Radcliff C. might have been done in by an antiquated method, but it didn’t make him any less dead.

„Lab boys will rub their hands together over this one,“ Eve murmured. „They don’t get much call to play with ballistics.“

She was a tall woman, with a lean build inside a long black leather coat. Her face was sharp with angles, her eyes long and brown and observant. As a rare concession to the cold, she’d yanked a black watch cap over her short, usually untidy brown hair. But she’d lost her gloves again.

She continued to stand, let her partner run the gauge for time of death.

„Six wounds visible,“ Eve said. „Four in the body, one in the right leg, one to the head. From the blood spatter, blood trail, it looks like he was hit first there.“ She gestured a few feet away. „Force knocks him back, down, so he tries to crawl. Big guy, fleshy, with a strong look to him. He maybe had enough in him to crawl some, maybe to try to get up again.“

„Time of death, oh-two-twenty.“ Peabody, her dark hair in a short, sassy flip at the base of her neck, looked up. Her square, sturdy face was cop solemn, but there was a gleam in her eye, dark as her hair. „ID confirmed. You know who he is, right?“

„Hopkins, Radcliff C. With the fussy Roman numerals after.“

„Your lack of interest in culture trivia’s showing again. His grandfather was Hop Hopkins, and made a couple of fortunes in the swinging Sixties. Nineteen-sixties. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. Night clubs, music venues. L.A.-based, mostly, before the big one hit California, but he had a hot spot here in New York.“