J. Robb - Delusion in Death

“You still favor the leg,” Eve pointed out.

“Some, but it holds.”

She’d lost weight as well since her injuries. A header down a glide while being chased by a fellow cop who planned to kill you tended to screw up the appetite. “Your new LT working out?”

“He’s good. Anything’s an improvement over Oberman, may she rot in her cage for the rest of her miserable life. But he’s good. Solid. The squad feels like a squad now that we swept the dirt out.”

“Grab some pizza and a chair. We’ll get started.”

She waited until she had the full team in the room, noted that Teasdale introduced herself to Mira, and took a seat beside the doctor. And that, as was his habit, Roarke opted to lean against the wall rather than sit.

“As you’ve been informed,” Eve began, “we have a consultant from HSO. Agent Teasdale will be given access to all case files, reports, and data, and will share any data she acquires during the course of her consult.

“Between twelve-fifty-five and thirteen hundred this afternoon the occupants of Café West were exposed to the same chemical substance identified at On the Rocks. The ME and lab have confirmed. There are forty-four additional dead. The smaller venue, and the quick response by patrol officers resulted in more survivors. Jenkinson, Reineke.”

“We talked to some survivors and wits on scene,” Jenkinson began. “The uniforms stunned anybody who advanced, and that kept them breathing. Most of them were dazed, not yet lucid. Some of the injuries were severe, and we lost a couple more as a result.”

“We talked to some of the injured at the hospital.” Reineke picked up the report. “The ones who were able to remember mentioned the onset of a headache followed by hallucinations, anger, fear. It’s a resplay, LT.”

“We got Lydia McMeara examined, as ordered,” Jenkinson told her. “She’s got mild inflammation, nose and throat. They ran her blood. She’s got some trace of the chemical. She was jittery, Dallas, but it’s hard to tell if that’s the chemical or shock. One of the women she was with, Brenda Deitz, is in the morgue. The other’s in the hospital, in critical.”

“We got two survivors …” Reineke gestured to the board, got Eve’s nod. He rose, walked to the board with IDs of survivors.

“Patricia Beckel and Zack Phips. Each stated they’d known someone who was killed yesterday. On further questioning, Beckel identified her neighbor Allison Nighly, and Phips a coworker, Macie Snyder. We pursued with five more survivors. Three of those knew a total of seven of the dead or injured from the bar. The remaining four survivors were in surgery or unable to be questioned. We’ll follow that up.”

“So out of the eight survivors you were able to question on this point, five had a connection to one or more victims from the first incident.”

“Yeah, that’s more’n half, Loo. I call bullshit on coincidence.”

“I second that bullshit. Keep on it. Following that theme. Baxter?”

“We’ve been doing the cross, employment, relations, residence. Survivors, vics, wits, persons of interest. Our boy Trueheart made a graph.”

“It’s more of a spreadsheet.” Trueheart, young and built in his uniform, flushed a little. “There’s a lot of cross, Lieutenant, like you figured. I programmed it so it’s easier to see. Peabody loaded it if you want it on screen.”

“I do. Peabody.”

When it flashed on, Eve rocked back on her heels as she scanned. “Run the numbers, Trueheart.”

“Sir?”

“Run it through. Explain.”

He looked a little ill, but he rose, took the laser pointer she handed him. “We’ve grouped them by type—DB, wit, survivor, POI. We cross that with places of employment and residence. An additional cross with relations. We highlighted areas of connection—blue for employment, green for residence, yellow for relationships.”

“It’s colorful,” Eve commented.

“Yes, sir. We anticipated considerable employment connections as both scenes catered to the offices in that area. And as you suggested, there’s also additional matches with residences. The numbers drop off with relationships, but as you can see there are crosses there, too. The highest percentage of connections involve Stevenson and Reede for place of business, excluding the crime scenes themselves, sir. For residence, the highest percentage of connection ranges along this block of Franklin. A probability scan has a sixty-eight-point-three the target or targets and/or perpetrator or perpetrators work or worked in, um, the highlighted triangulation.”

He cleared his throat. “With more time, I think I can eliminate some of the connections and refine the results.”

“Do that.” Geography, she thought again. Geography and relationships. “Give Feeney a copy. I want this transferred to a board we can work on. That’s good work, Trueheart, Baxter. Feeney, will you run the EDD report?”

She stepped away, pulled out her ’link when it signaled, then slipped out of the room.

When she came back, Feeney had several ID shots on screen.

“We don’t need all of them,” she told him. “Just her. Just Jeni Curve.”

Feeney’s eyes narrowed. “You got something.”

“She’s the source. I asked Morris to do a secondary exam on her and the others you’ve got up there. Curve’s tox levels were significantly higher than the other vics, the inflammation more pronounced. At this time forensics is testing her clothing, and the minute pieces of glass recovered from her jacket pocket.

“Morris has also determined that Macie Snyder, a vic from the first incident, exhibits those same elevated levels. Her clothing is also being examined at this time. She was the source on the first.

“Peabody, bring up Trueheart’s chart again.”

“Yes, sir. There’s no connection between them,” Peabody said when the data was on screen.

“Yeah, there is. It’s just not highlighted yet. We’ll use red for the killer. It fits. Replay Curve’s security image. Walking into work. Stops, smiles, waves, calls out what lip-reading program makes out as No prob. I’ll put it in for you . He gave her the substance—a vial, a little bottle. Or slipped it into her pocket without her noticing. Either way, she didn’t have a clue. Maybe he asks her to order him a sandwich, a bowl of soup, whatever. Has to run next door or across the street for a minute. She knows him, she’s served his lunch plenty of times. No prob. I’ll put it in for you .”

“But CiCi Way, the friend who survived the first attack, didn’t say anything about Snyder being approached,” Peabody began. “Wait. Bumped into someone at the bar. She said Macie bumped into somebody at the bar.”

“Crowded, talking, bump—easy to drop it into her pocket. He’s ballsy,” Eve observed. “He’s plenty ballsy. Unseal or open the container, drop it into a pocket, walk away. The couple minutes he’s exposed in the bar—if that long—doesn’t worry him.”

She lifted her eyebrows when Teasdale raised her hand. “Agent?”

“I would like to know the nature of the substance. Has your lab fully identified it, or—”

“We have it. Peabody, put up the lab report.”

When it came up—all those long, strange scientific names, all the odd symbols, Teasdale folded her hands in her lap, studied and nodded.

“I see. Concentrated, and with the synthetic … But it would require … Hmm. Yes, I believe I see. I’d like to have a copy of this formula, and any data pertaining to it. I assume you’ve verified my security clearance.”

“You assume correctly. Peabody, copy the nerd file for Agent Teasdale. No offense.”

Again, that slight smile. “Absolutely none taken. As you appear to be both efficient and thorough, I assume you know the genesis of this formula.”