In Death 10 - Witness in Death

myself," she decided and rang for a serving droid.
    "Did you notice Quim on opening night?" Eve asked.
    "Just that he was doing what he did in his usual silent, scowling way."
    "Did you speak to him?"
    "I may have. I don't recall. I'd like a vodka, rocks," Carly added when the droid appeared. "A double."
    "You didn't appear this upset when Draco was killed, and in front of your eyes."
    "I can think of a dozen reasons any number of people would want to kill Richard," Carly snapped back.
    "Including yourself."
    "Yes." She took the glass from the droid, took one quick sip. "Most definitely including myself. But Quim changes everything. If their deaths are connected, I want to know. Because the idea scares me."
    "Tragedies happen in threes," Eliza stated, her voice round and full and passionate.
    "Oh, thanks, darling. Just what I needed to hear." Carly lifted her glass, drained the contents.
    "Weird. These people are fucking weird." Eve got in her vehicle and headed back to Central. "One of their associates gets stuck in the heart basically at their feet, and they're like -- my goodness, would you look at that. A tech is hanged, and they fall apart."
    She flipped on her car link and contacted Feeney.
    "No home 'link calls in or out in a forty-eight-hour period," he reported. "No calls to anyone on your list, period. He had biweekly contact with a bookie for bets on arena ball, kept it under the legal limit."
    "Tell me something interesting, I'm dozing off here."
    "He put a hold on a royal-class ticket to Tahiti but didn't book it. One way, heading out a week from Tuesday. Also put a hold on a VIP suite at the Island Pleasure Resort. A full month's stay. Made some inquiries about real estate, looking into some cliff-side house in the neighborhood of two mil. The guy's financials add up to about a quarter of that. The ticket and the suite would have gobbled most of that up."
    "So he was looking to come into a nice pile."
    "Or he was a hell of a dreamer. Can't find anything on his unit to indicate he did previous scans, you know, like a hobby."
    "Blackmailing a murderer might net you a nice pile."
    "Or a noose," Feeney added.
    "Yeah. I'm heading by the morgue to nag Morse."
    "Nobody does it better," Feeney said before Eve cut him off.

CHAPTER NINE
    "Ah, Lieutenant Dallas." Chief Medical Examiner Morse's dark eyes glittered behind his microgoggles. Above the serviceable lenses, his eyebrows arched in two long, slim triangles. At the peak of the left was a small, shiny silver hoop.
    He snapped his fingers, held out his sealed hand, palm up. A grumbling assistant flipped a twenty-dollar credit into it. "Dallas, you never disappoint me. You see, Rochinsky, never bet against the house."
    The credit disappeared into one of the pockets of his puke-green protective jumpsuit.
    "Win a bet?" Eve asked.
    "Oh, yes indeed. A small wager with my associate that you would show up in our happy home before five P.M."
    "It's nice to be predictable." She looked down at the middle-aged, mixed-race woman currently stretched out under Morse's laser scalpel. The Y cut had already been made.
    "That's not my dead guy."
    "Very observant. Meet Allyanne Preen, Detective Harrison's dead gal, who was several slots ahead of yours. Licensed companion, street level. She was found stretched out in an abandoned '49 Lexus coupe, in the great automotive morgue we call long-term parking, La Guardia."
    "Trouble with a John?"
    "No outward signs of violence, no recent sexual encounters." He scooped out her liver, weighed and logged it.
    "She's got a faint blue tinge to her skin." Eve bent down to examine the hands. "Most noticeable under the nails. Looks like an OD, probably Exotica and Jumper."
    "Very good. Any time you want to switch to my side of the slab, just let me know. I can promise, we have a lot more fun around here."
    "Yeah, word's out on you party animals."
    "The reports of the Saint Patrick's Day celebration in the ice room were..." His eyes laughed behind his goggles. "Accurate."
    "Sorry I missed it. Where's my guy? I need his tox report."
    "Mmm-hmm." Morse poked at a kidney before removing it. His hands were quick and skilled and seemed to keep time to the beat of the rebel rock music playing over the speakers. "I assumed you'd be in a hurry. I gave your guy to young Finestein. He just started here last month. Has potential."
    "You gave mine to some rookie?"
    "We were all rookies once, Dallas. Speaking of which, where's the stalwart Peabody?"
    "She's