Imitation in Death

Hank walked over, handed her a small towel. “Any problem, Mrs. H?”

“No problem here, go flex your muscles someplace else.” Dismissing him,Eve sat besideDarla. “Midnightand three, night before last.”

“I was home in bed.” She shotEve a defiant look now. “With Sweetie. Where else would I be?”

Good question,Eve thought.

She asked about the writing paper, butDarla shrugged it off. Yes, they’d been inEurope in August, and she bought a lot of things. Why shouldn’t she? How was she supposed to remember everything she’d bought or that Sweetie bought for her?

Dallascircled around for another few minutes, then stood soDarla could walk back, and be comforted by Hank. He shotEve a nasty look before leading his student toward whatEve assumed was the clubhouse.

“Interesting,”Eve stated aloud. “Looks like ourDarla was out, practicing on Hank’s balls during at least part of the time in question.”

“Definitely getting more than instruction on her backswing,”Peabody agreed. “Poor Sweetie.”

“If Sweetie knows his wife’s playing singles with her te

“Yeah, and I liked your te

“We do what we can. Anyway, it’s a theory. Let’s go see what else we can dig up onHawthorne.”

– -«»--«»--«»--

He’d been married three times, as Roarke had stated, with each successive spouse younger than the preceding one. He’d divorced both formerMrs.Hawthornes, and had nipped them off with the lowest possible financial package, as arranged through a premarital agreement. An iron-clad one from the results,Eve mused.

The man was no fool.

Would such a careful and ca

He had no criminal record, though he’d been sued a number of times in civil court for various financial deals. A quick scan told her most of them were nuisance suits, brought by unhappy and unlucky investors.

He owned four homes, and six vehicles, including a yacht, and was associated with numerous charities. His reported worth was just under a billion.

Golf, according to the various media articles and features she sca

Every name on her list had an alibi corroborated by a spouse or partner or employee. Which meant none of them held much weight.

Sitting back,Eve propped her feet on her desk, closed her eyes, and took herself back into theChinatown alley.

She walks in ahead of him. She leads theJohn. Her feet hurt. She’s got a bunion. Shoes are killing her. Two in the morning. Hot, airless. Not much business tonight. Only two hundred in her cash bag.

Gives her four, maybe fiveJohns on this circuit, depending what they wanted.

Been in the game a long time, knows to get payment up-front. Did he take it back, or didn’t he give her a chance to take it? No chance, she decided. He’d want to move fast. Spins her around. Wants her facing the wall.

Does he touch her? Run his hand over her breast, her ass, slide it over her crotch?

No, no time for that. Not interested in that. Especially after the blood gushes out on his hands.

Warm blood. That’s what got him off.

Against the wall. Tug her head back by the hair. Left hand. Slice the scalpel over her throat with the right. Left to right, slight downward path.

Blood gushes, splashes on the wall, splashes back at her face, her body, his hands.

She’s alive for a few seconds, just a few, shocked seconds when she can’t scream, and her body jerks a little as it dies.

Lay her down, head toward the opposite wall. Get out your tools.

A light, some sort of light. Can’t do that sort of precision work in the dark. Laser scalpel, use the light from the laser scalpel to guide the way.

Put what you came for in a leak-proof bag, clean off your hands. Change your shirt or take off what you were wearing over it. Everything in a bag or case now. Check yourself, make sure you’ll pass on the street.

Take out the note. Smile at it, amuse yourself. Place it carefully on the body.

Walk out of the alley. Fifteen minutes, maybe. No more than fifteen, and you’re walking away. Carrying your prize back to your car. Excited, but controlled. Need to drive carefully. Can’t risk a routine stop when you smell of death and have that part of her with you.

Back home. Reset security. Shower. Dispose of your clothes.

You did it. You’ve imitated one of the great killers of the modern age, and no one’s the wiser.

She opened her eyes, stared up at the ceiling. If it was one of her five current candidates, he’d have to dispose of the body part as well, or have a very secure place to keep it as a souvenir.

Would a regular household recycler handle that sort of thing, or would you need something that handled medical waste? She’d need to check on that.

Bringing up a map on-screen, she calculated time and distance from the murder site to each of the suspects’ residences. Giving fifteen minutes in the alley, the time to hunt the victim-likely scoped out at some point earlier-clean up, drive home. Any of them could have done the job in under two hours.

Straightening up, she began to type up a report, hoping inspiration would strike. When it didn’t, she read over the facts, finished it off, and filed it.

She spent another hour learning about recyclers and the availability of laser scalpels. And decided to go back to the scene.

The street did a decent business during the day. A couple of bars, a storefront eatery, a market, and a money exchange were the closest businesses to the alley.

Only the bars had been open aftermidnight, and both of them were at the far ends of the block. Though the neighborhood had already been canvassed, she swung through each place again, ru

She ended up standing at the mouth of the alley again with the beat cop, the neighborhood security droid, andPeabody.

“Like I said,” the cop namedHenley told her, “I knew her, the way you know the local LCs. She never caused any trouble. Technically, they’re not supposed to use the alley or any public access for work, but most of them do. We roust them now and again for it.”

“She ever complain about anyJohn getting rough or hassling her?”

“Wouldn’t have.”Henley shook his head. “She steered clear of me, and the droid. Give me a little nod if we passed each other on patrol, but she wasn’t the friendly sort. We get some rough stuff in this sector-johns andjanes slapping an LC around. You got some mopes coming through mugging them, and sometimes they wave a sticker around. Had some use ‘em, but not like this. Never had anything like this.”

“I want a copy of any reports where they used a sticker, any kind of blade.”

“I can get that for you, Lieutenant,” the droid told her. “How far back do you want to go?”

“Give me a full year. Keep it to attacks on women, with LCs the priority. Maybe he practiced first.”

“Yes, sir. Where should I transmit?”

“Send it to me at Central.Henley, where’s the safest place to park in this area? Street or underground, not a surface lot or port.”

“Well, you want quiet, lower crime, probably you’d go west, maybeLafayette. You want busy, so there’s too much going on for anybody to mess with your ride, you could hike it up the other side of Canal, into Little Italy. Restaurants stay open late.”

“Okay, we’re going to try this. One of you take from here toLafayette, the other head north. Ask residents, merchants who might have been around at that time of night, if they noticed a guy alone carrying a bag. Some kind of bag, good-sized one. He’d’ve been moving along pretty quick, no meandering, and going for a car. Talk to the LCs,” she added. “One of them may have tried to hustle him and got brushed off.”