Holiday In Death

"Oh, for Christ's sake."

"I'll entertain them if you're ru

She ended with a hiss, then gathered her field kit, called to Peabody, and sealed the scene. "I want to run the hair and fiber to the lab and light a fire under Dickhead," she said as they climbed into her vehicle. "We'll push the ME, too, though I don't think we're going to find out anything from the postmortem that we don't already know."

She slid a sidelong glance at her aide as she drove. "It's going to be a long day, Peabody. You might want to take some approved ups to get through. You can requisition some Alert-All."

"I'm okay."

"I need you sharp. I want you transformed and under by nine. You have to pull off your bit with Piper. We'll hold the release of Holloway's name as long as possible."

"I know what to do." Peabody stared out the window, watching the night sweep by. There was a lone glide-cart on the corner at Ninth, the operator warming himself in the steam from his grill.

"I'm not sorry I broke his goddamn nose," she said abruptly. "I thought I would be. I thought when I saw him there, saw what had been done to him, that I'd be sorry."

"One doesn't have anything to do with the other."

"I thought it would. I thought it should. I was afraid to go in that room. But once I was in there, doing the job, I didn't feel all the stuff I thought I would."

"You're a cop. A good one."

"I don't want to be the kind who stops feeling." She turned her head, studied Eve's profile. "You're not. They're not just slabs to you, they're people. I don't want to stop remembering they're people."

Eve glanced right and left as she approached a red light, then seeing her way clear, breezed through it. "You wouldn't be working with me if I thought you would."

Peabody took a long, slow breath and felt her stomach settle. "Thanks."

"Since you're grateful, contact Dickhead. Tell him I want his ski

Peabody grimaced, shifted in her seat. "I don't know if I'm that grateful."

"Make the call, Peabody. If he balks, I'll take over and bribe him with a case of Roarke's Irish beer. Dickie's got a weakness for it."

It took two cases and a threat to tie his tongue around his neck, but at three a.m. Dickie was in his labcoat and testing hair and fiber.

Eve paced the lab, barking into her communicator as the assistant ME claimed a holiday backup on autopsies. "Look, you little drone, I can call Commander Whitney and fry your ass. This is Priority One. You want me to let it drop to the media that my investigation was delayed because some AME wanted to read his Christmas cards instead of doing a cut?"

"Come on, Dallas, I'm working a double. I got stiffs stacked like bricks in the drawers here."

"Put my brick on the table and have the report to me by oh six hundred or I'm coming over there and I'm going to show you what a Y cut feels like."

She cut transmission and turned around. "Gimme, Dickie."

"Don't crowd me, Dallas. You don't scare me. I don't see no Priority One tab on this evidence."

"There will be by nine." She walked over and gave his hair a hard quick yank. "I haven't had my fucking coffee, Dickie. You don't want to mess with me here."

"Jeez, get some then." Behind his microgoggles, his eyes were as big as an owl's. "I'm ru

"I want it both." Because she was desperate, she walked over and ordered a cup of the lab sludge pretending to be coffee and forced down a swallow.

"Hair's human," he called out. "Treated with a salon fixer and an herbal disinfectant."

That perked Eve up enough to have her drinking more coffee as she crossed to him. "What kind of fixer, what's it for?"

"To preserve color and texture. It'll keep the white from yellowing or getting stiff. Two of your samples have some adhesive on one end. These hairs likely came from a wig. A good, expensive one. This is real human hair, and that puts it high-end. I'll have to run more to tag the adhesive. Might be able to get you a brand name on the fixer after some more tests."

"What about the fibers, the stuff Peabody got from the drains?"

"I haven't done it yet. Jesus, I'm not a droid."

"Okay." She pressed her fingers to her eyes. "I need to go to the morgue, make sure Holloway's on the table. Dickie." She laid a hand on his shoulder. He was a pain in the ass, but he was the best. "I need everything you can get me, and I need it fast. This guy's taken out four, and he's already looking for number five."

"I'll get it to you a hell of a lot faster if you stop breathing down my neck."

"I'm leaving. Peabody."

"Sir." Peabody jerked from her doze in a lab chair and blinked blindly.

"We're moving," Eve said shortly. "Dickie, I'm counting on you."

"Yeah, yeah. You know I don't think I got my invite to your big party tomorrow night." He smiled thinly. "Musta gotten lost."

"I'll make sure we find it. After you give me what I need."

"You got it." Pleased, he turned back and bent over his work.

"Greedy little bastard. Here." Eve pushed the coffee into Peabody's hand as they headed back out to the car. "Drink this. It'll either wake you up or kill you."

Eve badgered the AME until she had confirmed cause of death. She stood over his shoulder until he'd run the tox test and reported the over-the-counter tranq in Holloway's system.

Back at Central she ordered Peabody to the cramped area commonly known as the Resort. It consisted of one dark room with three two-level bunks.

While her aide slept, Eve settled into her office and wrote up the reports. She transmitted the necessary copies, and fueled herself with more coffee and what might have been a cranberry muffin from the vending machine.

It was still shy of dawn when her 'link beeped and Roarke's image swam onto her screen.

"Lieutenant, you're pale enough to see through."

"I'm solid enough."

"I have something for you."

Her heart bumped once. He'd know to say nothing more on a logged call. "I'm going to try to swing home shortly. Peabody's down for a couple of hours more."

"You need to go down yourself."

"Yeah. I've about done all I can here. I'm coming in."

"I'll wait up for you."

She broke the call, and left a brief memo for Peabody, should she wake before Eve returned. Once she was in her car and headed out, she put in another call to the lab.

"Anything more for me?"

"Jesus, you're relentless. Tagged your fiber. It's a sym-poly blend, trade name Wulstrong. Simulated wool, commonly in coats and sweaters. This was dyed red."

"Like a Santa suit?"

"Yeah, but not one of your bell-ringing suits. Those poor bastards can't afford this kind of weight and quality. This is good shit, next best thing to real wool. The manufacturers claim it's better – warmer, more durable, and blah blah blah. That's bullshit, 'cause nothing's better than genuine. But this is good, pricey. Just like the hair. Your guy isn't worried about spending credits."

"Good. Nice work, Dickie."

"You find my invitation, Dallas?"

"Yeah, it fell behind my desk."

"Those things happen."

"Get me the results of the drain lift, Dickie, and I'll have it messengered over."

She watched dawn flirt with the eastern sky as she turned toward home.

She knew where to find Roarke. In a room that shouldn't have existed, ma