“It’s addiction,” Peabody continued, unfazed. “I bet Mira’d agree,” she added, referring to the departmental profiler and shrink. “He equates his worth with his penis, and also uses it as a weapon.”

“Okay, now I see it wearing a gold chain and toting a blaster. Stop now.”

Shifting, Peabody gave Eve a look of delight. “You get the best pictures in your head. It’s why you’re a good cop. Dubrosky said all that crap about needing to be admired. But see, he’s probably talking about his looks, his manner, but subconsciously, he’s talking about his penis.”

“Okay, if I agree with you, because actually I do, will you stop?”

“I just think it’s interesting. Now take this DuVaugne-”

Eve’s jaw tightened. “Do not start on his penis.”

“A man ditches his wife of about twenty years for a big rack and a fresh young ginnie.”

“Oh my God.”

“He does that because he’s starting to think about his own mortality-and he really doesn’t want to. He needs the big rack and fresh young ginnie so he can say: Hey look what I’ve got, look where my penis gets to go, and it proves I’m still vital and virile. Which circles right back to the penis, which, yes, demands to be admired. You know, we could consult with Charles about this.”

Eve pulled in at the morgue, and indulged herself by resting her brow on the steering wheel for a minute. “We don’t need a former licensed companion now sex therapist to investigate this case. Plus he and Louise are on their honeymoon.”

“But they’ll be back in a few days. I think gaining insight into the penis may help in investigations down the road.”

“Fine, you go right ahead and consult with Charles. Write me a freaking report on same. But now, I don’t want to hear the word penis for the rest of the day.”

“There’s really no nice word for… that particular thing,” Peabody continued as they headed inside. “Everything’s either too hard-get it?-or too silly. But when you think about it, it’s pretty silly to have that particular thing swinging around down there. So-”

“I will kill you. Save the taxpayers’ money by doing it right here in the morgue. It’s efficient.”

Eve used the cool air, the white walls to offset the images Peabody’s theories etched in her brain. She spotted Morris in the tunneling corridor, speaking to one of the white-coated techs.

“I’ll be in to check in a few minutes,” he told the tech, then turned to Eve. “I wondered if you’d make it in today.”

“I wanted to catch you before you left.”

“I was heading to my office to send you a report. You’ll want to see him again.”

He began to walk with her.

“Tell me about the burns.”

“Minor, but found along every wound, even the bruising.” He pushed open the doors of his autopsy room where the body lay on a steel slab, with the head on a smaller tray. He offered them both microgoggles. “You’ll see they occur with increasing severity. The bruising on his skin, left forearm, and here on the ankle? So minor he might not have felt the jolt. But here? On the shoulder, which shows slightly deeper bruising and inflammation-there’d been a good wrench in that area-it’s more pronounced.”

“The more severe the wound, the more severe the burns?”

“No, though I initially thought the same. But the shin shows more bruising than the ankle, the forearm, but the burns are very mild. The arm and the neck, the burns are virtually identical. And, we’d have to say the neck is a more serious wound.”

“So… the jolts-whatever caused the burns-increased along with the game. The longer he played, the bigger the shock when he got tagged.”

“It seems most likely.”

“Challenges usually go up in gaming,” Peabody commented. “As you move through a level, or head up to the next.”

“Okay.” Eve let that one simmer in her brain. “Power boost maybe. Roarke’s got this virtual game. You use actual weapons-guns. If the bad guy makes a hit, you feel a little jolt. So you know you’ve been hit and where. Enough to register, but not to hurt. Somebody changed the rules on Bart. But that doesn’t explain the internal burns. I get how he might have them on the skin, but the gash, the slice, those are inside, too, not just on the outside. Which means the weapon itself had to carry a charge. What’s the point? Isn’t a big, sharp sword enough?”

“It certainly would’ve been.”

She stepped over to the head, examined the neck. “And do they match up?”

“Perfectly.”

“Maybe the charge added to the thrust. Added power, so the killer didn’t need to be particularly strong. Gave the killer more leverage, speed.” She pulled off the goggles. “Face-to-face?”

“That’s how it plays,” Morris agreed.

“It would have to be fast, wouldn’t it? Damn fast. He’s not drugged, he’s not restrained, and he’s facing someone with a big sword. He’d run, try to get the hell away. He’d take it in the back, but I’m damned if he’d just stand there and get his head offed. The killer gives him a taste of it with the arm wound. Wants to see his reaction, wants to shock him. And then, one clean blow.”

She shook her head. “I’m going back to the scene.”

DuVaugne came first. She had Peabody check with his office, and as she suspected, he’d left for the day. Corporate execs and cops had neither the same work hours nor pay scale.

She didn’t begrudge him that part, but it was a pain in the ass to know she had to drive all the way uptown, then down again.

“You know,” Peabody began and Eve snarled.

“If you mention any part of anyone’s anatomy I’m shoving you out the window and into oncoming traffic.”

“I wasn’t going to, but know I’m thinking about it again. What I was going to say was about the sword. Not the euphemistic male sword, but the murder weapon. Last year I went to a con with McNab.”

“Why would you go to a con?”

“A game con-convention-in New York at the convention center. A total geek-fest, which is actually a lot more fun than it might sound.”

“Since it sounds like a nightmare in hell, it wouldn’t have to come up much to be any fun at all.”

“Well, people dress up like characters from the games, and vids and screen shows. Actors who play the characters come and sign stuff or do demos. They sell all kinds of stuff, even have auctions. High-dollar, too. There are parties and contests and seminars, and a lot of hands-on. You can play just about any game out there if you’re willing to buck the crowds, stand in line. U-Play had a big presence there, I remember. Hey, I probably saw the vic before he was a vic. Anyway, it’s three days of geekdom.”

“Gee, sign me up.”

“What I’m saying is they have weapons. Play weapons and prop weapons and virtual weapons. A big chunk of popular games deal with some sort of warfare.”

“Yeah, people never get enough of killing each other.” But, she thought, it was an interesting angle. “An electrified sword would go over big there.”

“Bet your ass. We got a pass into one of the auctions, and there was a sword-not electrified-from Elda, Warrior Queen, and it went for over five million.”

“Fucking dollars?”

“Yeah, fucking dollars. It was the one Elda used in the vid to defend her throne and all that. The games are the total. McNab and I play them.”

“Who gets to be queen?”

“Ha-ha. They’re holo-games, too, but since we don’t have a holo we only play the comp. Anyway, there are weapons galore at these cons, and plenty of vendors and collectors. You’ve got blasters and magic maces and fire lances and light sabers and disintegrators. But from what I saw, swords are the biggest deal. They’re sexier.”

An interesting angle, she thought again. A good line to tug. “I bet Bart thought how sexy it was to have his head lopped off with one. Collectors, vendors, and cons. It’s a good avenue to explore. But maybe we’ll get lucky and DuVaugne will just whip out his magic sword, we’ll blast him, and wrap this case up.”