Naked In Death

The woman could bake a poisoned pie, but couldn't control her own television, Eve thought. It took all kinds. "Mrs. Finestein, I don't want you to say any more until I've read you your rights. Until you're sure you understand them. You're under no obligation to make any statement," Eve began, while Hetta continued to smile gently.

Hetta waited until the recitation was over. "I didn't expect to get away with it. Not really."

"Get away with what, Mrs. Finestein?"

"Poisoning Joe. Although… " She pursed her lips like a child. "My grandson's a lawyer – a very clever boy. I think he'd say that since I did tell Joe, very specifically told him not to eat that pie, it was more Joe's doing than mine. In any case," she said and waited patiently.

"Mrs. Finestein, are you telling me that you added synthetic cyanide compound to a custard pie with the intention of killing your husband?"

"No, dear. I'm telling you I added cyanide compound, with a nice dose of extra sugar to a pie, and told my husband not to touch it. 'Joe,' I said, 'Don't you so much as sniff this custard pie. I baked it special, and it's not for you. You hear me, Joe?'"

Hetta smiled again. "He said he heard me all right, and then just before I left for my evening with the girls, I told him again, just to be sure. 'I mean it, Joe. You let that pie be.' I expected he would eat it, though, but that was up to him, wasn't it? Let me tell you about Joe," she continued conversationally, and picked up the cookie tray to urge another on Eve. When Eve hesitated, she laughed gaily. "Oh, dear, these are quite safe, I promise you. I just gave a dozen to the nice little boy upstairs."

To prove her point she chose one herself and bit in.

"Now, where was I? Oh, yes, about Joe. He's my second husband, you know. We've been married fifty years come April. He was a good partner, and quite a fine baker himself. Some men should never retire. The last few years he's been very hard to live with. Cross and complaining all the time, forever finding fault. And never would get flour on his fingers. Not that he'd pass by an almond tart without gobbling it down."

Because it sounded almost reasonable, Eve waited a moment. "Mrs. Feinstein, you poisoned him because he ate too much?"

Hetta's rosy cheeks rounded. "It does seem that way. But it goes deeper. You're so young, dear, and you don't have family, do you?"

"No."

"Families are a source of comfort, and a source of irritation. No one outside can ever understand what goes on in the privacy of a home. Joe wasn't an easy man to live with, and I'm afraid, though I'm sorry to speak ill of the dead, that he had developed bad habits. He'd find a real glee in upsetting me, in ruining my small pleasures. Why just last month he deliberately ate half the Tower of Pleasure Cake I'd baked for the International Betty Crocker cook-off. Then he told me it was dry." Her voice huffed out in obvious insult. "Can you imagine?"

"No," Eve said weakly. "I can't."

"Well, he did it just to make me mad. It was the way he wielded power, you see. So I baked the pie, told him not to touch it, and went out to play mahjongg with the girls. I wasn't at all surprised when I got back and found he hadn't listened. He was a glutton, you see." She gestured with the cookie before delicately finishing the last bite. "That's one of the seven deadly sins, gluttony. It just seemed right that he would die by sin. Are you sure you won't have another cookie?"

The world was certainly a mad place, Eve decided, when old women poisoned custard pies. And, she thought, with Hetta's quiet, old-fashioned, grandmotherly demeanor, the woman would probably get off.

If they sent her up, she'd get kitchen duty and happily bake pastries for the other inmates.

Eve filed her report, caught a quick di

She'd no more than cleared half the New York banks when the call came through. "Yeah, Dallas."

Her answer was the image that flowed onto her screen. A dead woman, arranged all too familiarly on blood-soaked sheets.

THREE OF SIX

She stared at the message imposed over the body and snarled at her computer.

"Trace address. Now, goddamn it."

After the computer obliged, she tagged Dispatch.

"Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, ID 5347BQ. Priority A. Any available units to 156 West Eighty-ninth, apartment twenty-one nineteen. Do not enter premises. Repeat, do not enter premises. Detain any and all persons exiting building. Nobody goes in that apartment, uniform or civilian. My ETA, ten minutes."

"Copy, Dallas, Lieutenant, Eve." The droid on duty spoke coolly and without rush. "Units five-oh and three-six available to respond. Will await your arrival. Priority A. Dispatch, out."

She grabbed her bag and her field kit and was gone.

Eve entered the apartment alone, weapon out and ready. The living room was tidy, even homey with its thick cushions and fringed area rugs. There was a book on the sofa and a slight dip in the cushion, indicating someone had spent some time curled up and reading. Frowning over the image, she moved to a door beyond.

The small room was set up as an office, the workstation tidy as a pin, with little hints of personality in the basket of perfumed silk flowers, the bowl of colorful gumdrops, the shiny white mug decorated with a glossy red heart.

The workstation faced the window, the window faced the sheer side of another building, but no one had bothered with a privacy screen. Lining one wall was a clear shelf holding several more books, a large drop box for discs, another for E-memos, a small treasure trove of pricey graphite pencils and recycled legal pads. Cuddled between was a lopsided baked clay blob that might have been a horse, and had certainly been made by a child.

Eve turned out of the room and opened the opposing door.

She knew what to expect. Her system didn't revolt. The blood was still very fresh. With only a small sigh, she holstered her weapon, knowing she was alone with the dead.

Through the thin protective spray on her hands, she felt the body. It hadn't had time to cool.

She'd been positioned on the bed, and the weapon had been placed neatly between her legs.

Eve pegged it as a Ruger P-90, a sleek combat weapon popular as home defense during the Urban Revolt. Light, compact, and fully automatic.

No silencer this time. But she'd be willing to bet the bedroom was soundproofed – and that the killer had known it.

She moved over to the fussily female circular dresser, opened a small burlap bag that was currently a fashion rage. Inside she found the dead woman's companion's license.

Pretty woman, she mused. Nice smile, direct eyes, really stu

" Georgie Castle," Eve recited for the record. "Female. Age fifty-three. Licensed companion. Death probably occurred between seven and seven-forty-five P.M., cause of death gunshot wounds. ME to confirm. Three visible points of violence: forehead, mid-chest, genitalia. Most likely induced with antique combat style handgun left at scene. No signs of struggle, no appearance of forced entry or robbery."

A whisper of a sound behind her had Eve whipping out her weapon. Crouched, eyes hard and cold, she stared at a fat gray cat who slid into the room.

"Jesus, where'd you come from?" She let out a long, cleansing breath as she replaced her weapon. "There's a cat," she added for the record, and when it blinked at her, flashing one gold and one green eye, she bent down to scoop it up.

The purring sounded like a small, well oiled engine.

Shifting him, she took out her communicator and called for a homicide team.

A short time later, Eve was in the kitchen, watching the cat sniff with delicate disdain at a bowl of food she'd unearthed when she heard the raised voices outside the apartment door.