Calculated in Death

He’s sure as hell not meeting a client for coffee.”
    With her left hand, she took out her master, slid it slowly, quietly through the slot. She held up three fingers, two, one.
    They went through the door together, fast and smooth.
    She saw they could be that arrogant. They could be that bold.
    Jake Ingersol lay on the newly finished floor, eyes staring up at the freshly painted ceiling, and his brutalized head swimming in a pool of his own blood.
    Eve held up a hand. “We clear it first.”
    She didn’t believe they’d find the killer hiding in one of the closets or curled into a kitchen cabinet, but they worked through, room by room before she holstered her weapon.
    “Get the field kits, Peabody. I’ll call it in.”
    “He beat him with a hammer.” The weapon lay beside the body, covered in blood and gore. “Beat his head to pulp with it. Spatter’s everywhere. Jesus. And look at the blood on the pants. He must’ve kneecapped him with it.”
    “Yeah. He put some effort into this one. I’d say he’s starting to enjoy his work.”

WHILE PEABODY WENT OUT FOR FIELD KITS, Eve stood studying the scene, the body, the spatter patterns on the freshly painted walls, the gleaming floor.
    She calculated they’d missed the killer by minutes, missed preventing murder by perhaps thirty.
    She could see how it happened, the movements, the horror, the brutality—see it before the field kit and the tools and instruments.
    The contact via ’link, text only, or with video blocked? She’d have lured her target that way. A simple statement, a flat demand. Mr. Alexander needs to speak with you, right away. He’ll meet you in the apartment of the new building.
    If the vic questioned, some cryptic or impatient answer could be given. Alexander said now, that means now.
    Odds were the killer made the ’link tag from inside the apartment, gaining access through the hacker’s skills, or because Ingersol had already passed on the new codes.
    “Vic comes down after the ’link tag,” Eve said out loud as Peabody walked back in with the kits. “The killer’s already here. That’s how he’d work it. He’s a coward at the core. He’d take him from behind, an ambush. We know he’s got a stunner, so he’d use it. He stuns Ingersol, takes him down, then beats him to death when he’s helpless. That’s his way.”
    “Why not quick and easy, snap his neck like he did with Dickenson? Or smother him, like Parzarri? Why this kind of ugly, personal mess?”
    “Personal, exactly. And because he’s experimenting now. He’s into it now. He’s not killing a stranger now.” She took the kit from Peabody, began to seal up.
    “So he not only knew Ingersol, but . . .” Like Eve, Peabody studied the body, the spatter. “Really didn’t like him.”
    “Possible. Very possible. Ingersol pissed him off, or insulted him at some point, or he just didn’t like his face. That gives him a reason—maybe it gives him permission—to whale away. Dickenson? That was thoughtless, ruthless. Swat that fly and walk away. The attack on us? Following orders. But was there a little thrill in there at the prospect of taking out two cops, in a public place? Maybe.”
    “Major fail on that one.”
    “Yeah.” Taking out her gauges, Eve performed the basics—confirming ID, determining TOD. “Alexander wouldn’t have been very pleased. Maybe he took his muscle to the toolshed.”
    “The toolshed? For the hammer?”
    “No, you know. You go to the toolshed to get your ass whipped.”
    “You do? Oh, oh, you mean
wood
shed.”
    “Why does wood need a shed?”
    “I don’t know . . . well, to keep it dry. You can’t start a fire with wet wood.”
    “Eighteen minutes. He’s been dead for eighteen goddamn minutes.” Anger spurted inside her, needed to be tamped down. “They came directly here from the underpass and Parzarri. He’s riding on the boost from doing the accountant. Does he already have the hammer? Was it here?”
    She looked around again but saw no tools, no materials. They’d finished in here. “The crew had cleaned up, so why would there be a hammer? Did he bring it with him? Did he stop to buy it? We find out. Either way, one of them, killer or hacker, makes the call.”
    She looked at the door again, calculated, then carefully lifted the victim’s bloody, ruined shirt. “Yeah, stun marks. ME to confirm, but I think . . .” She fixed on microgoggles, all but put her nose on the broken chest. “Looks like