With a shrug, Eve slid her hands into her pockets. “It was late.”
“No.” Now those dark eyes softened a bit as he looked at Eve. “You thought because I’d lost Amaryllis, that we’d had to bring her here to my house, even this surface resemblance to a friend would cause me pain.”
“There wasn’t any point in it.”
“There’s a point in thanking you for your consideration. I miss her.” He brushed his fingers over his heart. “I think I’ll always miss the potential of what we could have been together. But I’m better than I was.”
“That’s good.”
“When I came in here this morning, looked at her, it made me unspeakably sad. People who do what we do, who work with death day after day, we can still find it unspeakably sad. I think it’s important we do, from time to time.”
“I barely met her, and I didn’t like her. I’ve made a point in picking out all the physical differences between her and Peabody. And still, it hits a spot.”
“I think, after all this time, all this death, it’s good we still have a spot that can be hit. Coffee?”
“That?” She glanced at the steaming cup, could smell the raw bitterness from where she stood. “Pass.”
“It’s foul,” he agreed with a bit of cheer. “I don’t know if it’s a good thing or bad that I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I could hook you up with some real.”
“If I had real coffee in here, there’d be a stampede. Even the dead might rise like zombies. I’ll stick with foul, avoid the horror.”
“I don’t think real coffee’s going to make Harris rise up and bite your throat.”
“Brains,” Morris corrected. “Zombies eat brains.”
“Okay, that’s just sick.”
“Well, they are zombies, after all. In any case,” he said as the foolish moment took the edge off. He glanced at the screen, at the hard data. “After the initial sadness came the gratitude. This loss isn’t mine, or yours. I think, from time to time, we have to be grateful, too.”
“I wanted to kiss Peabody on the mouth last night. I resisted, but I wanted to.”
It made him smile. “Aren’t we the softies, the murder cop and the dead doctor. Well. Someone else will just be sad this morning.”
“Not so much,” Eve told him. “She was a bitch. I haven’t talked to one person who knew her who liked her, with the exception of her mother. And I don’t know if that was ‘like’ or just shock and grief over the loss of a child.”
“Even less like our girl then. A pity for the victim, though I doubt she suffered much as, according to the results of the tox screen Carter ordered, and I’ve just reviewed, she was very drunk. Blood alcohol level point-three-two—along with some considerable traces of zoner.”
“She drank her way through the evening. She had herbals in her bag, and I found six butts on the roof. They’re at the lab. Could be she had some zoner mixed in.”
“She sounds like someone who didn’t care for her own reality very much.”
“COD?”
“Drowning. Water in the lungs. She was alive when she went in. The head wound …” He brought it up on-screen, split it with a magnified section of the pool skirt. “It was severe enough to render her unconscious, but not fatal. Without the dunk, she’d have suffered a mild concussion, required a couple of stitches, and a blocker for the headache. Carter’s reconstruction, and I concur, indicates a fall.”
He switched data, brought up the computerized reconstruction.
“She fell or was pushed backward, struck her head on this pebbled surface. The blow would have rendered her unconscious, as I said, for several minutes. Longer, I expect, with her BAL and the zoner.”
“The way she hit, and where she hit. She couldn’t have fallen, bounced, rolled, fallen into the water. Not on her own.”
“No.”
“Could she have regained consciousness, tried to stand, and fallen in? Off her balance?”
“If she had, I’d expect to see another injury as the water was shallow. This mildly lacerated contusion on her temple is consistent, as you see on-screen, with a roll over the coping. Also, as you noted in your on-scene, her shoes had scraping at the heels. Here—”
He turned to the body again, moved down to the right hip. “Another slight contusion. That’s consistent with her initial fall, and with the sweeper’s report on where they found the blood.”
“Blood that had been washed off. It wouldn’t have been, even if she’d fallen in, splashed up water. It’s not enough, and the distance doesn’t work for that.”
“Not on Carter’s reconstruction.”
Eve saw it clearly. “So she went down, on her own or with help. She’s out cold. And when she’s out cold somebody drags her a couple of feet to the edge, then rolled her into the pool, where she drowned.”
“That’s our conclusion. This wasn’t an accidental death. It’s homicide.”
“That’s all I need.” She turned as Peabody rushed in, stopped.
“Wow. Still really weird,” she said as she stared at the body. “I think her legs are longer than mine. Why can’t my legs be longer?”
Morris stepped around the slab, walked up to her. He took her shoulders, kissed her on the mouth.
“Wow.” Peabody blinked several times. “Um, thanks. That was nice.”
“It’s very good to see you,” he said, and his eyes laughed into Eve’s when he stepped away.
“So far this is the best morning I’ve had in ever.”
“Well, hold on to that,” Eve advised. “We’ve got homicide, a media circus, and a long list of suspects. Let’s get to work. Thanks, Morris.”
“Anytime. And Peabody? I like your legs just as they are.”
“The day gets better and better.” Dazzled, Peabody walked back into the tunnel with Eve.
“Try this. You’re late. And I can see damn well from the bounce in your step you’re late due to sex, which means I have to catch you up on the ME’s findings, and this does not make my day better and better.”
“I couldn’t help it. McNab asked me to marry him.”
The second hard jolt of the morning stopped Eve in mid-stride. “What? Jesus. What?”
“I’m eating fruity yogurt instead of the bagel and schmear I wanted, and he’s sitting there with his bowl of Crispy Crunchie Charms, and he asked if I wanted to get married.” The residual thrill bounced her on her pink boots. “Really, he asked if I wanted him to ask, which is even sweeter and better, and wow oh wow, I had to have sex.”
“Okay.” How many shocks, Eve wondered, was she supposed to rebound from? “So …”
“So we’re going to get married. One day. Not now. We don’t want to get married now.”
“I’m confused.”
“I think he needed me to know it’s what he wants one day, with me. And needed to know it’s what I want one day, with him. And it is.” Peabody hiked up her shoulders in a kind of self-hug. “It really is. It shook him, you know, seeing somebody who looks like me, who’s being me, you know. Dead.”
“Yeah, that I get.”
“And he needed me to know, and he needed to know, so he asked if he should ask, and we … I’m crazy about him, Dallas. But it’s more than crazy. I really absolutely love every bony inch of him.”
“I guess you do.” Eve took a minute as they walked outside. “I may never say these words again, but you’re good together. And you’re both being smart, to wait awhile before you jump to the next level.”
“You didn’t,” Peabody reminded her.
“Nothing about me and Roarke was smart. Nothing about us should’ve worked, when you look at it close.”
“You’re wrong about that. The closer you look, the more it’s clear why it worked. Why it works.”
“Maybe so. But if you’re late due to sex again, I’ll kick your ass.”
“Understood.”
“We’re going to swing by to talk to Mavis and Leonardo before we head in. They left before the body was discovered, but they were there through the evening, and during the gag reel, so we need their statements. Added to it, Mavis played herself so she did some work with the cast and crew. She may have something to add to the mix.”