“And nobody wears it better.” She plopped down again. “It had to cost seriously over a quarter mil to get all this just to dress people up to kill them. This asshole has too much money, and is one sick bastard.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“What if he made them himself?”
As Eve turned to Peabody, Harvo angled her head. “That’s why you’re the detective. I hadn’t gone there. You’re also the sewing girl. Could you do it?”
“Maybe. If I had the time and money. To get all the detail and thatquality of workmanship, it would take me weeks. Months maybe. But someone like Leonardo…”
She turned to the close-up of stitching still on-screen. “Maybe the costumes, that quality and precision in the replications. Maybe that’s his art.”
Eve said, “Well, shit.”
“It’s probably not. It seems like if it were, he’d have left the bodies at a design house, in the fashion or fabrics districts. But…”
“We have to look at it.”
“I like my job better than yours,” Harvo decided. “My questions have answers. Yours have a lot more questions to the questions before there’s an answer. You keep going until you find the answer though. You both deserve crowns. Kick-Ass Queens of Investigation.”
“No crowns till we bag him. Get us that list, and whatever you can when you can. We appreciate the quick and solid work, Harvo.”
“That’s how I roll, and how I rule.”
Eve agreed with a “Check it” before they wound their way back through the lab.
“Get a hold of Leonardo, see if he has time to consult.”
“That’s a mag idea. He’ll know a lot more than me.”
“You can speak the language. If he’s in his studio place and can take some time, I’m going to dump you. Go home, ask the questions, get some answers. I’ll take the morgue.”
“Best deal of the day for me.”
By the time they got to the car, Peabody put her ’link away.
“I’m officially dumped. I’ll subway home, consult, meet you back at Central.
“I want his take on designers—or design houses—who’d take a commission like this.”
“I got it, Dallas. Estimated cost, estimated time from order, approval of design, delivery. Venues that have the fabrics and all of it. I got it.”
They split, and Eve made her way to the dead house for the second morning running.
Morris played the blues, and she supposed it apt enough on a couple of levels. But his suit today hit green notes, rich ones so the tie of deep rosy pink, the shirt with thin green-and-pink stripes played harmony.
He wore the clear protective cape over it with his hair coiled in a braided knot at the nape of his neck. Behind the microgoggles, his eyes magnified as they met Eve’s.
“Another young life ended. A healthy one, though he shared careless eating habits with his predecessor.”
“The contents of his friggie? A brew and a Coke Plus!”
“Ah, those were the days. Barbiturates again, ingested with wine—a Malbec this time, and an excellent one—shortly before death by manual strangulation. He’d had six ounces of the wine three to three and a half hours before death. And two more, dosed, roughly ten minutes before death.
“His last meal, about nine last night, a soy burger with cheese substitute, fries, and eight ounces of Coke Plus!”
Eve studied the body. “Sexual activity?”
“None that show. He did, however, thoroughly cleanse, all expected areas, with an antiseptic liquid, followed by a moisturizing lotion.
