In Death 12 - Betrayal in Death

crime."
    "Why do you tag it as Yost?"
    "Timing fits, once they were able to determine time of death. Kill pattern fits. Both victims, male and female, were beaten badly, especially around the face. Both tranqued. Both raped. My man brought up the dead shots and compared the neck wounds, what could be made of them, and that fits. Hiker who called it in didn't hang around for the cops. Could be he took the wires."
    "Did they ID the victims?"
    "They did. Couple of badass smugglers who kept a base in a cottage up there. I can follow up on this, get more data, talk to the primary."
    "Yeah, and pass it all through to my home unit. I'm going to feed this one to the feds, too. It might get them off my back, and better yet, off my turf for a while. With that in mind, let's pick this up at eight hundred tomorrow, my home office. Anybody gets anything between now and then, contact me."
    She hit Dickie, the chief lab tech, and hit him hard. He whined, but it was almost casually. She threatened him, then bribed him with a bottle of Jamaican rum, which completed their relationship dynamic. He agreed to put her bathroom drains on top of his workload.
    Next she reported to Whitney, got his go-ahead to feed her selected data to Jacoby and Stowe. And as expected, was told she would be needed at a press conference scheduled for fourteen-thirty the following afternoon.
    She brooded about that all the way back down to her office where she settled down and contacted Stowe.
    The agent came on screen, her attractive face showing annoyance. "Lieutenant, why did I have to hear on a public news report of a murder that most certainly appears to be perpetrated by Sylvester Yost?"
    "Because news travels, Agent Stowe, and I've been busy. I'm contacting you now to bring you up-to-date on this latest incident. But if you'd rather break my balls, you're just wasting my time."
    "You should have informed me or my partner before you left the scene and had it sealed."
    "I don't recall seeing that directive written down anywhere. This is a courtesy call, and I'm starting to feel pretty discourteous."
    "Cooperation -- "
    "You want cooperation, then shut up and listen."
    Eve paused, saw Stowe simmer, then swallow her wrath. "I have some data that might be of help to your investigation, and to mine, and which I believe your agency can track more quickly than mine. You want to deal, let's deal. I'm going to be at a downtown club, the Down and Dirty, in twenty minutes. Bring something to trade."
    She cut transmission before Stowe could respond.
    And she made certain she got to the D and D in fifteen, just in case.
    An enormous black man with tattoos and feathers and a head as bald and shiny as a bowling ball grinned wide enough to split his remarkably ugly face when she walked in.
    "Hey there, white girl."
    "Hey back, black boy."
    It was too early for the bulk of the clientele an all-nude club like the Down and Dirty appealed to. Still, there was a scatter of customers hulking at tables and a single bored dancer working up just enough energy to shake her impressive breasts to the beat of recorded music.
    Crack, all seven feet of him, ran the club, but would concentrate on bouncing the more irritating of the customers out on their heads when the action heated up. He'd gotten his name for the sounds those heads made as they met concrete.
    For now, he loitered behind the bar, and came up with a nasty-looking cup of black coffee.
    He slid it over to Eve. "Don't see your skinny ass in here awhile, I get to missing it."
    "Golly, Crack, you're making me all misty." One sip of the coffee took care of that. She hoped her throat lining would regenerate eventually. "I got a couple of federal types meeting me here."
    He looked so pained even the grinning skull tattooed on his cheek drooped. "Now why you wanna do that thing, sweet lips? You bring federal heat to my place."
    "I wanted to show them a highlight of our wonderful city." She laughed. "And I wanted to make their clean-cut, East Washington selves see what it's like in the real world. The female half of the team may be all right under it all, but the guy's a butt pain squared."
    "You want me to maybe give them some grief?"
    "No, maybe just one of your hard looks, the kind they'll remember long after they're safe back in their little field office. Oh, and you could make sure they get this coffee."
    His teeth gleamed like marble columns. "You got you a mean streak."
    "A mile wide, pal. Anything in here you don't want