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The time read twenty-three thirty-eight. In two hours plus, Bryna had obviously gotten very cozy with her cyber date. They came in with their arms snugged around each other’s waists, and laughing.
“He looks great,” Peabody decided as she leaned closer to the monitor. “Answer to a maiden’s prayer kind of thing. Tall, dark, and handsome.”
Eve grunted. She judged the man to be about six one, running to about one-ninety. His dark hair was swept back in a tightly curled mane that spilled over his shoulders. His skin was poetically pale, and set off by glinting emerald studs at the corner of his mouth and the high point of his right cheekbone. His eyes were the same vivid green. A thin line of beard ran vertically from just below center of his bottom lip to his chin.
He wore a dark suit with a shirt, in that same jewel green, open at the collar. He carried a black leather bag from a strap on his shoulder.
“Nice-looking couple,” Peabody added. “She looks like she’s knocked back a few alcoholic beverages.”
“More than cocktails,” Eve corrected, then ordered the computer to zoom in on Bryna’s face. “She’s got a chemical gleam in her eye. Him?” She zoomed onto the man’s face. “He’s stone sober. Contact the morgue. I want a priority put on her tox screen. Computer?”
Working . . .
“Yeah, yeah, let’s try a little multitasking.” Since, at long last, she had a new unit, she had hope. “Run current image of male on-screen through identification banks. I want a name.”
OPENING IDENTIFICATION BANKS. REQUEST FOR CITYWIDE, STATE, NATIONAL, GLOBAL?
Eve patted the side of the machine. “Now, that’s what I like to hear. Begin with New York City. Continue disc run, normal view.
WORKING . . .
The computer hummed quietly, and the image on-screen began to move again. Outside the elevator, the man lifted Bryna’s hand, pressed his lips to the palm.
“End run, begin run on elevator two, twenty-three forty.”
The image flashed off, the next flashed on. Eve watched the mating process continue on the ride to the twelfth floor. The man nibbled on her fingers, leaned in to whisper something in her ear. It was Bryna who made the advances, pulling him against her, aggressively pressing her body, her lips to his.
It was her hand that moved between their bodies, groping.
When the doors opened, they circled out, still locked together. Once again Eve ordered a disc change and studied the couple as they walked to her apartment door. Bryna fumbled a bit as she uncoded her locks. She lost her balance slightly, swayed against him. When she stepped inside, he stood at the threshold.
The perfect gentleman, Eve mused. He had a warm smile on his face, a question in his eyes. Are you going to ask me in?
She watched Bryna’s arm shoot out, watched her hand fist in the man’s jacket. She pulled him inside, and the door shut behind them.
“She was making the moves.” Peabody frowned at the empty hallway now on-screen.
“Yeah, she was making the moves.”
“I don’t mean she deserved to die. I just mean he wasn’t pushing. Even when she got aggressive in the elevator, he didn’t push. A lot of guys—hell, most guys—would’ve had a hand under her skirt at that point.”
“Most guys don’t sprinkle rose petals over the sheets.” She fast-forwarded, ordered full-stop when Bryna’s apartment door opened.
“Note time unidentified male exits victim’s apartment. Oh-one thirty-six. Same time the nine-eleven’s logged. Louise said she checked for a pulse. Give her a few seconds for shock, a few seconds to run to the body, then check the pulse, then get her pocket-link out and make the call. And that’s all the time it took him to walk away from the balcony, move through the apartment and out the door. Computer, continue run.”
“He’s shaking,” Peabody murmured.
“Yeah, and he’s sweating.” But he didn’t run, Eve noted. His eyes darted right, left, right as he hurried down the hall to the elevator. But he didn’t run.
She watched him ride down, his back pressed to the wall, the leather bag clutched against his chest. But he was thinking, she mused. Thinking carefully enough to take the elevator to the basement instead of the lobby, to exit the building by the delivery port instead of the front doors.
“There was no sign of struggle in the apartment. And between time of death, and the time she hit, no time for him to put it back to rights if there had been a fight. But she was dead before she went over. Before he threw her over,” Eve added. “She’d been using illegals, but there were no illegals in her apartment. Let’s put a bug in the lab’s ear on the contents of the wine bottle and glasses. Then go home, catch some sleep.”
“You’re going to call Feeney? You need EDD to walk through her computer and find the e-mails she and the suspect exchanged, trace the account.”
“That’s right.” Eve rose, and though she knew it was a mistake, ordered one more cup of coffee from her AutoChef. “Put the personal garbage in the recycler, and do the job.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d give McNab that same order. Sir.”
