"Captain Feeney's in Mexico, Lieutenant. Vacation?"
Eve stopped, scowled. "Shit, I forgot. He's got another week, doesn't he?"
"Just over that. In your lovely cliffside villa. To which your devoted aide has yet to be invited."
Eve lifted a brow. "You got a yen to see Mexico?"
"I've seen Mexico, Dallas, I've got a yen to let a hot-blooded caballero have his way with me."
Snorting, Eve unlocked her office door. "We wrap this case up in good time, Peabody, I'll see if I can arrange it." She tossed the discs on her already disordered desk, then shrugged out of her jacket. "We still need someone from EDD. See who they can spare who knows his stuff. I don't want some second-grade tinkerer."
Peabody got out her communicator to make the request while Eve settled behind her desk, slipped the disc of Brennen's communications into her unit.
"Engage," she ordered after remembering her password. "Playback."
There was only one call, an outgoing on the day before Brennen was murdered. He'd called his wife, talked to his children. And the simple, intimate domestic chatter of a man and the family he was planning to join made Eve unbearably sad.
"I have to contact the wife," Eve murmured. "Hell of a way to start the day. Best get it done now before we have a media leak. Give me ten minutes here, Peabody."
"Yes, sir. EDD is sending over a Detective McNab."
"Fine." When her door shut and she was alone, Eve took a long breath. And made the call.
When Peabody came back ten minutes later, Eve was drinking coffee while she stood staring out her skinny window. "Eileen Brennen's coming back to New York, bringing her kids. She insists on seeing him. She didn't fall apart. Sometimes it's worse when they don't crumble, when they hang on. When you can see in their eyes they're sure somehow you've made a mistake."
She rolled her shoulders, as if shrugging off a weight, then turned. "Let's see the security disc. We could catch a break."
Peabody unsealed the disc herself and engaged it. Seconds later both she and Eve were staring at the computer screen.
"What the hell is that?" Eve demanded.
"It's – I don't know." Peabody frowned at the figures moving over the screen. The voices were raised but solemn and in a foreign tongue. At the center was a man in black, robe over robe, with two young boys in white beside him. He held a silver goblet in his hand as he stood before an altar draped with black cloth and white flowers and candles. "A ritual? Is it a play?"
"It's a funeral," Eve murmured, studying the closed and gleaming casket beneath the raised platform. "A funeral Mass. I've been to one. It's a Catholic thing, I think. Computer, identify ceremony and language on disc."
Working… Ceremony is Catholic Requiem Mass or Mass for the Dead. Language is Latin. This section depicts offertory chant and ritual in which -
"That's enough. Where the hell did you get this disc, Peabody?''
"Straight out of the security room at the Luxury Towers, Dallas. It was coded, marked, and labeled."
"He switched them," Eve muttered. "The son of a bitch switched discs on us. He's still playing games. And he's damn good at it. Computer, stop run, copy disc." Shoving her hands in her pockets, Eve rocked back on her heels. "He's having fun with us, Peabody. I'm going to have to hurt him for that. Order a sweep of the security room, and arrange to confiscate all discs for the appropriate time period."
"All discs?"
"All discs, all floors, all levels. And I want the report from the uniforms who handled the door-to-doors on the Towers." She pocketed the copy her computer spat out. "And I'm going to see what the hell's keeping the initial sweeper report."
She reached for her 'link just as it beeped. "Dallas."
"You were quick, Lieutenant. I'm impressed."
Eve only had to blink to have Peabody ordering a transmission trace. Eve smiled thinly at the colors swimming across her screen. This time the music was a chorus of voices in a language she now recognized as Latin. "You did quite a job on Brennen. Looked like you enjoyed yourself."
"Oh, I did, believe me, I did. Tommy was quite a singer, you know. He certainly sang for me. Listen."
All at once the room was full of screams, inhuman, weeping screams that had ice skating up Eve's spine.
"Beautiful. He begged for his life, then he begged me to end it. I kept him alive for four hours giving him time to relive his past sins."
"Your style lacks subtlety, pal. And when I nail you, I'll have enough to keep you from pulling a mentally defective. I'll get you straight, and I'll push for a cage on Attica Two. The facilities there make on-planet cages look like country clubs."
"They caged the Baptist, but he knew the glory of Heaven."
Eve searched her threadbare memory of Bible stories. "He's the one who lost his head to a dancing girl, right? You willing to risk yours to a cop?"
"She was a harlot." He mumbled the words so that Eve had to lean close to hear. "Evil in a beautiful form. So many are. He withstood her, her temptation, and was martyred pure."
"Do you want to be martyred? To die for what you call your faith? I can help you with that. Just tell me where you are."
"You challenge me, Lieutenant, in ways I hadn't expected. A strong-minded woman is one of God's greatest pleasures. And you're named for Eve, the mother of mankind. If only your heart was pure, I could admire you."
"You can save the admiration."
"Eve was also weak in spirit and caused the loss of Paradise for her children."
"Yeah, and Adam was a wimp who couldn't take responsibility. Bible hour's over. Let's get on with it."
"I look forward to meeting you – though it can't be for a little while yet."
"Sooner than you think."
"Perhaps, perhaps. Meanwhile, another riddle. A race this time. The next sinner is still alive, still blissfully unaware of his punishment. By his words, and God's law, he will be condemned. Heed this. 'A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished.' He's gone unpunished long enough."
"For what?"
"For a lying tongue. You have twenty-four hours to save a life, if God wills it. Your riddle: He's fair of face and once lived by his wits. Now those wits are dulled as like poor old Dicey Riley, he's taken to the sup. He lives where he works and works where he lives, and all the night serves others what he craves most. He traveled across the foam but closes himself in a place that reminds him of home. Unless you find him first, his luck runs out tomorrow morn. Better hurry."
Eve stared at the screen long after it went blank.
"Sorry, Dallas, no good on the trace. Maybe the e-detective can do something with it when he gets here."
"Who the hell is Dicey Riley?" Eve muttered. "What does he mean 'sup'? Like supper? Food maybe. Restaurants. Irish restaurants."
"I think that's an oxymoron."
"Huh?"
"Bad joke," Peabody offered with a sick smile. "To lighten the mood."
"Right." Eve dropped in her chair. "Computer, list name and locations for all Irish restaurants in the city. Hard copy." She swiveled in her chair. "Contact Tweeser – she was head sweeper on Brennen. Tell her I need something, anything. And have a uniform go over to the Towers and get those security discs. Let's move."
"Moving," Peabody agreed and headed out.
An hour later, Eve was pouring over the sweeper's report. There was little to nothing to study. "Bastard didn't leave so much as a nose hair to scoop up." She rubbed her eyes. She needed to go back to the scene, she decided, walk through it, try to visualize it all. All she could see was the blood, the gore, the waste.