In Death 06 - Vengeance in Death

cocked her head. "You didn't get them?"
    "I got what there was to get." Peabody picked up a sealed bag containing a single disc. "The Towers's security, penthouse level, for the twelve-hour period before the discovery of Brennen's body and the SCAN-EYE in Brennen's place were disengaged, and empty."
    Eve nodded and took the bag. "I should have figured he wouldn't be that stupid. Did you download the incoming and outgoing calls from Brennen's tele-link?"
    "Right here." Peabody handed over another disc, neatly labeled.
    "My office. We'll run them and see what we've got. I'm going to give Feeney a call," Eve continued as they headed out of the bullpen. "We're going to need the Electronic Detective Division on this."
    "Captain Feeney's in Mexico, Lieutenant. Vacation?"
    Eve stopped, scowled. "Shit, I forgot. He's got another week, doesn't he?"
    "Just over that. In your lovely cliffside villa. To which your devoted aide has yet to be invited."
    Eve lifted a brow. "You got a yen to see Mexico?"
    "I've seen Mexico, Dallas, I've got a yen to let a hot-blooded caballero have his way with me."
    Snorting, Eve unlocked her office door. "We wrap this case up in good time, Peabody, I'll see if I can arrange it." She tossed the discs on her already disordered desk, then shrugged out of her jacket. "We still need someone from EDD. See who they can spare who knows his stuff. I don't want some second-grade tinkerer."
    Peabody got out her communicator to make the request while Eve settled behind her desk, slipped the disc of Brennen's communications into her unit.
    "Engage," she ordered after remembering her password. "Playback."
    There was only one call, an outgoing on the day before Brennen was murdered. He'd called his wife, talked to his children. And the simple, intimate domestic chatter of a man and the family he was planning to join made Eve unbearably sad.
    "I have to contact the wife," Eve murmured. "Hell of a way to start the day. Best get it done now before we have a media leak. Give me ten minutes here, Peabody."
    "Yes, sir. EDD is sending over a Detective McNab."
    "Fine." When her door shut and she was alone, Eve took a long breath. And made the call.
    When Peabody came back ten minutes later, Eve was drinking coffee while she stood staring out her skinny window. "Eileen Brennen's coming back to New York, bringing her kids. She insists on seeing him. She didn't fall apart. Sometimes it's worse when they don't crumble, when they hang on. When you can see in their eyes they're sure somehow you've made a mistake."
    She rolled her shoulders, as if shrugging off a weight, then turned. "Let's see the security disc. We could catch a break."
    Peabody unsealed the disc herself and engaged it. Seconds later both she and Eve were staring at the computer screen.
    "What the hell is that?" Eve demanded.
    "It's -- I don't know." Peabody frowned at the figures moving over the screen. The voices were raised but solemn and in a foreign tongue. At the center was a man in black, robe over robe, with two young boys in white beside him. He held a silver goblet in his hand as he stood before an altar draped with black cloth and white flowers and candles. "A ritual? Is it a play?"
    "It's a funeral," Eve murmured, studying the closed and gleaming casket beneath the raised platform. "A funeral Mass. I've been to one. It's a Catholic thing, I think. Computer, identify ceremony and language on disc."
    Working... Ceremony is Catholic Requiem Mass or Mass for the Dead. Language is Latin. This section depicts offertory chant and ritual in which --
    "That's enough. Where the hell did you get this disc, Peabody?''
    "Straight out of the security room at the Luxury Towers, Dallas. It was coded, marked, and labeled."
    "He switched them," Eve muttered. "The son of a bitch switched discs on us. He's still playing games. And he's damn good at it. Computer, stop run, copy disc." Shoving her hands in her pockets, Eve rocked back on her heels. "He's having fun with us, Peabody. I'm going to have to hurt him for that. Order a sweep of the security room, and arrange to confiscate all discs for the appropriate time period."
    "All discs?"
    "All discs, all floors, all levels. And I want the report from the uniforms who handled the door-to-doors on the Towers." She pocketed the copy her computer spat out. "And I'm going to see what the hell's keeping the initial sweeper report."
    She reached for her 'link just as it beeped. "Dallas."
    "You were quick, Lieutenant. I'm