Page 8 of Framed in Death (In Death #61)

Since they wouldn’t get anything substantial from the lab yet, Eve headed straight to Central.

After she made the notification, she would set up her board and book. Then take time to reevaluate, to think.

And contact Mira, she decided. She had no doubt this one would need the valued analysis of the department’s best profiler.

“A human replication of an old, important painting,” she said aloud. “Left on the doorstep of people who own an art gallery. The arrow’s pointing, and with bright, flashing lights, to an artist. If not a painter type, a want-to-be-a-painter type, certainly someone connected to the art world.”

“Another gallery owner,” Peabody speculated. “An employee with a grudge. An art collector, or somebody who lost their art collection somehow.”

“And some of the pieces reverted to that particular gallery. That’s not bad. What it doesn’t feel like? Victim specific. Culver’s dead because, first, street-level LC who can be hired on the spot, and she fit the costume, had, basically, the right look. Close enough for replication.”

“Did he kill her because she wasn’t close enough? Maybe he started painting her, and she couldn’t hold the pose, or he saw the flaws? Or his work just sucks, he can’t bring his vision to life, but it has to be her fault?”

“The painting lacks life, so now so does she?” Eve folded that one into the mix. “He always planned to kill her. All of the above may be true, but he always planned to kill her. Maybe it’s as simple as, well, the original model’s dead, so this one has to die, too.”

“Or, if it’s to smack at the Whittiers, it’s: ‘See what you made me do?’”

“Also not bad.”

“I’m getting the hang of this detective thing.”

Eve had to smile as she pulled into Central’s garage. “You’re coming along.”

“Yay me. If he just wanted to replicate the painting, maybe on canvas, too, he didn’t have to kill her. He just pays her, and bye. But you’re right, he always planned to kill her.”

“And always planned to dump her, in costume, in pose, where he dumped her.”

“Yeah.” Peabody whooshed out a breath. “It’s too weird and time-consuming, and risky, for otherwise.

Add people might have wire and glue handy, but most don’t have sealant hanging around.

Plus, to copy the painting, he could hire plenty of others who had a similar look.

He could’ve hired a professional artist’s model. ”

“And,” Eve said as they walked to the elevator, “if he’s an artist or a wannabe, maybe he’s hired one in the past. Or he just goes for LCs. Those are angles. Give like crimes a shot. Victims dressed as famous paintings, or icons.”

They stepped onto the elevator.

“You sometimes see art students sitting in museums, sketching famous works of art.”

Eve supposed she had. But. “Why?”

“It’s practice, it’s homage. It’s learning how that artist accomplished it. I’d say anyway. And some schools have students try their version of a well-known painting.”

“So art students.” Eve stuck her hands in her pockets. “Maybe art historians, considering the age of the original. Add art forgers, and those people who restore art. The victim can’t tell us much more, but we’ve got plenty of lines to tug. Start tugging.”

The doors opened. DS Jenkinson and his tie walked on.

“LT, Peabody.”

“Why, God, why!” Too late, Eve slapped a hand over her eyes. “In this closed space, it’s burning my corneas.”

“Aw, Loo.” With a kind of affection, Jenkinson ran his hand down a tie with a field that spread like a nasty, purpling bruise. Over it, flowers the color of a concerning urine sample bloomed. “It’s real subtle.”

“Yeah, subtle like a pipe wrench slammed repeatedly on the back of the skull. What are you doing here?”

“Had to run down, talk to a guy. Carmichael and Santiago caught one about an hour ago. He’s wearing the hat.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Looks like he bet Carmichael the Cubs would beat the Mets in Saturday’s game.”

Eve narrowed her burning eyes. There were lines, hard, deep lines, not to be crossed.

“One of my detectives bet against the Mets?”

“Well, Santiago’s from Chicago, and it turns out he’s got a pal from his high school days who’s a relief pitcher on the Cubs’ roster. Plus, he’s paying, boss. He has to wear the hat all week.”

Jenkinson shrugged. “No money on it, and the Mets took them down four to two. And he’s in for the Mets unless they’re playing the Cubs. You can’t hold it against him for rooting for a pal.”

“Can’t I?”

“Come on.”

The conversation held her on the elevator as it stopped and started, as cops shuffled in, squeezed out.

“You see the game?” Jenkinson asked.

“I caught the last couple innings.”

“Then you saw Santiago’s pal. They brought him in, in the seventh. He’s got an arm on him. Held us to the four.”

Eve played it back in her mind. “Yeah, he’s got a wicked fastball. Franx almost dinged him good in the eighth, two out.”

“Curved foul last minute or that baby was gone. Still, we won.”

“Yeah, there’s that.”

“Anyway.” All three squeezed off at Homicide. “Baxter and Trueheart are in-house, working the ’links right now on one they caught Saturday night. They were on the roll.”

“Right.”

One of the reasons she’d nudged Jenkinson to take the Detective Sergeant’s exam was just this. He knew everything, sometimes before it happened.

“Me and Reineke are clear right now, if you need some help.”

“Did you finish the paperwork?”

Hunching his shoulders, he looked like a man who’d just swallowed something nasty. “I’m working on it.”

“Do that. I can’t get to my pile yet.”

“The woman dressed up like the painting. Street LC, manual strangulation.”

Yeah, she thought, that was one of the reasons.

“Finish the paperwork, and if you’re still clear, I’ll tap you in. Peabody, you can tap Reineke in. Start him looking for artists’ models.”

“Where’s the justice? He gets models, I get paperwork.” Jenkinson shook his head.

“With rank,” Eve said, “comes bullshit.”

“You’re telling me,” Jenkinson said as she strode to her office.

She went for coffee first, and with it sat at her desk to do the notifications. In general, notifying a parent their daughter was dead brought shock, disbelief, and a flood of grief.

With Mitzi Lee Starr, the leading reaction was annoyance.

Sure, Eve thought, due to the stupid planet’s dumbass rotation around the sun, it was earlier in Las Vegas, and who wants to get pulled out of sleep with bad news?

But.

“She probably asked for it.” Mitzi Lee, her gilded hair tipped in scarlet, sat up in a bed with a fluffy pink headboard shaped like a heart. The sheets she tugged up covered a small portion of her impressive, man-made boobs.

“Excuse me?”

“Girl always does what she wants, when she wants.” As the other woman shrugged, Eve got the full, and unwanted, view of said boobs. “Always thinking she’s better than anyone. Probably her bad attitude and big mouth got her killed.”

Yawning, she leaned back against the fluffy pink heart. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I can arrange for you to see your daughter.”

“What for? Dead, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is. In order for you to make arrangements for her body—”

“What? Like for a funeral? Forget it. She’s a grown-ass adult. Walked out when she was seventeen, and good riddance. Helped herself to a couple hundred I had stashed, too. I’m not spending my hard-earned money on funerals. Dead’s dead. You got her, you deal with it.”

Eve kept her tone neutral. “There are also personal effects and possessions.”

“What do I want with her junk?”

With that, Mitzi Lee broke the connection.

“Okay then.”

Eve took a moment, drank coffee, then tried the father.

He registered some shock if not grief. Though he wasn’t as abrupt as the woman he’d created a daughter with, the upshot came to the same.

Nobody was coming for Leesa.

She sent Morris a memo.

Leesa Culver’s next of kin will not view or claim her body. Please hold the body for forty-eight hours after you complete your report. During that period we will attempt to locate any other family members. Failing that, file for standard cremation and disposal for unclaimed remains.

She went into the bullpen, scanned, and spotted Officer Shelby in her cube.

“Officer Shelby.”

“Sir.”

“I’m going to send you the data on a homicide victim. I need you to search for family members beyond her parents. Whatever you find, send to me and copy Peabody.”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant. How far out do you want me to go?”

“Up the generational train, and out as far as first cousins. No minors necessary.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

On the way back, Eve stopped at Peabody’s desk. “Culver’s parents aren’t interested. I have Shelby searching for other family. When she has any, she’ll send to you and me.”

“Her parents don’t want to claim her body?”

“No, they don’t. Since neither of them asked how she died, I’d say she was already dead to them.”

“Harsh.”

“It’s all of that.”

She went back to her office, sent the data to Shelby, then began to set up her board.

She put Leesa’s ID shot up first.

“You and the woman who gave birth to you have the same eyes. That may be the only connection between you.”

She added the crime scene shots, including a close-up of the neck bruising. And a photo of the original painting beside one of the victim in the same pose.

When she finished her board, she sat to open her murder book.

Before she’d finished, she heard Peabody coming.

“Beat droids are here.”

“Bring them on back.”

Eve closed the book, turned in her chair as they came in.

“Officer Campbell, Officer Winters,” Peabody said.

Campbell replicated an attractive Black female of about thirty, with a slim build. They’d built Winters as a fortyish white woman with a tougher face and body.

Both stood at attention.

“Relax.” Though droids didn’t, really. She gestured to the board. “Leesa Culver.”

“Leesa Culver,” Campbell began. “Age twenty-two, Caucasian female—”

“We’ve got all that. Who works her block, what other LCs?”

“Dana aka Starlight Chumbly.” Winters took over.