In Death 23 - Born in Death

the mark. Natalie Copperfield’s murder had killed him. Or, Eve was banking, her murderer certainly had.
    “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!” Gracie babbled the words so that they came out in a single high-pitched hysterical stream as she pressed her baby’s face to her shoulder and stumbled back from the doorway.
    “Ms. York, go back inside your apartment,” Eve ordered. “Go back in, lock your door. Either my partner or I will be over in just a minute.”
    “It’s Bick. Is it Bick? Right across the hall. We’re right across the hall.”
    At a wordless signal from Eve, Peabody took the woman’s arm. “Take Crissy back home,” Peabody said gently. “Take her on in. Nothing’s going to happen to her. Just go inside and wait.”
    “I don’t understand. He must be dead. Right across the hall.”
    Peabody got the neighbor inside, turned back to Eve with a resigned look on her face. “I guess you want me to take her.”
    “You’re damn right. Call it in first, Peabody, then go in, get a formal statement from the neighbor. I’ll get the field kits and start on the scene.”

3
    ONCE SHE’D RETRIEVED THE KITS, EVE SEALED her hands, sprayed sealant on her boots. With her recorder engaged, she entered the crime scene.
    Side window, she noted, facing the neighboring building, and with a narrow balcony. “South-facing window is open,” she said for the record, and moved around the outer edge of the room for a closer look. “Appears to have been forced open from the outside. Emergency evac here, probably used to gain access. Possibly exited by the same route.”
    Safer that way, Eve thought. No chance of the next-door neighbors catching you coming or going.
    She turned from where she believed the killer had entered. “The body’s face up, hands and feet bound with duct tape, as previous vic. Second vic is mix-race male, late-twenties, wearing only a pair of white boxers. Woke up, didn’t you, Bick, heard somebody out here. Gave him some trouble. Signs of struggle apparent. Overturned table, broken lamp. Not all of this blood’s going to be the victim’s, so there’s a break for our side. Victim’s face and body show bruises and lacerations.”
    She worked her way in, then crouched by the body. “Some burn marks here, too, but these look like contact burns from a stunner mid-chest. They fight, killer incapacitates Byson with a stun, binds him, beats him. Questions him? Blue plastic cord of some kind used for strangulation.”
    Hunkered where she was, she scanned the room again. “There are some building materials in the north corner of the room, tied with blue plastic cord, like that around the vic’s neck.”
    She took the prints for confirmation of ID, bagged his hands. “Time of death,” she said as she read her gauge, “two forty-five A . M . Came here after doing Copperfield.” She bent closer. “Traces of adhesive around the mouth, as per previous victim. Why yank it off? Needed you to tell him something? Wanted to hear you choke as he strangled you? Maybe some of both.”
    She straightened to move from the body into the room off the living area. Bachelor’s bunking area, she deduced. Probably not the master, but where he was sleeping during the rehab. Mattress on a pallet, and the mate of the broken lamp on one of the two tables by the bed. Clothes strewn around, but in a way that said messy guy rather than search.
    “Woke up. Grabbed one of the lamps for a weapon. The woman, she grabs for her ’link and tries to run, but the guy’s got a different instinct. Protect the cave. Goes out, tangles with the killer. Surprises him maybe. Fight. Bruising on vic’s knuckles indicate he got a couple hits in anyway. Full-contact stun, and he goes down.”
    She walked back out, studied the positioning again. “Killer tapes hands and feet, gags him. Doesn’t kill him straight away, then. Why gag him if he’s stunned? Has something to say or do first, then. Questions to ask. Did you tell him what you did to Natalie? Bet you did.”
    She did a quick preliminary walk-through. The loft had three bedrooms, as the neighbor said hers did. The largest of them was emptybut for more building supplies. The last was set up as an office. But there was no comp unit. She could see where there’d been one, probably covered with a protective cloth when construction was on the slate. There was a coat of dust on the folding table standing as a desk, and a clear spot on it where a computer would have stood.
    She was