In Death 13 - Seduction in Death

door. "You want the whole squad pouring in here?" Knowing a closed door wouldn't be enough, he locked it. "What do you want?"
    "I want a doughnut."
    "Look, Dallas, the wife's gone on some health kick. You can't get a decent bite to eat in my house these days with all the tofu this and rehydrated vegetable that. A man's gotta have some fat and sugar once in awhile or his system suffers for it."
    "I'm with you, so's the crowd. Gimme a doughnut."
    "Goddamn it." He strode over to the AutoChef, popped it open. Inside were a half dozen doughnuts, fragrant in the low heat.
    "Holy shit. Fresh doughnuts."
    "Bakery down the block does a few dozen reals every morning. You know what they charge for one of these bastards?"
    Quick as a whiplash, Eve reached in, snagged one, bit in. "Worth it," she said around a mouthful of fat and cream.
    "Just keep it down. You start making yummy noises, they'll beat the door in." He took a doughnut and blissfully chewed the first bite. "Nobody wants to live forever, right? I tell the wife, hey, I'm a cop. Cops face death every day."
    "Damn straight. You got jelly, too?"
    Before she could reach in, he closed the AutoChef. Smartly. "So, being a cop, facing death, all that, who gives a horse's ass about pumping a little fat into the arteries?"
    "Really superior fat, too." She licked sugar off her fingers. She could've blackmailed him into a second doughnut, but figured she'd just get sick off it. "Got a sidewalk splat last night."
    "Leaper?"
    "Nope. Already dead when she went off. I'm waiting for the ME and some lab reports, but it looks like sexual homicide. She had a date with a cyber-guy, e-mail lovers. I got a visual of him going in and out of her place, but the ID search hasn't hit a match. I need you to track him through her computer."
    "You got the unit?"
    "Yeah. I'm holding it in Evidence. Victim's Bankhead, Bryna. Case-file H-78926B."
    "I'll get somebody on it."
    "Appreciate it." She paused at the door. "Feeney, if you bring McNab in, maybe you could ask him to, I don't know, tone it down around Peabody."
    The glow the doughnut brought to his face faded into painful embarrassment. "Aw, jeez, Dallas."
    "I know, I know. But if I have to deal with her, you've got to deal with him."
    "We could lock them in a room together, let them hash it out."
    "We'll keep that as an option. Let me know as soon as you find something on the victim's unit."
    The search wasn't getting anywhere. Without much hope, Eve bumped it up to global. She wrote and filed her preliminary report for her commander, then shot it off through the interoffice system. After ordering Peabody to keep pushing on the lab and morgue, she headed to the courthouse to give her testimony in a case on trial.
    Two and a half hours later, she stormed out, damning all lawyers. She flipped on her communicator and tagged Peabody. "Status."
    "Test results still pending, sir."
    "Fuck that."
    "Rough day in court, Dallas?"
    "Defense council seems to think the NYPSD splattered the victim's blood all over his innocent client's hotel room, clothes, person just to give psychopathic tourists who stab their wives a couple dozen times during a marital spat a bad name."
    "Well, it is tough on the Chamber of Commerce."
    "Ha-ha."
    "We have identified the woman Bankhead spoke with on the 'link the night she died. CeeCee Plunkett. She worked with the victim in the lingerie department at Saks."
    "Grab transpo. Meet me there."
    "Yes, sir, and may I suggest their lovely sixth-floor cafe for lunch? You need protein."
    "I had a doughnut." With an evil smile, Eve broke transmission on Peabody's shocked and envious gasp.
    Being caught in the hell of lunch-shift traffic did little to improve her mood. Cars bumped and churned in place for so long she considered the possibility of just leaving her vehicle where it was and hoofing it across town.
    Until she studied the jammed sidewalks.
    Even the sky was packed -- ad blimps, airbuses, tourist trams vying for air space. The noise was ridiculous, but for some reason, the sheer weight of sound smoothed out the rough edges. So much so that when she was trapped at a light at the corner of Madison and Thirty-ninth, she leaned out the window and spoke pleasantly to the glide-cart operator.
    "Give me a tube of Pepsi."
    "Small, medium, or large, fair lady?"
    Her eyebrows lifted, disappeared under her fringe of bangs. An operator that friendly was either a droid or new. "Make it large." She dug in her pocket for loose