In Death 07 - Holiday in Death

body, another soul lost because she was too many steps behind? Whom did he love now?

CHAPTER TEN
    The snow started to spit out of the sky at dawn. No pretty postcard snow, but thin, mean needles that hissed nastily as they hit pavement. By the time Eve settled in her office at Cop Central, there was a slick layer of ugly gray over the city streets, sidewalks, and glides that would certainly keep the MTs and traffic cops busy.
    Outside her window, two weather copters from rival channels dueled in a war to pass the bad news to viewers and report on the latest fender bender or pedestrian spill.
    All they had to do, Eve thought bad-temperedly, was open their own fucking doors and see for themselves.
    It was going to be a lousy day.
    Keeping her back to the arrow-slit view of her window, she fed data into her computer with little hope that she'd get a decent probability match.
    "Computer, probability program. Using known data, analyze and compute. List in order of probability which names most likely to be targeted by True Love killer."
    Working...
    "Yeah, you do that," she muttered. While her machine whined and clunked, she took copies of photos confiscated from Personally Yours and, rising, fixed them to a board over her desk.
    Marianna Hawley, Sarabeth Greenbalm, Donnie Ray Michael. Faces smiling hopefully. Putting their best side forward. The lonely, looking for love.
    The desk clerk, the stripper, and the sax blower. Different lifestyles, different goals, different needs. What else did they have in common? What was she missing that linked them all to a killer?
    What did he see when he looked at them that attracted and enraged? Ordinary people, living ordinary lives.
    Probability percentages even for all subjects.
    Eve glanced over at her machine and snarled. "The hell with that. There has to be something."
    Insufficient data for further analysis. Current pattern is random.
    "How the hell am I supposed to protect two thousand people, for Christ's sake?" She closed her eyes, reeled in her temper. "Computer, eliminate all subjects who live with a companion or family member. Recalibrate remaining."
    Working... Task complete.
    "Okay." Rubbing her fingers over her eyes, she nodded. All three victims had been white, she thought. "Eliminate all subjects not Caucasian. Recalibrate remaining."
    Working... Task complete.
    "Number remaining?"
    Six hundred twenty-four subjects remaining...
    "Shit." She turned back to study the photos. "Eliminate all subjects over the age of forty-five and under the age of twenty-one."
    Working... Task complete.
    "Okay, all right." She began to pace as she thought it through. Grabbing her hard-copy file, she pushed through paperwork. "First-timers," she muttered. "They were all first-timers. Eliminate all subjects with repeated consults from Personally Yours. Recalibrate remaining."
    Working...
    This time the machine bogged and rattled. Eve gave it an impatient smack with the heel of her hand.
    "Piece of shit," she muttered, and set her teeth as the machine whined again.
    Task... complete.
    "Don't you start stuttering on me. Number remaining?"
    Two hundred six names remaining.
    "Better. Much better. Print amended list."
    While her machine chewed and spit out data, Eve turned to her 'link and contacted EDD. "Feeney, I've got just over two hundred names. I need them checked out. Can you run them? See how many have left the city, how many got themselves matched or married, died in their sleep, are on vacation at Planet Disney?"
    "Shoot them over."
    "Thanks." She glanced up as she heard a stream of whistles and catcalls from the detective's bull pen. "It's a priority," she told him and logged off just as a flushed and flustered Peabody walked in.
    "Jesus, you'd think those morons hadn't seen me out of uniform before. Henderson offered to leave his wife and kids for a weekend with me in Barbados."
    But, from the gleam in her eye, Peabody didn't appear to be too displeased by the reaction.
    Eve frowned. Her aide's face was painted and polished, her hair fluffed. Her legs were showcased in a short, snug skirt and stiletto-heeled boots, both the color of ripe raspberries.
    "How the hell do you walk in that getup?" Eve wanted to know.
    "I practiced."
    Eve inhaled deeply, then blew out air. "Sit down, let's go over the plan."
    "Okay, but it takes me a couple of minutes to get down in this skirt." Cautious, Peabody braced a hand on the edge of the desk and began to lower her butt.
    "You going to do squats or