Immortal in Death

"You mean I can't – " Mavis shut her mouth, regrouped. "All right then, we won't go ru

"On the contrary." He took a satisfied drag on his cigarette. "I think it's a perfect solution."

"One big happy family," Eve mumbled. "The primary, the defendant, and the tenant of the murder scene, who also happens to be the victim's former lover and the defendant's current. Are you all insane?"

"Who's to know? Roarke has excellent security. And if there's even the smallest chance that things could go wrong, I want to spend whatever time I can with Leonardo." Mavis set her mouth in a stubborn pout. "So that's what I'm going to do."

"I'll have Summerset arrange for a work space."

"Thanks. We appreciate it."

"While you people orchestrate your mad tea party, I've got a murder to solve."

Roarke winked at Mavis and called after Eve as she stormed away, "What about your crepe?"

"Stuff it."

"She's crazy about you," Mavis commented.

"It's almost embarrassing, the way she fawns. Want another crepe?"

Mavis patted her stomach. "Why the hell not?"

A downed circuit at Ninth and Fifty-sixth played hell with street traffic. Both pedestrians and drivers ignored the noise pollution laws and honked, shouted, and buzzed out their frustrations. Eve would have rolled up her windows to cut the din, but her temperature controls were on the fritz again.

To add to the fun, Mother Nature had decided to body slam New York with a humature of a hundred and ten. To pass the time, Eve watched the heat waves dance up from the concrete. At this rate, more than a few computer chips were going to fry by noon.

She considered taking to the air, though her control panel seemed to have developed a mind of its own. But several other harried drivers had already done so. The traffic overhead was in a nasty snarl. A couple of one-man traffic copters were trying to deal with it and instead added to the mess with the bee swarm buzz of their blades and the irritating drone of voices.

She caught herself snarling at the I LOVE NEW YORK hologram sticker on the bumper jammed in front of hers.

The sanest idea, she decided, was to get some work done in her car.

"Peabody," she ordered the 'link, and after a few frustrating hisses of static, it engaged.

"Peabody. Homicide."

"Dallas here. I'm going to pick you up in front of the Cop Shop, west side. ETA, fifteen minutes."

"Yes, sir."

"Bring all files pertinent to the Joha

"Only a couple of us made it in this morning. There's a bad traffic snag on Ninth."

Eve sca

"It pays to listen to the traffic network in the morning," she added. "I took an alternate route."

"Shut up, Peabody," Eve muttered and broke transmission. She spent the next couple of minutes retrieving messages from her desk 'link, then set up a morning appointment at Paul Redford's office in midtown for an interview. She called the lab to harass them for the toxicology report on Pandora, got the runaround, and left them with a creative threat.

She was debating whether to call Feeney and nag him when she saw a narrow break in the wall of cars. She jogged forward, cut left, squeezed through, ignoring the rude blast of horns and spearing middle fingers. Praying her vehicle would cooperate, she punched vertical. Rather than spring up, she wavered, but she did rise the minimum ten feet.

She swerved right, nipped by a jammed people glide where she caught the blur of miserable, sweaty faces, and rattled over to Seventh while her control panel warned of overload. After five blocks, the car was wheezing, but she'd cleared the worst of the jam. She set down with a teeth-rattling thud and swung toward the west entrance of Cop Central.

The dependable Peabody was waiting. How the woman managed to look cool and unperturbed in her sweltering blues, Eve didn't want to know.

"Your vehicle sounds a little rough, Lieutenant," Peabody commented when she climbed in.

"Really? I didn't notice."

"You sound a little rough yourself. Sir." When Eve merely bared her teeth and started to cut across town to Fifth, Peabody dug into her kit, took out a small porta-fan, and clipped it to the dash. The blast of cool air nearly made Eve whimper.

"Thanks."

"The temperature control on this model isn't dependable." Peabody's face remained smooth and bland. "But you probably haven't noticed."

"You've got a clever mouth, Peabody. I like that about you. Give me a rundown on Joha

"The lab's still having trouble with all the elements in the powder we found. They're stalling. If they've completely analyzed the formula, they're not saying. The buzz I get from a contact I have is, Illegals is demanding priority, so there's some politicking going on. Second search found no trace of chemicals, illegal or otherwise, in the victim's body."

"So he wasn't using," Eve mused. "Boomer tended to sample, but he had himself a big, fat bag of shit and didn't take a taste. What does that tell you, Peabody?"

"From the state of his flop and the statement of the lobby droid, we know he had the time and opportunity to use it. He had a history of chronic if mild abuse. Therefore, my deduction would be he knew or suspected something about the substance that put him off."

"That would be my guess. What do you get from Casto?"

"He claims to be in the dark on this one. He's been cooperative, if not overly forthcoming, with information and theories."

Something in the tone had Eve glancing over. "He coming on to you, Peabody?"

Peabody kept her eyes straight forward, narrowed slightly under the bowl-cut fringe of bangs. "He hasn't exhibited any inappropriate behavior."

"Cut the drill, pal, that's not what I asked."

Color snuck up under the collar of the standard-issue blues into her cheeks. "He's indicated a certain personal interest."

"Jesus, you sound like a cop. Is this certain personal interest reciprocated?"

"It might be considered, if I didn't suspect the subject had a much more personal interest in my immediate superior." Peabody slid her gaze to Eve's. "He's got a thing for you."

"Well, he'll have to keep his thing to himself." But she couldn't make herself completely displeased to hear it. "My certain personal interests lie elsewhere. He's a powerful looking sonofabitch, isn't he?"

"My tongue gets all swelled up in my mouth when he looks at me."

"Hmm." Eve ran her own around her teeth experimentally. "So go for it."

"I'm not prepared to become involved in a romantic relationship at this point."

"Hell, who said anything about relationship? Screw each other blind a couple times."

"I prefer affection and companionship in sexual encounters," Peabody said stiffly. "Sir."

"Yeah. It does make a difference." Eve sighed. It was almost a painful effort to keep her mind from leapfrogging back to Mavis, but she tried to focus. "I was just ragging on you, Peabody. I know what it's like when you're standing there, trying to do your job, and some guy hits you between the eyes. I'm sorry if you're uncomfortable working with him, but I need you."

"It's not a problem." Loosening up, Peabody smiled. "And it's not exactly a sacrifice to look at him." She glanced up as Eve swung toward the underground parking beneath a spearing white tower on Fifth. "Isn't this one of Roarke's buildings?"

"Most of them are." The electronic attendant sca