilities, she’d go back over every point, reevaluate time lines and wit statements. But for now, she looked back down at Williams.

“You were a sleazy son of a bitch, but you weren’t a killer after all. Whoever did Foster did you both.”

At Eve’s order, Peabody put in a request for a warrant to search Arnette Mosebly’s residence. Eve tapped her fingers on the wheel as she drove back to the school.

“Tag Reo back,” she decided. “I want a warrant for the Straffo residence.”

“You really think Allika Straffo might’ve done them?”

“I figure beautiful women know how to play, how to act the victim. I also figure Oliver Straffo’s a tough nut. Maybe he finds out his wife’s diddling with the teacher. And he finds out Foster knows and is considering blowing the horn. Protect the home front, protect the reputation and your own personal pride.”

“Stretching.”

“Is it?” She sighed. “If I’d known about that vid they aired this morning, I’d have been tempted to hunt down the operator, the reporter, the producer, whoever I needed to find, and do them some bodily harm. I’d have rather kicked ass than feel humiliated publicly, then have to walk into that bull pen and feel it all over again.”

“Sorry. Um, can I just ask why that Magdelana whore-slut wasn’t in line for bodily harm?”

“I’d have saved her for last.” Eve’s fingers tightened and released on the wheel. “Which means I’d have probably blown my wad before I got to her, and still feel the way I do now. What’s the point?”