Betrayal in Death

"I worked in Vice awhile and stuff." Still he squirmed a little under her stare and gave his attention to Eve. "I could start hunting in that venue. Like you said, he's a collector. They even got some of this stuff that leans toward the art film side. I could start with that."

"McNab, sometimes you surprise me. Do it."

"Want to watch some dirty discs, She-Body?" he whispered, and Eve pretended, mostly for her own sake, she didn't hear.

"Son of a bitch." Feeney pocketed his communicator. "We got a break. I've been ru

"Where?"

"It's a place in Cornwall, along the coast. Cops found some bodies out in the moor. They were in pretty bad shape – exposure and they've still got, you know, wild life around there. Thing was, they were garroted, but there was no wire, so I didn't get the pop. Plus the locals there hadn't hooked it into the network until two months after the crime."

"Why do you tag it as Yost?"

"Timing fits, once they were able to determine time of death. Kill pattern fits. Both victims, male and female, were beaten badly, especially around the face. Both tranqued. Both raped. My man brought up the dead shots and compared the neck wounds, what could be made of them, and that fits. Hiker who called it in didn't hang around for the cops. Could be he took the wires."

"Did they ID the victims?"

"They did. Couple of badass smugglers who kept a base in a cottage up there. I can follow up on this, get more data, talk to the primary."

"Yeah, and pass it all through to my home unit. I'm going to feed this one to the feds, too. It might get them off my back, and better yet, off my turf for a while. With that in mind, let's pick this up at eight hundred tomorrow, my home office. Anybody gets anything between now and then, contact me."

She hit Dickie, the chief lab tech, and hit him hard. He whined, but it was almost casually. She threatened him, then bribed him with a bottle of Jamaican rum, which completed their relationship dynamic. He agreed to put her bathroom drains on top of his workload.

Next she reported to Whitney, got his go-ahead to feed her selected data to Jacoby and Stowe. And as expected, was told she would be needed at a press conference scheduled for fourteen-thirty the following afternoon.

She brooded about that all the way back down to her office where she settled down and contacted Stowe.

The agent came on screen, her attractive face showing a

"Because news travels, Agent Stowe, and I've been busy. I'm contacting you now to bring you up-to-date on this latest incident. But if you'd rather break my balls, you're just wasting my time."

"You should have informed me or my partner before you left the scene and had it sealed."

"I don't recall seeing that directive written down anywhere. This is a courtesy call, and I'm starting to feel pretty discourteous."

"Cooperation – "

"You want cooperation, then shut up and listen."

Eve paused, saw Stowe simmer, then swallow her wrath. "I have some data that might be of help to your investigation, and to mine, and which I believe your agency can track more quickly than mine. You want to deal, let's deal. I'm going to be at a downtown club, the Down and Dirty, in twenty minutes. Bring something to trade."

She cut transmission before Stowe could respond.

And she made certain she got to the D and D in fifteen, just in case.

An enormous black man with tattoos and feathers and a head as bald and shiny as a bowling ball gri

"Hey there, white girl."

"Hey back, black boy."

It was too early for the bulk of the clientele an all-nude club like the Down and Dirty appealed to. Still, there was a scatter of customers hulking at tables and a single bored dancer working up just enough energy to shake her impressive breasts to the beat of recorded music.

Crack, all seven feet of him, ran the club, but would concentrate on bouncing the more irritating of the customers out on their heads when the action heated up. He'd gotten his name for the sounds those heads made as they met concrete.

For now, he loitered behind the bar, and came up with a nasty-looking cup of black coffee.

He slid it over to Eve. "Don't see your ski

"Golly, Crack, you're making me all misty." One sip of the coffee took care of that. She hoped her throat lining would regenerate eventually. "I got a couple of federal types meeting me here."

He looked so pained even the gri

"I wanted to show them a highlight of our wonderful city." She laughed. "And I wanted to make their clean-cut, East Washington selves see what it's like in the real world. The female half of the team may be all right under it all, but the guy's a butt pain squared."

"You want me to maybe give them some grief?"

"No, maybe just one of your hard looks, the kind they'll remember long after they're safe back in their little field office. Oh, and you could make sure they get this coffee."

His teeth gleamed like marble columns. "You got you a mean streak."

"A mile wide, pal. Anything in here you don't want the feds sniffing?"

"We clean… right now." His eyes skimmed past her. "Mmm-mmm. More white meat. Whiter than white. They ever hire color in the effing-bee of eye?"

"Sure, but working federal probably turns them white. Give me a little room here, Crack," she murmured, then shifted on her stool. "Agents."

"You sure pick the nicest places, Lieutenant." With a wrinkle of the nose, Jacoby inspected a stool before gingerly sliding on.

"This is my little home away from home. Want some coffee? My treat."

"I guess that's as safe a bet as you'd get in a dump like this."

"You calling my place a dump." Crack leaned over the bar, stuck his huge face into Jacoby's.

"He's just being a moron." Karen Stowe stepped gamely between them. "It's genetic, so he can't help it. I'd love some coffee, thank you."

"Then you're welcome." With surprising dignity, Crack stepped back and worked on the coffee under the bar. His gaze slid up briefly, met Eve's, gleamed good humor.

"You got a trade?" Eve demanded.

"The Bureau is not in the habit of bartering with the locals."

"Jacoby, for God's sake, fall in or shut up." Stowe turned to Eve. "Can we get a table?"

"Sure." Eve picked up her coffee, waited until they had theirs, then strolled away to a table in the far corner.

Stowe led off. "I picked up some information on a hit that looks like Yost. A Supreme Court judge, went down two years ago."

"A Supreme Court justice gets raped and garroted, it makes the media wild. I don't remember hearing anything on this. And none of my searches picked it up."

"Politics. They covered it because the justice wasn't alone. He was with an underage female."

"Dead?"

"No. I'm still picking out the pieces but what I get is the kid was drugged, then bound, and locked in an adjoining room. I can't get a name on her, can't get past the seals, but it looks as if she was whisked away by the government. I'm guessing Witness Protection. They don't want her talking about the judge's bad habit of boinking youngsters. Official word is he died of a heart attack, and was beyond resuscitation by the time medical aid arrived."