Portrait in Death (10 page)

He took it-fingertips and thumb-at the corners. Then immediately huffed out a breath. "I saw this. On the news. This is that girl they found downtown. It's a dirty shame. A damn, dirty shame."

"Yeah, it is. What about the photograph. Is it any good? Artistically speaking."

"I sell cameras. I don't know dick about art. It's good resolution. Wasn't taken with a throwaway. Hold on."

He hustled away again, signalled to a woman behind the counter. "Nella. Take a look at this."

The woman was thin as a stick with magenta hair that rose up in a six-inch loop that curled back into the crown of her head. Beneath the arrangement, her face was a triangle of absolute white relieved by magenta lips and eyes.

She studied the photo, then Eve.

"This is the dead girl." Her voice was nasal Queens. "I saw her on the news. The sick fuck who killed her take this?"

"That's the theory. How's the sick fuck as an imager?"

Nella laid the photo on the counter, examined it. Held it up to the light, put it down again, and looked at it through a hand-held magnifier.

"Good. Pro or talented amateur. It's got excellent resolution-good texture, light, shadows, angles. Shows a connection with the subject."

"What do you mean, connection?"

Nella opened a drawer, took out a pack of gum. She continued to study the print as she unwrapped a stick. "He's not just snapping shots of the family dog or the Grand fucking Canyon. This shows an affection and understanding of the subject. An appreciation for her personality. It's a good candid portrait done with a good eye and a steady hand."

"What kind of camera did he use?"

"What am I? Sherlock fucking Holmes?" She cackled at her own wit and folded the gum into her mouth.

"What would you use, if you took yourself seriously? If you wanted to document a subject without her knowledge?"

"Bornaze 6000 or the Rizeri 5M, if I had bags of money. The Hiserman DigiKing, if I didn't." She pulled a camera the size of her palm out of the display. "This here's the Rizeri. Top-of-the-line pocket model. You want candid, you need small. But you want art, you probably don't go for the lapel or spy size, so if you're any good, this is your baby. Especially for serious work. This interfaces with any comp."

"How many of these do you sell in a month's time?"

"Hell, we maybe sell a dozen of these in a year. The good news is they are damn near indestructible. And that's the bad news, too. You buy one, you got it for life unless you upgrade. And at this point, there's nowhere to upgrade."

"Got a client list for the three models you mentioned?"

Nella snapped her gum. "You think that sick fuck bought something here?"

"Gotta start somewhere."

"We'll run the three brands," Eve told Peabody when they walked out. "Start city wide, see if anyone pops. I'll do a probability on them, but I'm betting top-of-the-line. We cross the cameras with the enhancements, and maybe we'll get lucky."

"What if he rented the equipment?"

"Don't burst my bubble." But she leaned on the car before opening the door. "Yeah, I thought of that, but we go with purchase first. How many professional photographers do you figure are in the city?"

"Can this be a multiple choice question?"

"We're going to find out. We'll start with four sectors. Crime scene, victim's residence, college, data club. He had to see her to want her. She had to know him, at least by sight, to go with him. Once we get that, we go back to interviews. People who knew her, taught her, worked with her. Area photographers, imaging artists."

Her dash 'link beeped as she merged with traffic, and McNab's pretty face popped on.

He had his long blond hair pulled back to show off the trio of silver hoops in his earlobe.

"Lieutenant... Officer. I've pegged your unit. If you want to swing by and-haha-make the scene, I'm-"

"Get it to Central," Eve told him. "The transmission to Nadine was sent at one-twenty with a hold. Run the security disc. I want to see who was using that station at that time. I want that individual ID'd asap. I'm on my way in."

"Yes, sir. But it might take me a little while to-"

"Status meeting at eleven hundred. I'm booking a conference room now." She shot a look at Peabody who obediently pulled out her communicator to do so. "Be there, with the data." She waited a beat. "Fast work, Detective."

His face brightened again before she cut him off.

"Conference room A, Lieutenant," Peabody told her.

"Fine. Contact Feeney and ask him to join us."

***

She had time to organize her own data, to run probabilities, to study both the lab and ME reports before updating her own. Then guilt had her contacting Nadine.

"I wanted to bring you up to speed, but there isn't a hell of a lot I can tell you."

"Will tell me," Nadine corrected.

"Can or will. I've got angles I'm working, and a lead I'm about to look at more closely."

"What lead?"

"If anything breaks out of it, I'll tell you. You have my word. I'm not cutting you out, I just don't have anything to give you."

"There's always something. Give me something."

Eve hesitated, then blew out a breath. "You can say that a source at Cop Central confirmed that there was no sexual assault, and investigators believe that the victim knew her killer. The primary is unavailable for comment at this time."

"Slick. See, there's always something. Has the body been released to the family?"

"The Medical Examiner will release the body to the victim's family tomorrow. I've got to go, Nadine. I've got a meeting."

"One more thing. Will you confirm that the primary, and the investigative team, believe Rachel Howard's killer will kill again?"

"No, I will not. Don't play that card, Nadine. Don't play that card until it falls."

She broke transmission, rubbed her hands over her face. Because, she thought, it was going to fall soon enough.

***

She was the first to arrive in the conference room, so she settled down, took out her notebook, and began to write and review.

Images, youth, pure, portrait, light.

Her light was pure.

Virginity?

How the hell would the killer know her sexual status?

Had the killer been a confidant? A potential lover? Counselor, authority figure?

Who did Rachel trust? Eve wondered and brought the pretty, smiling face back into her mind.

Every damn body.

Had she herself ever trusted people so completely, so simply? Hardly, Eve thought. But then again, she hadn't come from a nice, stable home, with nice, stable parents and a perky kid sister. Everything had been almost preternaturally normal in Rachel's life. Up until the last hours of it. Family, friends, school, a shitty part-time job, a settled neighborhood.

At Rachel's age Eve had already graduated from the Academy, had already donned a cop's uniform. Had already seen death. Had already caused it.

And she hadn't been a virgin, not since she'd been six. Seven? How old had she been the first time her father had raped her?

What difference did it make? Her light had sure as hell never been pure.

That's what had drawn him to her. What he'd wanted from her. Her simplicity, her innocence. He'd killed her for them.

She looked over as McNab came in, carting the bulky unit from the data club.

She couldn't stop herself from checking the rhythm of his walk. The previous month he'd taken a direct hit with a police issue, and it had taken several worry-filled days until the feeling had started to come back in his left side.

He wasn't quite back to prancing again, Eve noted. But there was no limp, no drag in the step. And the stringy muscles in both arms were bulging satisfactorily at the effort of carrying the unit.

"Sorry, Lieutenant." He puffed a bit, and his cheeks were already red from hauling the weight. "Just take me a minute to set up."

"You're not late yet." She watched him as he worked.

He wore summer-weight pants in grass green with a skin top that had green-and-white stripes. The vest over it was hot pink, like his gel sandals.

Rachel had been wearing jeans and a blue shirt. Slip-on canvas shoes. Two little pinprick studs, silver, in each ear.

Victim and cop, she thought, might have come from different planets.

So why did a conservative young girl frequent a data club? She wasn't a geek or a freak, a nerd or a cruiser. What was the draw?

"You hit the data clubs on your off-time, McNab?"

"Nah, not so much. Boredom city. I did some when I was a kid, and fresh into the city. Figured I'd find action, and skirts who'd be impressed with my magical skills with the comps."

"And you found them? Action and skirts?"

"Sure." He sent her a quick and wicked grin. "All pre-She-Body era."

"What was she doing there, McNab?"

"Huh? Peabody?"

"Rachel." She scooted the picture down the table toward where he was working. "What was she looking for in that club?"

He angled his head to study the picture. "It's a big draw for students, especially under drinking age. You can go in and play grownup. Nonalcoholic drinks with snappy names, hot music. You got the comps so you can do homework, break, take a spin on the dance floor, talk about classes, flirt. Whatever. It's like, I don't know, a bridge between being a kid and being an adult. That's why you don't see many over-thirties in those places."

"Okay. I get that." She stood, heading for coffee as Peabody hurried in a few steps ahead of Feeney.

"Looks like the gang's all here." Feeney dropped down at the table. "How about a hit of that shit, kid?"

Eve got a second mug. Kid, she thought. Feeney was the only one who ever-had ever-called her that. Odd that she'd just noticed it.

If she'd had a bridge, Eve realized, it had been Feeney.

She set the mug down in front of him. "Okay, this is what I've got."

Once they were briefed, she gestured to McNab. "Over to you, hotshot."

"The transmission was sent from this unit to Nadine Furst's station at 75. We have the time stamp on Nadine's machine, and the correlating stamp on this. When reviewing the security disc for the time in question, we see... a lot of flashing lights, bodies, and mass. On-screen," he ordered.

"This unit is-wait." He dug in several of his many pockets until it came up with a laser pointer. "Here." He circled a section of the screen. "It's blocked by people moving around, back and forth, crowding in. But here, yeah, pause disc. Here you get a glimpse of the operator. Split screen, display enhanced image. Didn't take much, just bumping out the light show, magnifying."

"Female." Eyes cool, Eve rose to step closer to the screen. "Mid-twenties, tops, mixed race. She weighs a hundred pounds if she's hauling a full field pack and wearing jump boots. No way this girl killed Howard, and hauled her up and into that bin. She's a fucking toothpick."

"Data junkie," McNab said.

"A what?"

"Data junkie. They get off on data. Can't get enough of the machine. Some of them hole up in some little room and have little to no actual contact with human beings. It's all the machine. Others like to be around people, or have people around. They pick up some change sending and receiving, or doing reports-business, school, whatever. Anything that gives them a reason to deal with data."

"Like EDD geeks," Eve commented.

"Hey." But Feeney's lips twitched. "Data junkies rarely hold actual jobs. Or don't keep them." He drummed his fingers as he watched the screen. "Yeah, there you go. There's a drop. See, the waitress dropped off a stack of discs. Waitress probably takes a cut-club might, too-of what the dj charges per transmission or per job."

"It's not illegal," McNab added. "It's like I say to you, hey, Dallas, can you send these transmissions for me-my unit's down, or I'm squeezed for time, and I give you ten bucks for the time and trouble."

"Or if you're an illegals dealer, for instance, you dump discs on a junkie, transmissions are sent from any number of locations that can't be traced back to you."

McNab lifted his shoulders. "Yeah, there's that. But who's going to trust a junkie for serious business?"

Eve hissed out a breath. "The killer did. Let's get her ID'd. We'll still need to talk to her. Peabody, call the data club, see if anyone there can give us a name on their resident dj. Does she look at what she's sending?"

"Sometimes they do, part of the thrill," Feeney said. "You get peeks into other people's lives or thoughts without having to deal with people."

"I can get behind that part," Eve grumbled.

"You can block the data from the sender," McNab added. "If you want to keep something private. Still, a good dj could hack through a block. She's not hacking though. She's going through the disc stack too fast for that."

"What happens to the discs when she's done?"

"Waitress will pick them back up and give her a fresh supply if there is one. Done discs would go back on the bar, or a table specified for it. You pick it back up if you want it, or the club recycles. You're supposed to label them," he added. "If you want data generated or written, that request goes on a disc, and is set in another location. Fee's higher for that. She's just doing sends now."

"He could've come in any time, dropped the disc off. Hung around for a drink, watched her send it off. Bides his time," Eve said quietly. "Makes sure he stays in the crowd so he doesn't show up on the security. A drink, a dance-might even be trolling for the next one-and he picks up the disc, puts it in his pocket, and strolls on out. Goes home, gets himself a good night's sleep. I bet he slept just fine. And watches some screen so he can hear all about his fine work over morning coffee."

"It was easy for him," Feeney agreed. "It was all easy, straight down the line. He'll be looking forward to doing it again."

"We run the cameras, the enhancements, and the photographers in the three designated sectors. Check through any discarded discs the club hasn't already cycled in case he didn't pick it up. McNab, you hunt down the data junkie. You'd speak her language."