"Robb, J D - In Death 12 - Judgment In Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robb J D)

"Time of death, oh four hundred," Eve stated, then turned her head to
look up at Peabody.
Her aide was starched and pressed and as official as they came, with her
uniform cap set precisely on her dark chin-length hair. She had good eyes, Eve
thought, clear and dark. And though the sheer vileness of the scene had leached
some of the color from her cheeks, she was holding.
"Motive?" Eve asked.
"It appears to be robbery, Lieutenant."
"Why?"
"The cash drawer's open and empty. The credit machine's broken."
"Mmm-hmm. Snazzy place like this would be heavier in credits, but they'd
do some cash business."
"Zeus addicts kill for spare change."
"True enough. But what would our victim have been doing alone, in a
closed club, with an addict? Why would he let anyone hopped on Zeus behind the
bar? And ..." With her sealed fingers she picked up a small silver credit chip
from the river of blood. "Why would our addict leave these behind? A number of
them are scattered here around the body."
"He could have dropped them." But Peabody began to think she wasn't
seeing something Eve did.
"Could have."
She counted the coins as she picked them up, thirty in all, sealed them
in an evidence bag, and handed it to Peabody. Then she picked up the bat. It was
fouled with blood and brain. About two feet in length, she judged, and weighted
to mean business.
Mean business.
"It's good, solid metal, not something an addict would pick up in some
abandoned building. We're going to find this belonged here, behind the bar.
We're going to find, Peabody, that our victim knew his killer. Maybe they were
having an after-hours drink."

Her eyes narrowed as she pictured it. "Maybe they had words, and the
words escalated. More likely, our killer already had an edge on. He knew where
the bat was. Came behind the bar. Something he'd done before, so our friend here
doesn't think anything of it. He's not concerned, doesn't worry about turning
his back."
She did so herself, measuring the position of the body, of the splatter.
"The first blow rams him face first into the glass on the back wall. Look at the
cuts on his face. Those aren't nicks from flying glass. They're too long, too
deep. He manages to turn, and that's where the killer takes the next swing here,
across the jaw. That spins him around again. He grabs the shelves there, brings
them down. Bottles crashing. That's when he took the killing blow. This one that
cracked his skull like an egg."
She crouched again, sat back on her heels. "After that, the killer just
beat the hell out of him, then wrecked the place. Maybe in temper, maybe as
cover. But he had enough control to come back here, to look at his handiwork
before he left. He dropped the bat here when he was done."
"He wanted it to look like a robbery? Like an illegals overkill?"
"Yeah. Or our victim was a moron and I'm giving him too much credit. You
got the body and immediate scene recorded? All angles?"