Portrait In Death

"Slick. See, there's always something. Has the body been released to the family?"

"The Medical Examiner will release the body to the victim's family tomorrow. I've got to go, Nadine. I've got a meeting."

"One more thing. Will you confirm that the primary, and the investigative team, believe Rachel Howard's killer will kill again?"

"No, I will not. Don't play that card, Nadine. Don't play that card until it falls."

She broke transmission, rubbed her hands over her face. Because, she thought, it was going to fall soon enough.

She was the first to arrive in the conference room, so she settled down, took out her notebook, and began to write and review.

Images, youth, pure, portrait, light.

Her light was pure.

Virginity?

How the hell would the killer know her sexual status?

Had the killer been a confidant? A potential lover? Counselor, authority figure?

Who did Rachel trust? Eve wondered and brought the pretty, smiling face back into her mind.

Every damn body.

Had she herself ever trusted people so completely, so simply? Hardly, Eve thought. But then again, she hadn't come from a nice, stable home, with nice, stable parents and a perky kid sister. Everything had been almost preternaturallynormal in Rachel's life. Up until the last hours of it. Family, friends, school, a shitty part-time job, a settled neighborhood.

At Rachel's age Eve had already graduated from the Academy, had already do

And she hadn't been a virgin, not since she'd been six. Seven? How old had she been the first time her father had raped her?

What difference did it make? Her light had sure as hell never been pure.

That's what had drawn him to her. What he'd wanted from her. Her simplicity, her i

She looked over as McNab came in, carting the bulky unit from the data club.

She couldn't stop herself from checking the rhythm of his walk. The previous month he'd taken a direct hit with a police issue, and it had taken several worry-filled days until the feeling had started to come back in his left side.

He wasn't quite back to prancing again, Eve noted. But there was no limp, no drag in the step. And the stringy muscles in both arms were bulging satisfactorily at the effort of carrying the unit.

"Sorry, Lieutenant." He puffed a bit, and his cheeks were already red from hauling the weight. "Just take me a minute to set up."

"You're not late yet." She watched him as he worked.

He wore summer-weight pants in grass green with a skin top that had green-and-white stripes. The vest over it was hot pink, like his gel sandals.

Rachel had been wearing jeans and a blue shirt. Slip-on canvas shoes. Two little pinprick studs, silver, in each ear.

Victim and cop, she thought, might have come from different planets.

So why did a conservative young girl frequent a data club? She wasn't a geek or a freak, a nerd or a cruiser. What was the draw?

"You hit the data clubs on your off-time, McNab?"

"Nah, not so much. Boredom city. I did some when I was a kid, and fresh into the city. Figured I'd find action, and skirts who'd be impressed with my magical skills with the comps."

"And you found them? Action and skirts?"

"Sure." He sent her a quick and wicked grin. "All pre-She-Body era."

"What was she doing there, McNab?"

"Huh? Peabody?"

"Rachel." She scooted the picture down the table toward where he was working. "What was she looking for in that club?"

He angled his head to study the picture. "It's a big draw for students, especially under drinking age. You can go in and play grownup. Nonalcoholic drinks with snappy names, hot music. You got the comps so you can do homework, break, take a spin on the dance floor, talk about classes, flirt. Whatever. It's like, I don't know, a bridge between being a kid and being an adult. That's why you don't see many over-thirties in those places."

"Okay. I get that." She stood, heading for coffee as Peabody hurried in a few steps ahead of Feeney.

"Looks like the gang's all here." Feeney dropped down at the table. "How about a hit of that shit, kid?"

Eve got a second mug. Kid, she thought. Feeney was the only one who ever-had ever-called her that. Odd that she'd just noticed it.

If she'd had a bridge, Eve realized, it had been Feeney.

She set the mug down in front of him. "Okay, this is what I've got."

Once they were briefed, she gestured to McNab. "Over to you, hotshot."

"The transmission was sent from this unit to Nadine Furst's station at 75. We have the time stamp on Nadine's machine, and the correlating stamp on this. When reviewing the security disc for the time in question, we see… a lot of flashing lights, bodies, and mass. On-screen," he ordered.

"This unit is-wait." He dug in several of his many pockets until it came up with a laser pointer. "Here." He circled a section of the screen. "It's blocked by people moving around, back and forth, crowding in. But here, yeah, pause disc. Here you get a glimpse of the operator. Split screen, display enhanced image. Didn't take much, just bumping out the light show, magnifying."

"Female." Eyes cool, Eve rose to step closer to the screen. "Mid-twenties, tops, mixed race. She weighs a hundred pounds if she's hauling a full field pack and wearing jump boots. No way this girl killed Howard, and hauled her up and into that bin. She's a fucking toothpick."

"Data junkie," McNab said.

"A what?"

"Data junkie. They get off on data. Can't get enough of the machine. Some of them hole up in some little room and have little to no actual contact with human beings. It's all the machine. Others like to be around people, or have people around. They pick up some change sending and receiving, or doing reports-business, school, whatever. Anything that gives them a reason to deal with data."

"Like EDD geeks," Eve commented.

"Hey." But Feeney's lips twitched. "Data junkies rarely hold actual jobs. Or don't keep them." He drummed his fingers as he watched the screen. "Yeah, there you go. There's a drop. See, the waitress dropped off a stack of discs. Waitress probably takes a cut-club might, too-of what the dj charges per transmission or per job."

"It's not illegal," McNab added. "It's like I say to you, hey, Dallas, can you send these transmissions for me-my unit's down, or I'm squeezed for time, and I give you ten bucks for the time and trouble."

"Or if you're an illegals dealer, for instance, you dump discs on a junkie, transmissions are sent from any number of locations that can't be traced back to you."

McNab lifted his shoulders. "Yeah, there's that. But who's going to trust a junkie for serious business?"

Eve hissed out a breath. "The killer did. Let's get her ID'd. We'll still need to talk to her. Peabody, call the data club, see if anyone there can give us a name on their resident dj. Does she look at what she's sending?"

"Sometimes they do, part of the thrill," Feeney said. "You get peeks into other people's lives or thoughts without having to deal with people."

"I can get behind that part," Eve grumbled.

"You can block the data from the sender," McNab added. "If you want to keep something private. Still, a good dj could hack through a block. She's not hacking though. She's going through the disc stack too fast for that."

"What happens to the discs when she's done?"

"Waitress will pick them back up and give her a fresh supply if there is one. Done discs would go back on the bar, or a table specified for it. You pick it back up if you want it, or the club recycles. You're supposed to label them," he added. "If you want data generated or written, that request goes on a disc, and is set in another location. Fee's higher for that. She's just doing sends now."