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“Yeah, there’s that. But like, when you were training me, and we partnered up, we worked pretty tight.”
“Wait a minute. You’re a woman?”
It made her laugh and call herself a fool. “Turns out. McNab can meet us in fifteen, in the garage. Appreciate it.”
McNab was a fashion plate from the tips of his long, shiny hair to the stacked soles of his purple airboots. His calf-length parka was in eye-watering orange, and his watch cap had zigzags of both colors. His earlobes were studded with a multitude of tiny silver balls.
Despite what Eve considered his questionable war
drobe choices, he was a solid EDD man. His fingers were nimble, his green eyes sharp.
He stretched out on the backseat on the drive, and from the movements Eve caught in the rearview, and Peabody’s muffled giggles, he was snaking his hand between the front seat and the passenger door to tickle his cohab.
“You want to retain use of that hand, Detective, you’ll keep it off my partner until your personal time.”
“Sorry. Your partner shatters the power of my will.”
“Keep it up, and I’ll shatter all your fingers.” She swung to the curb.
Williams’s building couldn’t boast a doorman, but she noted there was solid security. All three badges had to be scanned and cleared before the outside doors clicked open to the small lobby. She spotted security cams in the lobby along with a couple of chairs and a fake palm tree.
“Five-E,” Peabody told her.
They stepped into one of the two elevators where Eve asked for the fifth floor. “A couple of steps up from the vic’s living space.”
“Williams has been certified and teaching for nearly fifteen years. He also has his master’s. He’d make easily four times what the vic did. Not counting any private tutoring he might pull in on the side and not report.” Peabody linked pinkies with McNab, then unhooked as they reached five.
“Record on,” Eve announced, then drew out her master. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve; Peabody, Detective Delia; McNab, Detective Ian, entering the apartment of Willaims, Reed, by duly authorized warrant.”
She dealt with the locks. “McNab, I want you to check out any D-and-C’s, correspondence, conversations, what he’s been looking at, what he’s been buying. The whole shot.”
She frowned at the apartment. The living area wasn’t spacious, but it was as large as the victim’s entire place. It boasted no particularly exciting view, but there was a wide gel couch in gleaming black, lots of shiny chrome. She noted a mood screen, a snazzy entertainment system.
The art on the walls was stark and modern. A circle, a line, all in primary colors on white. The windows had privacy screens, and they were engaged. She wandered to the turnout that was the kitchen. Sleek and shiny there, too, she noted. White, black, red. What equipment there was looked glossy to her, and she was willing to bet it was trendy.
“Take the kitchen, Peabody. If he dabbles in poison, he might just be stupid or arrogant enough to keep it in there. I’ll take the bedroom.”
It was an eyeful. She imagined Williams thought of it as sexy. She found it just a little creepy. The bed was the focal point, a wide pool draped in a shimmering red spread that looked wet. Flanking it were two thick faux-fur rugs in black.
She considered the lighted mirror angling from the ceiling a cliché, and laughable. Art here ran to pencil drawings of stupendously endowed couples copulating in various positions.
She lifted the shimmering red spread, found black sheets, and beneath them a gel mattress that undulated under pressure.
Ick.
The drawers in the table beside the bed held a cornucopia of sex toys and enhancements, including a couple of illegal substances classified as date rape devices. She bagged them into evidence.
“You make this part easy,” she said aloud, and moved to the closet.
She noted his professional wardrobe on one side—a couple of suits, sports jackets, shirts, trousers. His leisure wear on the other was considerably less conservative.
She wondered who would actually enjoy seeing a grown man in a black skin-suit.
“Hey, Dallas, you’ve gotta see—” McNab stopped, whistled. “Wow. Sexcapades.” He studied one of the black-framed sketches. “These two have to be double-jointed.” He scratched his throat, then bent from the waist to study it from a different angle.
“What do I have to see?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry, got sucked in. Sex is this guy’s religion. It’s kind of admirable in a sick way. He spends a lot of time on his comp: chat rooms, websites—all sex spots. Orders a lot of toys.”
