Devoted in Death

3

On the street, Eve surrendered to the wind and dug the silly hat out of her pocket.

“She held up longer than I thought she would,” Peabody commented.

“That’s an iron spine. We’ll check in with Morris now, then start hitting friends, coworkers. I want to talk to Chamberlin. The conductor guy’s the in-charge guy, so, yeah, we need a conversation.”

She got behind the wheel, sat a moment with an eye on the side mirror to judge traffic. “Earnest Tina.”

“He had a sense of humor,” Peabody said. “He probably told somebody else about her, and we can get the names of the clubs he liked to play in.”

“She’s a possibility.” Eve took her shot, zipped out, left a blast of horns in her wake. “She’s writing an opera – do people still do that? I thought all the people who wrote operas have been dead for centuries.”

“There was that thrash opera a couple years ago – Noise. I sampled the disc, but it gave me a headache. I think people still write the regular ones.”

“Well, she’s writing one, and with a name like Earnest Tina it won’t be thrash. She wants to pick Kuper’s brain about dead opera-writer types. Maybe she wants him to use his influence to get hers produced. His mother’s sleeping with the in-charge guy, another potential leg up there. But he’s not serious enough by her standards, goes around playing at dingy clubs. Disrespectful to her and the opera.”

It seemed seriously out of orbit as motive, but…

“People kill people for all sorts of screwy reasons,” Eve concluded.

“The torture?”

“We have to meet this Earnest Tina, figure out just how screwy she is. Let’s do a run on Ethan Chamberlin. He’s got the initial. Maybe he couldn’t get what he wants from the mother with the son so tight in there.”

“Or maybe he really wanted to do the son instead of the mother.”

“Now you’re thinking.”

“I bet you’ve been to the opera,” Peabody said as she started the run on her PPC.

“Twice. Then I drew the line. I’d go again when they finished building the ice palace in hell.”

“I think I’d like it – I mean to at least go. The costumes, the music, the drama, and everybody all dressed up and sparkly.”

“You can’t understand anything anybody’s saying, then they all die. We get plenty of that on the job.”

“But if they’re doing all that in Italian – I’d want to go to an Italian opera, I think – then it’s romantic.”

“I don’t get how dying’s romantic.”

“Well, like Romeo and Juliet —”

“Double teenage suicide. Yeah, that makes my heart melt.”

Sulking a little, Peabody continued the run. “It’s romantic tragedy.”

“That’s one of those oxygons.”

“Moron.”

Eve turned her head, aimed steely eyes. “Repeat that.”

“I meant oxymoron. It’s oxymoron not gon. Sir.”

“Either way.” Eve added a shrug.

“Moving right along,” Peabody said quickly. “Chamberlin, Ethan, age sixty-two. Divorced, twice, one offspring, daughter, thirty, resides in London. He’s been the in-charge guy for eleven years, and was in-charge guy for the London Symphony Orchestra prior. Resides… huh, just two blocks south of the vic and his mother. Few bumps here and there. Destruction of personal property – busted up a viola – paid the damages. Same deal for throwing a piccolo out of the window and threatening to throw the piccolo player after the instrument. Assault, charges dropped. Another assault, suspended sentence with mandatory anger management.”

“Violence. Temper.” Eve shook her head. “That’s a run of a flash temper. This murder doesn’t read that way. But we’ll talk to him. Pull out the E names – just first for now – start quick runs. Can you do a geographical, so we have the most efficient route for interviews?”

“Totally can do. His mom seemed really sure nobody who knew him could do this.”

“His mother loved him, and figured everybody else did, too. At least one person didn’t, whether they knew him or not. So we check it out.”

A thin snow started to spit out of grumpy gray skies. Which meant, Eve knew, that at least fifty percent of the drivers currently on the road would lose a minimum of one-third of their intelligence quotient, any skill they’d previously held at operating a vehicle thereby turning what had been the standard annoying traffic into mayhem.

She bulled her way south, determined to beat the onset of insanity.

The minute she stepped into the morgue, she yanked the cap off her head, stuffed it in her pocket.

The white tunnel echoed with their footsteps – the post-holiday, frozen-tundra lull, Eve thought. It wouldn’t last.

She caught Peabody eyeing the vending machine that offered hot drinks.

“You know everything in that thing is crap.”

“Yeah, but it’s snowing a little, and when it starts to snow I start thinking hot chocolate. Even though the strange brown liquid that machine pees out doesn’t bear much of a resemblance. Why can’t law-enforcement facilities get decent vending?”

“Because then we’d all be snuggled up with hot chocolate instead of doing the job.”

She pushed open the door to Morris’s domain.

She recognized opera – not which one, but identified the soaring tragedy in the voices, the mournful blend of instruments as some opera or other.

Morris stood over Dorian Kuper. A clear cape protected the chief ME’s plum-colored suit, and the fascinating high-planed face was unframed as he’d tied back his black hair in one of his complicated braids, twined it with silver cord.

Blood smeared his sealed hands. Kuper’s chest lay open from the Y incision.

“Giselle,” Morris said, glancing up as if seeing the music. “I was going to see it next week.”

“You’re into opera?”

“Some.” He stepped away to wash the blood and sealant from his hands. “I knew him.”

“The vic?” Eve’s thoughts shifted from Morris’s eclectic taste in music, zeroed in on connection. “Kuper? You knew Dorian Kuper?”

“Yes. He was a brilliant musician. Truly brilliant – not just his ability, which was striking, but his affinity. I’m sorry to have him in my house this way.”

“You were friends?”

“Very casually. He sometimes came into After Midnight – a blues club we both enjoyed. We jammed a number of times. Had a drink, talked music.”

Saxophone, Eve thought. Morris played a hell of a saxophone. “I’m sorry.”

“As am I. I took Amaryllis to a party at his apartment, just a few weeks before she was killed. It’s strange, isn’t it, how things link together?”

She saw the grief come over him, fresh after so many months, for the woman he’d loved.

He turned, reached into his friggie for a tube of Pepsi, the orange fizzy he knew Peabody preferred and a ginger ale for himself. He passed out the tubes, cracked his own.

“A drink to old friends,” he said.

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Personally? He had a large and eclectic group of friends if the party – and the various people who’d come with him to the clubs – is an accurate gauge. He and his mother adored each other – it showed. I’ve seen him with men and with women – in a romantic sense. That showed, too. He could play anything. You could hand him an instrument and he’d bring joy or tears from it.”

Morris drank, looked back at the body – the work to be done.

“I didn’t know him well, but I liked him.”

“Do you know of anyone named Tina in connection with him?”

“As I said, he had a large and… Tina?” Morris let out a quick laugh. “Earnest Tina.”

“That’s the one. You know her?”

“No, not at all. She came in one night – oh, before the holidays. Closer to the beginning of December, I think. I couldn’t settle one night, and took my sax, went into the club. He was there already, as were some others we both knew. She came in – a brunette, yes, an attractive brunette, took a table, looked very disapproving. He went over, talked to her for a short time. I thought, Lover’s quarrel, as she appeared very angry.”

He paused, took another drink as he narrowed his eyes. “Let me think back. He… Dorian put a hand over hers, as if to pat it, and she snatched it away. I can’t tell you what was said, but she did most of the talking, then – somewhat dramatically – stormed out. I do recall her parting shot: ‘I’ll never forgive you. Never.’ With tears in her eyes.

“Someone teased him when he came up to play again, about his angry girlfriend, and he said, No, not a girlfriend, not a friend. Earnest Tina, he said, and he didn’t go for too much earnest. Pissed because she thinks I’m slumming – that’s what he said, and laughed, and said, Let’s jam one for Earnest Tina.”

“No last name.”

“No.”

“Can you describe her?”

“Yes, I’m sure I can.”

“Well enough for Yancy?” she asked, referring to the police artist.

“I can certainly try if it helps in any way. The E in the heart. E and D inside the heart the killer carved in him.”

“There’s that. I don’t know if someone who takes themselves that seriously would use the initial from a sarcastic nickname, but maybe. I want to talk to her, so if Yancy can get a sketch close enough for us to run through facial recognition, we’d pin her down.”

“I’ll contact him myself, make arrangements.”

“Appreciate it.”

“All right.” Morris drew in air, turned back to the body. “That helped, oddly enough. Now, let’s talk about what was done to him.”

He picked up microgoggles for himself and Eve, understanding Peabody would happily skip the more up close and personal, and began.

“The blow on the back of the head, heavy, blunt object, from the shape of the wound, my conclusion is a wrench. A pipe wrench.”

“Plumber’s tool.”

“Yes, and easy to come by. This is the oldest injury. I haven’t finalized my reconstruction, but…” He ordered the image on screen, watched with Eve as the computer-generated figure of the victim was struck from behind by another.

“It reads the blow came from above and behind.”

“Driving down,” Eve noted, “from over the attacker’s head. So, yeah, yeah, the vic was bent or leaning over when struck. To pick something up, reach for something, tie his damn shoe, but angled down, exposed. He wasn’t killed in the alley.”

“From the crime scene images you sent, I agree.”

“Attacked, then transported somewhere so the killer could take some time with him. Attacked, put in a vehicle. Logically, attacked at or near the vehicle, dragged in. The first strike would have put the vic out, right?”

“Rendered unconscious, yes.”

“So, easy to restrain him.”

“Duct tape. I believe the lab will concur,” Morris told her. “Gummy residue in the wounds, wrists, ankles.”

“But not the mouth.”

“The wounds at the corners of the mouth were caused by rubbing and struggling against a strong, thin cord. Some silicone residue on the teeth and tongue.”

“Ball gag.”

“That’s my conclusion, yes.”

“Humiliation, sexual overtones. Was he raped?”

“There’s no evidence of sexual activity of any kind.”

“Okay.” Her hands slid into her pockets as she let the image play through her mind. “So he’s knocked out, restrained. He’d still be able to make sounds with that sort of gag, but nothing intelligible. But the killer would hear him try to scream or beg.”

“I have to believe Dorian would have done both. I’ve sent for a tox report, so we’ll see if any drugs were administered. I didn’t find any signs of stunner marks, pressure syringe.”

“Tranq him, he feels less. Where’s the fun in that?” She caught herself. “Sorry, Morris.”

“No need, thinking like the killer leads to finding him. The burn marks. I concur with your on-site. Some were caused by a cigarette, others by a tool. These, for instance.”

He fit on the goggles, as did Eve, and both leaned over the body. “Lower torso, abdomen, genitals, precise, from a narrow flame.”

“Hand torch. And the limbs, the hands. Those are wider, not precise. grinding out a smoke of some kind. The bruises here, along the rib cage. Not from fists.”

“More likely a sap. Used on the bottom of the feet as well. You see many of the cuts are shallow. Punctures, slices. At least two different blades used.”

“Punctures I’m looking at? Ice pick, or something similar.”

“And the slices, a jagged-edge blade, not smooth like the punctures.”

“Had himself a toolbox.”

“The more superficial wounds came first, along with the burns. Some are approximately two days old.”

“Just getting started. Don’t want him dead. Want the fear, the pain, the helplessness.”

“His fingers were broken over the two-day period, not all at once. And the right hand, these bones were crushed. The left were snapped.”

“Stomped on the right, or pounded with a tool, or dropped a heavy weight.”

“The second is my conclusion. A hammer, striking here, along the top ridge of the knuckles, repeatedly, and with force. Left hand first, right within the last twenty-four hours. The deeper cuts and punctures, also within the last twenty-four.”

“Increasing in severity over that twenty-four, working up to the kill.”

“Yes, but, Dallas, the killer treated some of the wounds.”

“What? How?”

“There were traces of what I’m sure the lab will identify as NuSkin or one of its derivatives. Some of the more severe wounds were treated to stop the blood flow, then opened again. And more than once, until the mortal slice along the abdomen.”

“It would take him a while to bleed out from that.”

“Even with the other injuries, the trauma, at least an hour. More likely two before the loss of blood would have taken him under, taken him away from the pain. Death would have taken longer still, but that, at least, would come gently.”

“Does he watch, does he record? The Groom recorded everything, his grand experiment. But this… it doesn’t feel as organized, as sickly scientific. Humiliate, torture, terrorize.”

She pulled the goggles off, took a hit from her tube of Pepsi, wandered as she tried to visualize.

“Organized enough to have a plan, to have tools, to have transportation and a place to work. But snapping the fingers of one hand, pulverizing the other, stubbing out a smoke on the limbs, hands, feet, using the tool on the torso and genitals. The sap. Ice pick, jagged blade. Naked. Ball gag. Is it a psychotic grab bag or… The heart? When did the killer carve the heart?”

“Postmortem, and that with a thin, smooth blade. Very precise, again.”

“Because it’s the signature. It’s pride or maybe… Maybe the D isn’t for Dorian. He didn’t matter. His pain, yes, the fun of torturing him, having him splayed out for entertainment, but who he was, his name? What if that didn’t matter a damn? If his mother’s right, no one who knew him could have done this to him. If no one who knew him did, his name meant nothing. But D and E, they’re important.”

“Carving the heart in him,” Morris murmured, “like lovers carve a heart and their initials into a tree.”

“Two of them?” Peabody hissed out a breath. “A couple?”

“It’s a theory. And it’s Mira territory. I need to run this by her, but it’s an interesting theory. They strip him, use a ball gag – a SMB tool, they strip him, burn his balls. But no sexual assault or activity? Because they have each other for that.”

“If this is valid, it would make what they did to him —”

“Foreplay,” Eve finished when Morris couldn’t.

Morris laid a hand on the shoulder of his dead friend. “I never ask, and shouldn’t now. But find them.”

No, he never asked, Eve thought. And she shouldn’t answer as she felt compelled to. “I will. You can bank on it.”

He’s sad again.” Peabody waited until they were outside. “The vic made him think of Coltraine, so he’s sad again.”

“He’ll get through it.” But Eve considered calling the priest, remembering Morris had found both comfort and friendship with Chale López. “We work the case, we get it done, and he’ll get through it faster.”

“Do you want me to see if I can schedule a meeting with Mira?”

“Yeah. We’re going into Central first. I want to get the book and board going, stew on this couple theory a little. Tell her I’ll send her a report.”

“Got it. You think this was random – I mean the choice of vic.”

“Can’t say. Right now we don’t even know where he was attacked, where he was snatched. We need to talk to friends and associates,” she continued as she drove through thickening snowfall. “Stick with the E’s first – we don’t throw out one theory for another. But start contacting them and arranging for them to come to us at Central. That way if Mira has a window, I can slip through it.”

Peabody fell silent and into work, then paused, frowned out the window at the snow. “I think it was a couple.”

“Because you think I think it was?”

“That made me see the maybe, but my first reaction was no. Just no, that’s too sick. Then – I’m going to say it before you do – we’ve seen sicker. A lot sicker. But it was the classic romance symbol of the heart that made me say no, then made me see the yes. They signed him – or one did for the other – not like a piece of art, but in a symbol of their twisted idea of love.”

Eve waited a beat. “Why does that piss you off?”

“Because I believe in symbols of love, goddamn it. There’s this big-ass tree back home. My dad carved his and Mom’s initials in it before any of us were born. And when we started coming along he built this circular bench all the way around it – gave it plenty of space between to grow more. And it has. It was so they could sit there, watching us play, and looking out over the gardens. And when each of us got to be about six, he helped us each build our own birdhouse, so there’s all these birdhouses hanging in the limbs, and wind chimes my mother made, and… It’s special, it’s really special, and it started when he carved that heart and their initials inside it. And…”

“Don’t blubber, Peabody,” Eve warned, hearing it coming.

“I’m not going to blubber. It’s just that when we went there for Christmas my parents took us both out there, to the tree, and my dad handed McNab his knife, and told him he should carve our initials in the tree. Because they know I love him, and he loves me, and they believe it’s the real, long-haul thing. It meant so much to me, just so much, because the tree, it’s special. It matters. Symbols matter, and they shouldn’t be used like this. That’s all.”

Eve said nothing until she’d pulled into the garage at Central, parked in her spot. “People defile and despoil what’s good and pure and special every single fucking day. We see it, we know it, we deal with it.”

“I know, but —”

“Shut up. You think about this. When some sick fuck uses what’s good and pure and special in his sick-fuck way, it just makes the symbol stronger and more important. It doesn’t lessen it one damn bit, unless you let it.”

Because she had blubbered a little, Peabody scrubbed her hands over her face. “You’re right. You’re so completely right. I just let it get to me.”

“It was nice,” Eve said as they got out of the car. “What your parents did, it was nice.”

She glanced over at the quick click of heels, saw Mira cutting toward the elevator from her own space.

Eve thought the color of the coat that skimmed to the knees of Dr. Charlotte Mira’s excellent legs might be called aquamarine. The heels were certainly emerald as was the hint of the dress under the coat. A sassy beret of rich sapphire blue perched on her smooth bob of mink-colored hair. She carried a purse of the same color as the beret and a shoulder-strap briefcase of supple bronze leather.

“Well, good morning. Are you just coming in, or… Peabody, are you all right?”

Instinctively, Peabody scrubbed at her face again. “Oh yeah. I just had a moment, that’s all. And I just tagged your admin to see if you could squeeze Dallas in for a consult.”

“So you’re just getting in, but not just coming on.” Mira turned her quiet blue eyes to Eve. “I’m actually not due in for another twenty minutes. I left early as I wasn’t sure how traffic would be once the snow started. I can come up with you to your office now, if you have the time.”

“I’ll make it.”

When she could grab time with the department’s top shrink and profiler, she grabbed it.

“A new case? You’ve just gotten back from holiday.”

“We got back yesterday afternoon. We caught the case about four this morning when a beat droid found the body.”

Seeing no point in wasting time, Eve started the rundown as they got on the elevator.

“Dennis and I went to the Met with friends, saw Giselle just last weekend. Your victim must have been playing.” Mira shifted as the elevator shuddered to a stop on nearly every floor and more cops piled on. “Held and tortured for two days. Sexual component?”

“None that shows. The killer used a precise flame – probably a hand torch – to inflict small burns on the genitals.”

Every male cop on the crowded car shifted, and Eve imagined cop balls shrinking up in sympathy and defense.

“No mutilation?”

“Not your standard. Broken bones, burns, cuts, bruises. Primarily torso, abdomen, limbs, broken and crushed fingers. Hacked his hair off, left insulting little tufts of it. He had a lot of thick, shiny hair.”

“Humiliation. But the face, nearly unmarked, no mutilation of the genitals. It doesn’t feel personal.”

“Somebody takes a torch to my balls, I’m taking it personal,” one of the cops said. Mira smiled at him.

“Burns heal, Officer, given the time. Personal would be slicing them up or off.”

“Acid.” Eve spoke casually. “I caught one once where the girlfriend got pissed, and when the guy was crashed on Zoner, poured acid on his balls.”

Grateful when the elevator stopped on Homicide level, Eve pushed her way through cops, did her best to make a hole for Mira and Peabody.

“Everyone with balls on that car is going to check his own, first chance,” she said, and made Mira laugh.

“I think that’s an accurate analysis.”

When they turned into Homicide, Eve saw Detective Baxter start to stand up, as if he’d been watching for her. But he settled back again.

“Hey, Dr. Mira. Looking good.”

“As do you, Detective. Always.” Mira glanced toward the corner where they’d had the perfectly pathetic holiday tree. And where Eve, Baxter and nearly every cop currently in the room had come far too close to death on the last day of 2060.

“I’ll miss your very eclectic and inclusive holiday decorations,” she said. “Maybe you can do something for Valentine’s Day.”

“Not ever.” Eve said it definitely in case anybody got some weird ideas. “Peabody, start arranging the interviews. Dr. Mira, why don’t you go into my office? I’m right behind you.” But she crossed to Baxter first.

“Something hot?”

“No, nothing hot, boss.” He shrugged shoulders that filled out a smart, perfectly cut suit. “Just something I wanted to touch base with you on when you get a minute.”

“After I talk to Mira.” She looked across the room, studied Jenkinson’s tie. Today’s had white snowflakes swirling against a blue so bold and lively Eve thought it might have a pulse.

“That’s never going to stop, is it?”

Baxter grinned, shook his head. “It’s now a Homicide Division tradition. Reineke told me Jenkinson’s found a street vendor who’ll sell them to him at a discount when he buys five at a go.”

“God help us all,” Eve muttered, and walked away to join Mira.