Page 6 of Passions in Death
His forest of colorful hoops gleamed along his earlobe. His long—currently red-streaked—blond tail bounced at his back.
“Take the door from inside, Officer.”
The uniform let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Lieutenant.”
Eve turned to Peabody. “Female vic, found in one of the privacy rooms. About eighty people inside, a good chunk of those with a pre-wedding party deal. The girl thing.”
“Golly, you had yours here.”
“Under duress. The vic was one of the brides.”
“Harsh,” said McNab.
“Yeah, it qualifies. Crack has the other bride with a couple friends in his office. We’re going to let her calm down some. McNab, since you’re here, you can start getting statements, contacts and releasing. Start with anyone not connected to the party. Peabody, you start with partygoers, and I’ll take the body.”
“What about Crack?” Peabody asked.
“We’ll talk to him. One of his people found the body, so we need that conversation. Then we’ll take the other bride. You and McNab start clearing the place out. Roarke can assist me with the body. We’ve got no electronics except the door of the privacy room, and Roarke can take that. No cams,” she muttered.
She glanced up at the glowing neon proclaiming DOWN AND DIRTY.
It probably would be.
Inside, the temperature dropped an easy ten degrees. No problem, she thought, separating those in the party group from those who’d come in for booze and boobs.
She supposed Crack had separated the brides’ party—lots of weeping or the glazed eyes of the shocked—from the just happened to be theres. Plenty of irritation, fascination, boredom on that side.
The big man himself strode across the room, straight to Eve. He didn’t look shocked, bored, or weepy. He looked furious.
“Somebody killed that girl in my place. You find who killed that girl. I knew that girl.”
“Understood. We’re going to do our job, starting right now. We’re going to talk to you in a bit, and we need to talk to the person who found her.”
“I’ve got him. He’s pretty goddamn shook. I mixed her and Shauna drinks. I mixed Erin a fucking drink not two hours ago. And somebody killed that girl in my place.”
“Crack, I need to go take care of her now.”
He nodded, scrubbed his hands over his face. “I asked for you because I knew you’d take care of her. I knew all of you would take care of her. I’ll show you where she is.”
“Get started,” Eve told Peabody and McNab, and followed him.
It brought on a flashback where the club blasted with music, lights flashing. Still-in-uniform Peabody gloriously drunk, pre-Oscar-win-and-bestseller-status Nadine Furst doing a striptease onstage. The shock of seeing the elegant Dr. Mira shaking her ass on the dance floor.
It would’ve been along those lines, Eve thought. Noisy, pretty drunk, happy women, shaking asses, bouncing around.
Why had one of the brides gone into a privacy room? Lured in, she wondered, as she herself had been by someone she’d considered—not a friend, in her case—but a colleague?
“Who rented the room?”
“She did—added it on when she booked the party like two, maybe three weeks ago. Between that,” he decided. “Don’t know why, but she said she had a surprise deal for Shauna, and not to tell anyone she had the room. I let her have it for the whole night. Mondays are slow.”
And wouldn’t you know it, she thought when they turned down the dim corridor. The same damn privacy room.
Crack handed her a swipe. “That’s my master. Hers is in there, on the floor.”
“You go take care of your people. We’ll take care of her.”
“I’m here when you want me.”
