In Death 17 - Imitation in Death

sweated through her uniform shirt, and her dark bowl of hair was damp at the temples under her cap. Her throat was raw, her voice weak, but she initiated the run. And watched Eve work.
     
     
Efficient, thorough, and some would say cold. But Peabody had seen the leap of shock and horror, and of pity on Eve's face before her own vision had blurred. Cold wasn't the word, but driven was.
     
     
She was pale now, Peabody noted, and it wasn't just the work lights that bleached the color from her narrow face. Her brown eyes were focused and flat, and unwavering as they examined the atrocity. Her hands were steady, and her boots smeared with blood.
     
     
There was a line of sweat down the middle of the back of her shirt, but she wouldn't stumble away. She would stay until it was done.
     
     
When Eve straightened, Peabody saw a tall, lean woman in stained boots, worn jeans, and a. gorgeous linen jacket, a fine-boned face with a wide mouth, wide eyes of gilded brown, and a short and disordered cap of hair nearly the same color.
     
     
More: She saw a cop who never turned away from death.
     
     
"Dallas-"
     
     
"Peabody, I don't care if you puke as long as you don't contaminate the scene. Give me the data."
     
     
"Victim's lived in New York for twenty-two years. Previous residence on Central Park West. She's resided down here for eighteen months."
     
     
"That's quite a change of venue. What she get popped for?"
     
     
"Illegals. Three strikes. Lost her top-drawer license, did six months in, rehab, counseling, and was given a probationary street license about a year ago."
     
     
"She roll on her dealer?"
     
     
"No, sir
     
     
"We'll see what the tox screen tells us once she's in the morgue, but I don't think Jack here is, her dealer." Eve lifted the envelope that had been left-sealed to prevent bloodstains-on the body.
     
     
LIEUTENANT EVE DALLAS, NYPSD
     
     
Computer-generated, she guessed, in a fancy font on elegant cream-colored paper. Thick, weighty, and expensive. The sort of thing used, for high-class invites. She should know, she mused, as her husband was big on sending and receiving high-class invites.
     
     
She took out the second evidence bag and read the note again.
     
     
Hello, Lieutenant Dallas:
     
     
Hot enough for ya? I know you've had a busy summer, and I've been admiring your work. I can think of no one on the police force of our fair city I'd rather have join me on what I hope will be a very intimate level.
     
     
Here is a sample of my work. What do you think? Looking forward to our continued association.
     
     
-----Jack
     
     
"I'll tell you what I think, Jack. I think you're a very sick fuck. Tag and bag," she ordered with a last glance down the alley. "Homicide."
     
     
Wooton's apartment was on the fourth floor of one of the housing structures thrown up as a temporary shelter for refugees and victim- of the Urban Wars. A number of them stood in the poorer, sections of the city, and were always slated for replacement.
     
     
The city dickered back and forth between tossing out the low-rent.. IC's, chemi-heads, and dealers along with the working poor and mowing down the shaky structures or revitalizing.
     
     
While they dickered, the buildings''decayed and nothing was done.
     
     
Eve expected nothing would be done until the dumps collapsed inward on their residents and the city fathers found themselves in the throes of a -class-action suit.
     
     
But until that time, it was the sort of place you expected to find a down-on-her-luck whore.
     
     
Her room was a hot little box with a stingy bump-out for a kitchen and a thin sliver for a bathroom. Her view was the wall of the identical building to the west.
     
     
Through the thin walls Eve could clearly hear the heroic snoring from the apartment next door.
     
     
Despite the circumstance, Jacie had kept her place clean, and had made some attempt at style. The furniture was cheap, but it was colorful. She hadn't been able to afford privacy screens, but there were frilly curtains at the windows. She'd left the bed pulled out of the convertible sofa, but it was made, and the sheets were good cotton. Possibly salvaged from better times, Eve thought.
     
     
She had a low-end desk 'link on a table, and a prefab dresser covered with the various tools of her trade: enhancements, scents, wigs, tawdry jewelry, temporary tattoos. The drawer and closet held work clothes primarily, but mixed in with the whore-wear were a couple