“Looks like he was working at home. Did you run his data yet?”
“Yes, sir, it’s coming through now.”
Eve took the gauge out of her field kit to establish time of death.
“Jonah Talbot,” Peabody read off. “Male, single, age thirty-three. Vice president and deputy publisher, Starline Incorporated. Residing this address since November 2057. Parents divorced, one sibling, one half-sibling through mother, no children.”
“Hold the rest of the personal. What’s Starline?”
Peabody keyed in the request for data. “They publish discs, books too, e-mags, holo-journals, the whole shot of written and electronic material.” Peabody read on, then cleared her throat and lowered her PPC. “They were established in 2015, then purchased in 2051 by Roarke Industries.”
“Closer,” Eve murmured and felt the chill dance up her spine. “Taking a step closer. He took him in here. This guy’s no hundred-pound girl, but he still didn’t put up much of a fight.”
Gently, she lifted one of Talbot’s hands, saw the raw and broken skin of his knuckles. “Got a few hits in. Why not more? He’s not as big as Yost, but he’s in good shape. We’ve got one table turned over. Two guys like this square off, they’d tear up the room.”
She had reason to know, as not long before she’d had the experience o
f watching two furious and well-toned men try to pound each other into meat in her home office.
“We’ve got enough on record from this angle. Let’s turn him.”
She sat back on her heels as Peabody bent down to help with the job. As they turned him, Eve felt the jags and swelling of broken ribs.
“He waited awhile to kill him,” she said when she lifted the shirt and examined the vicious discolorations over the torso. “And he fights dirty, the son of a bitch. Goggles.”
Peabody handed over the microgoggles. Through their powerful lenses, Eve studied the body. “Just here, just under the left armpit. Pressure syringe. He pulled a tranq when he got too much resistance. When Talbot went down, he wailed on him awhile. Did he wait until he was coming out of it to rape him? I bet he did. What’s the point in rape if the victim doesn’t know the violation, the humiliation?”
Her father had done that, she remembered. If he’d hit her just a little too hard and knocked her out, he’d waited. He’d always waited until she knew, until she could feel, until she broke enough to beg.
“Yeah, wake up,” she whispered. “Wake up. How’s a guy supposed to get off if you just lie there, little bitch?”
“Sir?”
“He waited,” she said, shaking it off. “Kept him alive long enough for the blood to gather into bruises, long enough for him to struggle with whatever energy he had left. Then he slips the wire over the head, finishes the job.”
She pushed the goggles back. “I’ll take over the record. Check with Feeney and McNab. See what they’ve got off the security cameras.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You got some hits in,” she murmured, carefully sealing the injured hand.
So had Darlene French, she remembered. And the others? Was that cut or bruise Yost took away from the job another kind of souvenir? A war wound? Something to admire later?
What little trinket did he take from Jonah Talbot?
With the microgoggles back in place, she examined the body for any sign of piercing. She found what she was looking for on the left scrotum.
She shuddered, remembering the quick shocking sting of her recent ear piercing. “Jesus, what’s up with people? For the record, piercing mark in left scrotum indicates victim wore or had worn some body ornamentation in this area.”
She took off the goggles, rose, and standing over the dead began to slowly scan the room.
When she heard the footsteps, she spoke with her back to the door. “Peabody, tell the sweepers to keep an eye out for a small body ornament. The kind guys hook on their balls, for reasons I don’t care to explore. Our guy likes souvenirs, and the victim’s missing his genital bauble.”
“I can’t help you with that, Lieutenant.”
She turned, looked at Roarke. Instinctively she moved forward, stepping between him and the body. “I don’t want you in here.”
“You can’t always have what you want.”