Conspiracy in Death

"You could've just threatened to kick his balls into his throat like you did with the guy the other day," Peabody pointed out.

"No point in threatening the harmless." She breezed through the doors of the clinic, noted that the waiting area looked very much as it had on her previous visit, and walked straight to the check-in window.

"I need to speak with Dr. Dimatto."

Jan the nurse gave Eve a sulky look. "She's with a patient."

"I'll wait, same place as before. Tell her I won't take much of her time."

"Dr. Dimatto is very busy today."

"That's fu

She let loose the same gusty sigh as she had on Eve's first visit, shoved out of her chair with the same irritable shrug of motion. What, Eve wondered, made so many people resent doing their jobs?

When the locks opened, she stepped in, met Jan's eyes on level. "Gee, thanks. I can see by your cheerful attitude how much you love working with people." She could see by Jan's confused expression it would take a while for the sarcasm to sink in.

Eve went through and settled into the cramped little office to wait for Louise.

It took twenty minutes, and the doctor didn't look particularly pleased to see Eve again. "Let's make this fast. I've got a broken arm waiting to be set."

"Fine, I need you as an expert consultant on my case for the medical end of things. The hours suck, the pay's lousy. There may be some possibility of risk, and I'm very demanding of the people who work with me."

"When do I start?"

Eve smiled with such unexpected warmth and humor, Louise nearly goggled. "When's your next day off?"

"I don't get whole days, but I don't start my rotation tomorrow until two."

"That'll work. Be at my home office tomorrow, eight sharp. Peabody, give her the address."

"Oh, I know where you live, Lieutenant." It was Louise's turn to smile. "Everyone knows where Roarke lives."

"Then I'll see you at eight."

Satisfied, Eve headed back out. "I'm going to like working with her."

"Do you want me to put in the request and papers to add her as consult?"

"Not yet." Thinking of wiped records, of cops that didn't seem particularly interested in closing cases, she shook her head as she climbed back into her vehicle. "Let's keep this unofficial for awhile yet. Put us back on log."

Using her best pitiful look, Peabody said only, "Lunch?"

"Hell. All right, but I'm not buying anything in this neighborhood for internal consumption." A woman of her word, she headed uptown and stopped when she saw a fairly clean glide-cart.

She made do with a scoop of oil fries while Peabody feasted on a soy pocket and vegetable kabob.

Eve put her vehicle on auto, letting it drive aimlessly while she ate. And she thought. The city swirled around her, the bump and grind of street traffic, the endless drone of air commuters. Stores advertised their a

Bargain hunters braved the frigid temperatures and shivered on people glides as they went about their business. It was a bad time for pickpockets and scam artists. No one stood still long enough to be robbed or co

Still, she spotted a three-card monte game and more than one sneak thief on airskates.

If you wanted something badly enough, she mused, a little inconvenience wouldn't stop you.

Routine, she thought. It was all a routine, the grifters and the muggers and the purse grabbers had theirs. And the public knew they were there and simply hoped they could avoid contact.

And the sidewalk sleepers had theirs. They would shiver and suffer through the winter and hope to evade the lick of death that came with subzero temperatures while it lapped at their cribs.

No one paid much attention if they were successful or not. Is that what he'd counted on? That no one would pay much attention? Neither of her victims had had close family to ask questions and make demands. No friends, no lovers.

She hadn't heard a single report on the recent killing on any of the news and information cha

And she smiled to herself, wondering how Nadine Furst would feel about the offer of a one-on-one exclusive. Munching on a fry, she put a call through to the reporter.

"Furst. Make it fast and make it good. I'm on air in ten."

"Want a one-on-one, Nadine?"

"Dallas." Nadine's foxy face glowed with a smile. "What do I have to do for it?"

"Just your job. I've got a homicide – sidewalk sleeper – "

"Hold it. No good. We did a feature last month on sleepers. They freeze, they get sliced. We do our public interest bit twice a year. It's too soon for another."

"This one got sliced – sliced open, then his heart was removed and taken from the scene."

"Well that's a happy thought. If you're working a cult angle, we did a feature in that area in October for Halloween. My producer's not going to go for another. Not for a sleeper. Now, a feature on you and Roarke, on what it's like inside your marriage, that I could run with."

"Inside my marriage is my business, Nadine. I've got a retired LC who ran ponies. She was sliced open a couple of months back. Somebody took her kidneys."

The slight irritation in Nadine's eyes cleared, and they sharpened. "Co

"Do your job," Eve suggested. "Then call my office and ask me that question again."

She disengaged and shifted the car back to manual.

"That was pretty slick, Dallas."

"She'll dig up more in an hour than six research droids could in a week. Then she'll call and ask me for an official statement and interview. Being a cooperative kind of woman, I'll give it to her."

"You ought to make her jump through a few hoops, just to keep up tradition."

"Yeah, but I'll keep the hoops wide and I'll keep them low. Put us back on log, Peabody. We're going to check out Spindler's place, and I want it on record. If anybody has any doubt the co

The crime scene had been cleared weeks before, but Eve wasn't looking for physical evidence. She wanted impressions, the lay of the land, and hopefully, a conversation or two.

Spindler had lived in one of the quick-fix buildings that had been tossed up to replace those that had crumbled or been destroyed around the time of the Urban Wars.

The plan had been for fast, temporary housing to be replaced by more solid and aesthetically pleasing structures within the decade, but several decades later, several of the ugly, sheer-sided metal buildings remained in place.

A street artist had had a marvelous time spray painting naked couples in various stages of copulation over the dull gray surface. Eve decided his style and perspective were excellent, as was his sense of place. This particular building housed the majority of street LCs in that area.

There was no outside security camera, no palm plate. If there had ever been such niceties in place, they had long ago been looted or vandalized.

She walked into a cramped, windowless foyer that held a line of scarred mailboxes and a single elevator that was padlocked.

"She had 4C," Peabody said, anticipating Eve, then looked at the stained stairwell with its swaybacked treads. "I guess we walk up."

"You'll work off your lunch."

Someone had turned their choice of music entertainment up to a scream. The nasty sound of it echoed down the staircase and deafened the ears on the first-floor landing. Still, it was better than the sounds of huffing and puffing they heard through one of the thin doors on the second floor. Some lucky LC was earning her fee, Eve imagined as she headed up.