Festive in Death (9 page)

After a look of disgust for the cowardice, Juice guzzled some of his drink. “He shut up,” Juice continued, “and he slunk off. He wasn’t going to risk a pounding. I know he spread some shit about Rock’s place, but that didn’t matter. Rock Hard doesn’t cater to the same kind of clients we do here, so that wasn’t any skin off Rock. But that was the only way Ziegler could try to get his own back, smearing Rock’s rep.”

“If somebody smears my rep, I’m going to want to get up in their face,” Eve commented.

“It didn’t matter. The guy was like a gnat buzzing. You just ignore it. The way I figured, either me or Rock would take that award next spring, and that would pay Ziegler back.”

“He was favored.”

“Not anymore.” Juice shook his head. “I know how that sounds, but I said I wasn’t going to lie. I hated the son of a bitch.”

Outside, Eve headed for her car. “A competitor may just be a good
angle here. I’ll fill you in on the three top candidates I got from Lill on the way to Ziegler’s apartment.”

“Did you see the arms on that guy? And the pecs?” Peabody bundled herself in the car. “I wonder what he charges for personal training.”

“You’ve got access to a gym right at Central,” Eve reminded her.

“I don’t have access to those arms.” Peabody glanced back as Eve pulled into traffic. “Or those pecs.”

Eve broke the seal on the apartment door, stepped inside.

It smelled of death and sweeper dust.

“Logical place for tea’s the kitchen, right? Where do people keep incense?”

“There wasn’t any in the bedroom, not that I remember,” Peabody began. “If he uses it on off-the-book or in-home massages, maybe he has some with his gear.”

“Check the gear, I’ll check the kitchen.”

Eve moved into the small U-shaped kitchen, gave it a quick overview. Standard AutoChef, friggie, compact oven, three-burner range, mini dishwasher.

Not that Ziegler made much use of it, she noted. Dishes, glassware piled in the sink, empty or near-empty takeout boxes scattered the
counter. The sweepers had taken the lidless pizza box, but she couldn’t imagine what that might tell them.

In any case, the obvious conclusion was, Ziegler had been too lazy for the recycler.

Out of curiosity, she opened the friggie. Energy drinks, lite beer, box wine, a jug of one of those mixed fruit and veggie juices, a small container of soy milk.

She checked the menu on the AutoChef. A couple of whole wheat bagels, a veggie pizza, coffee, veggie hash, and tofu turkey.

No tea, she noted, and turned to the short line of cupboards.

Soy chips, dry cereal that looked like bark and twigs, some dehydrated berries, several bottles of vitamins and supplements. And three small containers of leafy substances labeled as tea: Relaxation Tea, Digestive Tea, Energy Tea.

She bagged them all.

“Cone incense—a variety pack.” Peabody came in with a clear case holding about a dozen colorful little pyramids. “In his massage bag. It’s a smart way to transport and store, kind of like a small fishing tackle box. They’re all labeled by scent. None of them say sex-inducing. You’ve got patchouli, vanilla, lavender and so on.”

“I don’t think he’d label it sex-inducing. I’ve got three teas—the loose leaf stuff like in the baggie.” Eve stepped out of the kitchen bump. “We’ll take another pass through the place. The sweepers wouldn’t have been looking for anything like this. Then we’ll talk to Sima again before we get these to the lab.”

“If any of this contains some sort of date-rape drug, he probably used it on her, too. I mean, why wouldn’t he?”

“Yeah. I’m counting on it.”

•   •   •

M
usic played at Trina’s salon, but not at the head-throbbing volume of the gym. Here it provided a bouncy bit of background. The place smelled a little too much like a meadow for Eve’s taste—with a faint underpinning of chemicals. God knew what they mixed up here to slather on your hair, your face, and other parts of the anatomy.

People sat in brightly colored chairs sipping fizzy drinks, babbling away with each other or focused on provided discs—fashion mags, beauty mags, music—while techs slathered or snipped or painted. Products lined the walls.

Farther back, thin partitions offered some privacy for whatever the hell went on behind them. The place buzzed with voices, little tools that clipped or hummed or buffed, and chairs being lifted or lowered or reclined.

A woman with a fountain of red-tipped white hair talked cheerfully on an ear-link while she tapped a tattooed finger at a calendar on her screen.

“I squeezed you in, Lorinda. Two-fifteen, New Year’s Eve, with Marcus. You’ve got his last block. Oh, don’t I know it! We’ll see you then. Have a wonderful Christmas!”

She tapped her earpiece, beamed at Eve and Peabody. “Good morning! How can I help you today?”

“We’re looking for Sima Murtagh.”

“Sima’s with a client, but she’s got an opening at . . .”
Tap
,
tap
with the finger tattooed with a red butterfly. “One-thirty.”

“We’re not here for a service.” Eve drew out her badge.

The woman’s lime-green eyes went wide. “Oh! Oh. You’re here about . . .” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Trey. It’s awful,” she said
in the same hissy whisper. “Just tragic! Let me just run back and check where she is on her service.”

She hopped off the stool and clicked her way to the back on the towering heels of thigh-high red boots.

Eve started to speak, then noticed Peabody wasn’t beside her but had edged over to a counter to play with samples.

“Stop it,” Eve ordered.

“It’s just sitting here.” Hurriedly Peabody rubbed some cream over her hands. “And it smells really good.”

“Try for some dignity,” Eve muttered as Trina swept in from the back.

Unlike her receptionist, Trina wore flat-soled shoes—but Eve found it hard to deem them practical as red-nosed reindeers cavorted over them.

“Sima needs a couple minutes. She’s at a critical point of the service. She can take five when she finishes applying the full mask. You should come back. I’ve got one treatment room open—we’re slammed with holiday party prep—but we can use it for a few.”

“Fine.” Eve started back with her, grabbed Peabody by the arm to make sure her partner didn’t go back to playing with samples. “You didn’t mention Ziegler used persuaders on women.”

“Do what?”

“You know, a little something in the tea to make a woman more . . . agreeable to having sex.”

Trina stopped dead in front of a line of cushy chairs where some women had their feet in bubbly blue water, others had them covered with green goo, and still others had techs painting their toes.

“I knew it. I
knew
it! Fucker.”

“You knew, but didn’t think it worth mentioning?”

“I didn’t
know
know it, but I knew it. Fucker,” she repeated, angry
color rising up in her high-planed cheeks as she stomped off toward a door in her reindeer booties.

Inside she paced around a padded table, passed shiny silver counters holding what looked to Eve like devices of torture.

“You can’t say shit like that if you don’t absolutely know. But I
knew
. In my gut.”

She threw up her hands, still pacing so the red lab-style coat she wore over a black skin suit flapped.

“I told you I’ve had some women in my chair who’d slept with him, and some of them said how they didn’t plan on it, but how they just got the urge during a session—always a home session. Massage or personal training.”

“Names.”

Now Trina stopped in her tracks. “Come on, Dallas, my clients have to know I won’t mouth off about their personal business. They have to trust me.”

“It’s murder, Trina, and getting dosed is a hell of a motive for it.”

“Christ! None of my clients killed the slimy bastard.” She kicked a cabinet, a sentiment and temper reliever Eve understood. “Fine, fine. Fuck. I’ll give you the names, but you gotta let me contact them first, give them a heads-up. I need to make it right with them.”

“No details, Trina. You can tell them the cops forced you to give their names as part of the investigation, but that’s it.”

“Damn it. Damn it. I wish he wasn’t dead so I could peel the skin off his balls. Sima. Motherfucker! He probably used something on her, too.”

Even as she spoke Sima poked her head in the door. “I’m really sorry. I couldn’t leave my client until I’d finished the application.” She came in, closed the door behind her, then twisted her hands together. “Do you know who killed Trey?”

“The investigation’s ongoing. Sima, do you know where Trey got his tea?”

“Tea? Oh, you mean the herbals. Gosh, I really don’t. He bought it loose, and it came in little bags. First time I thought they were illegals, maybe Zoner or something—and I was really surprised because he’s so careful about what goes into his body, you know? But he said they were specialty herbals, just a nice little perk for clients before a massage or after a workout. He didn’t even charge extra.”

“And the incense?”

“I don’t know. He hardly ever burned it at home. It was for clients again. You know, aromatherapy.”

“He used at home, with you?”

“A few times.”

“Did he ever make you tea?”

“Sure, a few times. To help me relax after a tough day. The tea and incense, and a shoulder massage.” Tears shimmered. “He could be so sweet that way when he wanted to.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Eve saw Trina set her teeth, turn away—and saw Peabody give her arm a rub.

“Let me ask you, Sima, and I need you to be square with me. When he made the tea, lit the incense, did you have sex with him?”

“Well . . . I guess.” She frowned a little, flushed a little. “Yeah, I guess. I’d get relaxed, you know.”

“After a hard day,” Eve continued. “So you maybe weren’t feeling much like having sex . . . until you got relaxed.”

“Sometimes you’re on your feet for like eight hours, hardly a break. It just can go that way, and that’s good because it means people ask for you especially. But when you get home, maybe you just want to sit down, watch some screen, maybe go to bed—to sleep I mean—a little early.”

“Sure, I know how it goes.”

“Everybody does, right? Well, mostly. Trey, I swear, he could want to do it twice a day every day.”

“So you maybe just wanted to kick back, watch some screen, and he wanted sex.”

“He wasn’t pushy about it. If I told him I was really tired or whatever, he was okay with it.”

“He’d make you some tea, to relax you.”

“Yeah. And it did, and I’d start getting in the mood after all.”

“Sima, I’ve taken a statement from one of his clients, one who wasn’t in the mood, either, until he made her tea.” Eve waited a moment to let it sink in—saw it didn’t. “It’s pretty clear there are going to be more.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We’re taking the tea into the lab for testing, and I believe they’ll find some form of date-rape drug in the mix.”

“No, no, he wouldn’t do that. Holy God! You’re wrong. Trina.”

“You think about it, Sim. Think,” Trina insisted. “Did he ever make you the damn tea when you already wanted to have sex, or after you had sex? Or in the morning before you both left for work, or any goddamn time you didn’t have sex after drinking it?”

“I . . . He . . .” Her eyes filled. “No. But—why would he do that? Why would he do that to me? He didn’t have to do that to me. I mean sometimes you just want to sleep or just cuddle. Don’t you?”

“Sure you do, honey. Sure.” Trina went over, hugged Sima close. “It’s not on you, and don’t you think that. It’s not on you, and it’s not about sex.”

“But—”

“It’s about him wanting to make you do something you didn’t want to, so he could feel like a big man. Anybody who does that is small.”

“I cared about him. I thought he cared about me.”

“He never cared about anybody but himself.” Over Sima’s head, Trina’s eyes met Eve’s fiercely. “And that’s not on you, either.”

•   •   •

R
un the names Trina gave us,” Eve said as they started back to the car.

“On it. It really flattened her.” Peabody pulled out her PPC to begin the runs when she got into the car. “Imagine it. Imagine finding out someone you thought cared about you, someone you lived with, slept with, slipped you a sex drug. If he did. We’re not a hundred percent sure.”

“I’m sure enough. Profile it, Peabody. Everything we know about the vic. Is he the kind of guy who makes tea for his girlfriend when she’s too tired for sex?”

“Probably not, no.”

“And then, coincidentally, once she drinks the tea, she’s, bang, in the mood to do it after all? If that’s straight tea, I’ll eat the leaves dry.”

“It’s rape.” Peabody scowled at her PPC as she worked. “If we’re right, and I think we are, it’s rape. It’s no different than holding a knife to her throat. It takes choice away.”

“That’s exactly right.”

“It was bad enough when he was just an asshole.”

“Whatever he was, he’s dead. We do the job. We can think it’s too damn bad Trina didn’t get a chance to skin his balls, but we do the job.”

She answered the in-dash ’link when it signaled, watched Mira come on screen.

She’s done something different with her hair, Eve thought. What did they call that sleek sort of curve. A bob? Why did they call it a bob? What kind of name was
bob
for hair?

“Eve. I’ve read the report you sent. I actually have a fairly light morning, so I can certainly meet with you.”

“Great. I’ve got another stop to make, but I’m not sure how long it’s going to take.”

“If you can be here in an hour, I have time. If not, I have time, a bit, later this afternoon.”

“I’ll make it in an hour, thanks.”

“Hey, Dr. Mira.” Peabody angled over. “I really like your hair.”

“Oh, thanks.” As women did, Mira fluffed at it. “Not too severe?”

“Totally no.”

“I wanted a change, so I’ll live with it a few days. I’ll see you in an hour, Eve. I have a session about to start.”

“I’ll be there. Thanks.”

Eve signed off as she hunted for parking. “Why do women always want to change their hair? If they liked it one way, why change it to another way?”

“For fun. Or just to mix things up. You change your shoes or your jacket or whatever all the time.”

“They’re not attached to me.”

“So changing your hair makes it even more about you, the way I see it.” Peabody twisted a lock of hair that poked out from her cap. “I think I’m going to try something different for the holidays. I should’ve talked to Trina.”