She’d grabbed Morris coffee from the in-dash AutoChef before she headed down the tunnel.
Another day, she thought, another teenage girl on a slab.
The ME wore a suit under his protective cape, one in pale, pale blue with a white shirt that had that same tender blue in needle-thin stripes. His tie, a bolder blue, coordinated with the cord he’d woven through the braid he’d rolled into a loop at the back of his neck.
She wondered if he dressed with such stylish formality for himself, for his position, or out of respect for the dead.
And decided all three.
He played rock again, but lowered the volume when Eve came in.
“Two in two days.” Eve gestured with the coffee before walking back to set it beside his sink.
“Another bud who will never bloom.” His eyes, enlarged behind the microgoggles, met Eve’s. “There’s a saying about youth being wasted on the young. I don’t agree, and hope she made good use of that youth while she had it.”
Eve thought of Big Bitch Brenda. “I like my youth just where it is. Behind me.”
“No stray thoughts of recapturing it?”
If she let herself, she could still feel that sucker punch. “Oh, hell no.”
“I suspect that puts you and me in the enviable position of being content with the here and now.” He set his microgoggles aside.
“So, onto the work that, oddly, contents us. Both the victims and the method used suggest one killer. Another healthy young girl who’d barely begun to live. No sign of previous illegals use, no signs of alcohol abuse. Her last meal, enjoyed, I hope, about four hours before death, was pizza and a fizzy lemonade.”
He walked back to the sink to rinse the blood from his hands, picked up his coffee.
“She’d recently ingested a twenty-four-hour pregnancy blocker.”
“She had a boyfriend—a couple of condoms in her bag, and his parents were out of town for the weekend.”
“Ah well.” After walking back, he laid a sympathetic hand on Arlie’s shoulder. “The best-laid plans.” Then he smiled as Peabody came in.
“I’m still not late!” she insisted.
“No, you’re not late. Same general area for the injection,” Eve added.
“Yes. Slightly lower on the left biceps than the first victim.”
“The second’s taller. She thought she’d gotten stung by a wasp. She had a thing about wasps.”
“A sharp, quick sting.” Morris nodded. “Yes, I can see that. From the site, he takes little care with the penetration. In fact, the opposite.”
“He wants them to feel it.”
“And they certainly would have. My initial analysis, which the lab will confirm, is the same mix of illegals as was used on Jenna Harbough. The needle itself was certainly dirty, and again coated as before. Her system would have reacted in the same way, or very nearly the same. Only minutes between injection, the onset of symptoms, and death.”
“And that’s the only thing that connects them. I can’t find anything else.” Wouldn’t find, she was nearly sure of it. “Arlie Dillon was Upper East, Jenna Harbough Lower West. Different schools, different interests, different lifestyles.”
“Other than their age and gender, their basic health,” Morris commented, “physically they’re not similar.”
“It’s not how they look, but what they are. And where.”
“In a crowd,” Peabody put in. “And when? At night, in a crowd. A loud, crowded area.”
“With a lot of teenage girls to choose from. The victim only has one parent in the mix. Her mother. No sibs.”
“Ah.” Morris let out a sigh. “More pain. I’ll contact her when Arlie’s ready. I don’t expect Arlie to tell me any more to guide your way, Dallas. But if she does, you’ll know when I do.”
“I’m going to hit the lab, see if I can squeeze something out there.”
“I’ll wish you luck,” he told her as she and Peabody started out. “With nothing linking them but method and murderer, we all worry we’ll stand here like this again tomorrow. Or soon after.”
She didn’t worry, Eve thought, because if they didn’t find more, she had no doubt they’d stand there again.
Peabody trotted to keep up. “McNab headed straight in to work on the club feed.”
“Good. Unless the bastard got in the same way he got out, he’ll be on the feed somewhere.”
“Shit! You think he came in through the window?”
“Not impossible. But it’s riskier than just sliding in with a group. And harder,” she added. “The way the window tilts, harder to squirm in, and time it so nobody’s in there when you squirm.
“He’s on that damn feed.”
She slid behind the wheel, tapped her fingers on it. “Lab first. It’s early, but that gives us a jump on nagging Dickhead, and we can nudge Harvo.”
“Did you get anything from the mother?”
“Enough to tell me the two victims didn’t know each other. It’s not impossible, but again unlikely, the killer knew them both. I sent everything to Mira, asked for a consult.”
That would help clarify angles. It always did.
“I think he needs attention—that’s part of it all. He killed the first during an Avenue A performance. They’re a big deal, and that’s going to generate media.”
“Last night’s event? Another big deal,” Peabody confirmed. “Draws a big crowd, with whole lots of bunches of people live streaming it. A lot of publicity.”
“I bet he recorded it. And I’d bet your month’s pay and mine he’s done the same with all the media on the murders.”
“I really need my month’s pay. We bought a new bed and it’s— I’ll get to that later. But I really need my pay, because new bed, and this cocotte I want so ultra bad. Plus, we have to outfit our new, amazing powder room. We have a powder room! And stuff. But since it sounds like a sure thing … Except sure things can be sucker bets.”
Winding down, Peabody frowned.
“This is why I don’t gamble. How do you know a sure thing from a sucker bet?”
Simple, Eve thought. “They’re all sucker bets. Just ask Santiago’s cowboy hat.”
That got a laugh.
“Then I’m a sucker because I’m laying my month’s pay on the line with yours, because yeah, he’s watching the media on this. He’s swimming in it.”
Since she had Roarke’s cash in her pocket, Eve turned into a lot near the lab.
“Why?”
“Why is he swimming in it? Well … He couldn’t hang around and watch them die, right? This is the next best thing. And if he didn’t know them, which probably not, he gets to know them. The reports lay all that out. And it’ll all be how tragic, how horrible, and he’ll swim in it because he made it happen.”
“All bets are sucker bets, but your money’s safe because that’s absolutely right.”
“I’m going to say I just doubled my money and buy that cocotte.”
As they walked to the lab, Eve tried to resist, ordered herself not to even consider asking. Then gave up.
“What the hell is a cocotte?”
“It’s a pot. A French cooking pot. I bet Summerset’s got one. I want it for my fabulous kitchen, but it’s like nine hundred dollars, so—
Eve stopped dead. “Nine hundred dollars? For a pan?”
“A pot. A French pot.”
“Does the price include going to France to buy it?”
“If only,” Peabody said dreamily. “But since I doubled my money, I can afford it. Now I just have to decide what color. I may go for the red, because big pop of color there. But the blue is so gorgeous.”
Eve put her hands over her ears and walked into the lab.
Early, yes, she thought, but already a hive of activity. That gave her a boost.
She made her way to Chief Lab Tech Dick Berenski’s workstation. Resorting to bribes became routine too often when dealing with Dickhead. But when the case involved kids, she could usually count on him moving without the added incentive.
His egg-shaped head bent over his work while his long, spidery fingers crawled over a keyboard.
When Eve approached, he looked up, scowled at her.
“How about giving me more than five fucking minutes on a fucking Monday morning?”
“Jenna Harbough, age sixteen, died Saturday night. Arlie Dillon, age seventeen, died last night. A lot longer than five minutes.”
“Yeah, yeah, some of us had the weekend off, and spent it at the beach with a big, busty blonde in a tiny red bikini.”
“You wear a tiny red bikini?”
“Har! The blonde wore one. On and off,” he said with a leer.
“I guess it’s just their bad luck these two teenage girls won’t ever hang on the beach again.”
“Yeah, yeah.” But this time he muttered it. “The weekend crew DNA’d your puke, right? And I’m checking their tox on the first vic, running the second. I got Morris’s report here says the first wasn’t a user.”
“She wasn’t, and I’ve just come from Morris. Neither was the second.”
“Both of them—what I’m seeing, both of them—got a bomb jammed inside them. The heroin, that was enough to do it alone. Not Junk, the pure. You don’t see the pure like this. Not seeing a cutting agent. I want to run them both again, but I don’t see it. Then there’s ketamine. See that?”
He pointed to his screen with symbols and equations Eve couldn’t have deciphered with a stunner to her throat. So she said, “Okay.”
“Given the first vic’s size and weight, enough of that to take her down if not out. Then you’ve got Rohypnol.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I’m looking at it, aren’t I? Threw in a roofie.”
“Fatal dose?”
“Nah, but he tossed it in. Enough to take her down again. Just this, I’d say he wanted to get her somewhere and rape her. But with the heroin? She wouldn’t live long enough. Then you’ve got traces of fucking potassium chloride. It’s overkill, it’s all overkill. Sick, twisted bastard son of a bitch. Used an infected needle on top of it.
“See that?” The anger came through as he pointed to the screen again. “That’s Treponema pallidum.”
“Berenski, I’m just a cop.”
“Ever had syphilis?”
“No, I have not.”
“This is what causes it. What he did here, what I’m seeing here, is he coated the needle with Treponema pallidum bacteria—with a chemical booster for fast action. It ain’t fatal, and she’d be dead before she showed any symptoms. But that’s the infection at the injection site.”
“A roofie and an STD,” Eve murmured.
“It’s the same formula, the same dosage in the second vic. The exact same down to the frigging microliter. I’m running them both again. See that? That’s an agent, a compound, and what it does is it inhibits the enzymes in the bloodstream, the CYP3A. Can’t do its job, so the drug works faster, the bloodstream absorbs more of it, gives it a bigger punch.”
Careful, Eve thought. Took no chances.
“It had to work fast,” she said. “He couldn’t have them lucking out with medical intervention.”
“Easier to dump some cyanide in their fizzy. This took work, precision—and I mean precision—knowledge, and some goddamn skill. It’s fucking science. It’s bad science, fucking mean science, but it’s science.”
“Yeah, it is. Where would he get the ingredients?”
“A goddamn lab.” Visibly pissed, Berenski threw up his arms. “It’s not just getting them. We don’t have heroin this pure around here. You guys hit a gold mine like that on a raid, maybe somebody skims some. Or maybe he makes it his damn self.”
Bang, Eve thought. That was a fresh bang.
“From poppies?”
“From freaking poppies. Research lab, biochem lab, medical lab. A roofie’s not hard to come by, and you can score some Kettle on the street. But the rest?”
He shook his head. “Even if you have access, you need damn fine skill to make this mix. And a sick fuck brain, Dallas, to think it up.”
“All right, appreciate it. I need to talk to Harvo about the fabric from the window at the first scene.”
“Like she’s got nothing else on her plate.” Then he shrugged his shoulders, beetled his eyebrows. “Go ahead. I’m running these again.”
“Peabody,” Eve said as they wound through the lab, “find out if we’ve hit a gold mine on an illegals raid in the last three years.”
“I think we’d have heard if the NYPSD confiscated a hunk of pure heroin, but I’ll tag Detective Strong in Illegals.”
With a nod, Eve kept winding to Harvo’s workspace.
The Queen of Hair and Fiber had a chin-length bob of blue hair today, about the same shade as Morris’s tie. She wore a pink T-shirt where what looked like a rat in a lab coat held a smoking petri dish and wore a maniacal grin.
Below it read:
BEWARE THE LAB RATS!
THEY’RE SMARTER THAN YOU.
With it she wore blue baggies and pink air sneaks.
“Hey, Dallas. Running your Saturday night fiber now. Nothing came to me on the Sunday night thing.”
“Nothing to send.”
“You know, I was thinking of hitting the Battle of the Bands Sunday, but I zipped to the Hamptons. My cousin’s boyfriend’s sister had a place up there for a couple weeks, did an open house deal for the weekend. Pretty frosty.”
Swiveling, she placed a speck of fiber on a slide under her scope.
“I can tell you by eyeballing this, it’s a cheap, synthetic blend. I’m going to say from pants, and new ones. Nothing the killer had in his closet for a while, nothing he washed.”
“You can tell that by eyeballing?”
She grinned, much like her cartoon lab rat.
“That’s why I wear the crown. But we’ll verify that.”
She straightened. “Window frame, right?”
“Right.”
“Gonna be pants. I know they’re working on trying to get a partial on the scuff marks on the wall. So he boosted up. Maybe you catch your sleeve, part of your shirt, but pants, that’s more likely if you’re going out headfirst. You want to see where you’re going, make sure nobody’s out there, so headfirst.”
“You bucking for my job, Harvo?”
Smiling, Harvo tapped the top of her head. “I like it here, in my queendom, with my crown.”
She swiveled again when one of her machines beeped.
“Yeah, got your cheap synthetic blend, cheap black dye, sizing’s pretty damn stiff, so new. It’s pants. Could be a jacket, but it’s too hot for that in a club, so pants. That much sizing in a shirt? Nope. Wash this fabric a few times, you’re going to fade the dye, break down the sizing, and the fabric’s going to fail after, oh, a dozen washes. Cheap shit, right off the rack.”
“The one wit says black baggies.”
“Sure, cheap, new baggies, so probably a little stiff—not the kind of drape you want in baggies. Doofus-wear.”
“Or dooser?”
Considering, Harvo tilted her head. “Well, most doosers are fashion-forward and strutty with it. That’s the dick part of it. But the one you’re looking for isn’t.”
“If he’s a teenager?”
Harvo puffed out her cheeks. “Used to be one myself. You’re a teen on a really low budget, you might have to settle. But most would scrimp, save, beg, whatever, to get a decent pair if they’re going to see Avenue A at Club Rock It.
“Kids judge, Dallas, and judge hard. Doofus? You don’t know any better because doofus. If he’s wearing this … Hang on.”
One more swivel, and she used her desk ’link.
“Hey, pal, how’s the partial coming? Uh-huh. Oh yeah. Dallas is right here, so I’ll pass that. Dog and fizz? I’m in. Cha.”
She turned to Eve. “My footwear counterpart thinks he’s going to pull a partial. No way for a full, but a partial, and if it rolls, he should have a brand or range of brands for you by noon. When we’re grabbing lunch.”
“I appreciate it, Harvo. All around.”
“We all live to serve, right? The protect part’s strictly on you.”
“Yeah. Well, cha.”
She wound her way back as Peabody came her way.
“Plenty of Junk, no pure. Not in over five years. Harvo?”
“Cheap, synthetic baggies. Or most likely baggies. She called them doofus-wear.”
“The cheap ones don’t hang right. Plus, they don’t last for shit. I bought a pair once for gardening or shopwork. Not even good for rags after a dozen washes.”
“That fits what she says. Would you wear a pair to a club?”
“Oh, eternal mortification hell no. My budget was so tight when I came to New York it cut off my air, but I’d have died of embarrassment wearing those out anywhere.”
“So either he can’t afford better or doesn’t know any better. They were new, so he bought them deliberately. He wanted to blend, so if he knew better, he wouldn’t have bought the cheap. And he had to plan, so time to squeeze the budget enough for decent.”
“So he’s fashion-declined. Unlikely to have friends who’d tell him how to dress.”
“Among other things.” As they walked, Eve’s ’link signaled a text. “Mira. She’s reading the file now. She’ll let me know when she has a window for the consult.”
“We know a little more about him.”
“Yeah. Start on the labs. He’s got to be young or look it. Maybe he’s a chem major—top grades. Maybe he’s a lab rat or an intern. Pure heroin. Where’s he getting it? Or how’s he making it? Growing his own poppies?”
“You’d need a hell of a lot, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know enough about it, but I’m going to find out.”
She paid the ridiculous parking fee.
“I need a cash machine.”
“It looked like you had plenty.”
“It’s Roarke’s.”
“Isn’t most of the cash in all the world Roarke’s?”
“Sure seems like it,” Eve muttered. “I’ll hit one at Central.”
“I know a little about harvesting medicinals. We didn’t do opium!” she said after Eve’s stony stare. “But I know a little, so I’m looking it up. You need opium poppies,” Peabody began, reading off her PPC. “Okay, a lot of steps. It takes about three months to grow and flower, then the petals fall and you’ve got the pod. The pod’s the ovary, where you get the opium. Then you have to cut the pod a certain way, with this curved knife, and extract the opium. It like drips out, secretes for a few days.”
“Time-consuming. Exacting.”
Down, Berenski said, to the microliter exacting.
“Yeah, and there’s more. So when the sap oxidizes, it makes a resin. You have to collect that with another knife and make it into bricks and wrap that up. And then there’s boiling and drying and more. Finally, you have to make a solution if you’re going to inject it, so you have to liquify it, boil it to get it in a syringe.
“And okay, like ten tons of the raw opium comes down to, after all this, about one ton of heroin.”
“If he’s making his own, he’s got land or a greenhouse and the facilities to go through the long, exacting process. But he doesn’t need a ton, does he? A couple of pounds would more than do.”
“Maybe he’s just buying it.”
“Cheap synthetic baggies. Pure heroin costs a lot more than a good pair of pants. Add the other drugs in.”
Eve changed angles. “Or, if he could afford but just didn’t know better, it’s science—his science. He had to come up with the formula. He knows his science, and can either make the stuff or peel off enough to experiment with it.”
She pulled into the garage at Central. “Start on the lab angle. I’m going to hit a cash machine, then try EDD, see where they stand.”
She drew out the exact amount Roarke had given her and put it in the pocket opposite the one she’d already pulled cash from.
They’d deal later.
She took the glides and thinking time to EDD, and found McNab and Feeney in the lab.
“We may have him,” Feeney said immediately.
“Where?”
Eve studied the screen and pointed before Feeney could answer. “This guy here. You can’t see his face, or much else because he’s keeping behind these two. Taller. And this one broad with it. He’s what, five-six?”
“That’s my take, and we can verify. We just hit. Time stamp’s twenty-one-twenty-three.”
“McNab, see if you can ID any of the group he’s blending with.”
McNab, bony hips twitching to his inner beat, nodded. “Working that now.”
“Black baggies, I can see that. Can’t see the footwear, the shirt. His fucking face. But … brown hair, right?”
“Reads brown. Can’t get a gauge on the length, ’cept it looks long in the front. This here?”
He froze the screen. “The way the hair falls over his face. Maybe wearing shades from how it falls, but it’s only a partial between the two guys in front of him.
“Can’t get skin color. He’s careful. But we don’t have the baggies, height, hair color, and that front length coming out again, so we may have him.”
McNab did a little dance in his not-cheap canary-yellow baggies. “Got two of them, Dallas. Sending names and contact info to your e’s now. I interviewed these two. They came with a group of five, all guys, between, ah, fifteen and seventeen. Came for the music and the babes.
“Give me a sec.”
He pulled out his portable, checked his notes.
“Yeah, yeah. One of these two, and two others in the group, danced with the vic and her friends. One time. Sort of together but not, but made some conversation.”
“Good. This is good.”
“I want to run all of it, then run it again,” Feeney told her. “Make damn sure.”
“Yeah, but this is good. It’s a strong good. Send me the names, McNab. I’ll contact for follow-up. We know more, so maybe we’ll get more. They’re working on the possible print off the scuff. Harvo said cheap synthetic blend on the fibers. And I’ve got the full formula for the cocktail injected. I’ll copy you on my report.”
“We’ll get the bastard, kid.”
She nodded at Feeney, then headed out.
She believed that. She’d always believed she’d track the bastard down. But would they get him before she stood with Morris over another teenage girl?
She swung into Homicide, and even with her mind elsewhere had to wince at Jenkinson’s tie.
Today’s offering had what she thought might be magic wands scattered all over a bloodred background. Each one shot a different glittery stream of color.
“LT.” He signaled her, forcing her to move closer to the eye burn. “My esteemed partner and I…”
He trailed off as Detective Reineke hiked up his pants leg to show off the white rabbit peeking out of a magic hat.
“Sweet color-blind Jesus.”
“We’re closing one we hit at oh-five hundred this morning.” Jenkinson fluttered his tie. “Investigative magic.”
“So you say.”
“Damn straight. We’re clear if you need any assist on the two girls.”
“Peabody, share the load on the chem lab angle with the two magicians. I need ten minutes—fifteen,” she corrected, “then we’re in the field. Follow-up interviews. We may have him coming in with a group, hiding his sorry ass behind them.”
“That’s big!”
“It’s something. We get more, it’s big. Add in approximately five-six, brown hair. If they get any other details or sightings, we’ll add those.
“Fifteen. Be ready to roll out.”
In her office, she hit coffee, then updated her board and book. She copied Mira, her commander, Feeney, and McNab on everything.
When she contacted the first boy, she found them both together at their summer job. Working at a deli only a few blocks away.
One more good, she thought, and walked back into the bullpen.
“Let’s go, Peabody. Detective Sergeant.”
Jenkinson looked over, sent her a grin. “Lieutenant, sir!”
“Watch the kids while I’m gone.”
“As always.”
Peabody waited until they were out of earshot. “I actually like today’s tie.”
“Don’t make me hurt you,” Eve warned, and took the glides down.