* * *
Eve walked into the bullpen at Central, and saw Jenkinson’s tie. She figured it would burn your corneas if you viewed it from space. It was as if an evil rainbow infused with acid had exploded. Swirls and streams of ferocious color covered every inch.
She swore they moved, as if alive.
She wondered whether, if he dropped any crumbs from the cruller he munched on, those swirls would absorb them. And grow.
Risking temporary blindness, she walked over to his desk.
“You said you got those ties off the street. Where?”
Jenkinson brushed crumbs off the tie. Eve imagined the swirls covering his hand, pulling him in, inch by struggling inch.
“A stand on Canal. He’s doing the street fair on Sixth on Sunday. You looking to get one for Roarke?”
“Sure, if I want him to have me committed. One day, one fine day, I’m going to do a drive-by of that stand, buy all the ties, and have them destroyed—it may take a vat of acid—for the public good.”
“Aw, LT. They got pizzazz.”
“I don’t think that word means what you think it means. Don’t even think about showing me your socks.” She pointed at Reineke, Jenkinson’s partner. “Don’t even think about it.”
And escaped to her office.
Coffee first, before she sat down to update her book and write up her notes, then a report. She updated her board with Roe’s ID shot, and, studying it, rolled around the idea that a woman would murder, or participate in murder—a complex and canny one—because her husband took a slap at work.
Nothing, absolutely nothing in her background suggested it.
Ponti, a hothead, might strike back, but she imagined he’d do so impulsively, potentially with some violence.
But she couldn’t quite see the two of them plotting this out.
“She’s got your number, too,” Eve murmured. “Knows you’re kind of a dick, but doesn’t seem to mind it.”
Thomas T. Thane, she thought. More than kind of a dick. Easier to see him planning it out, figuring a way to pay back the man who’d screwed up his life—as that’s how he’d see it.
Back to the mad scientist. Could Thane have hooked up with someone like that? Not impossible, and maybe—at the moment—the sharpest angle to pursue.
And pursuing it, she sat down to dig deeper into Thane. A college buddy, a client, a lover. Someone with the skill who’d work with him to kill. Or the opposite. Someone eager to kill, and Thane provided the target.
As she scoured through Thane’s past, her communicator signaled.
“Dallas.”
Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, report to 255 Wooster. Hazardous Forensic Team already dispatched due to potential poisonous fumes. Victim deceased. MTs, first on scene, and nine-one-one caller quarantined on scene until cleared. Hazmat protocol required until clearance.
“Copy that.” Eve was already up, grabbing her jacket. “Dallas out.”
She strode into the bullpen. “Peabody, with me. Now. We’ve got another one.”
9
By the time Eve and Peabody arrived, the special team had cleared the scene, released the MTs.
The hazmat team leader, CI Michaela Junta, met Eve at the door. Music, some sort of bouncy rock, played on the house speakers.
“Air’s clear and so’s the body. You’ll establish TOD, but I can tell you the nine-one-one caller, the victim’s mother, stated the vic’s husband and two sons would’ve left for work or school at about eight hundred hours. We’ve cleared her, and the two responding officers back in the kitchen area with her, also cleared.”
Junta blew out a breath. “The mother’s fighting to hold it together. It’s the same basic setup as the Abner killing, but they used a different delivery service. Allied this time out. The egg hit carpet, so it didn’t break. The agent dissipated, had to have done so, before the mother arrived.”
“You got the time on that?”
“She said she came in about eleven. Nine-one-one logged at eleven-sixteen. You probably saw there’s a security cam on the door, so you’ll check the feed there. We’ll stay out of your way until you give us the go.”
“Appreciate it. Peabody, find the hub, check the feed. I’ll take the body. Oh, and, Peabody, cut the music.”
“This way.” Junta led Eve through a tasteful living area where tall shelves held books—the real deal—photos, little trinkets, and into a home office/sitting room, with more of the same. There was a deep cushioned chair with tiny purple flowers against a cream background, and a footstool that matched. Beside it was a desk, with a mini-comp and desk screen. And the shipping box. A sharp-edged letter opener with a smooth white handle lay beside it. The fake wood box, identical to the one delivered to Abner, sat beside both.
The body lay on the floor, with what had expelled from it staining the cream-colored carpet.
The golden egg lay a couple of feet away, likely rolling or bouncing there after the victim dropped it.
“You know, you get jaded,” Junta began. “You’ve got to get some hard or you couldn’t face this, do what you have to do, every day. But I’m a mom, too, and I can’t imagine walking in and finding my daughter like this.”
Junta let out another breath. “So. We’ll stand by.”
Eve sealed up, then stayed where she was another moment to scan the scene. Fabric shades on the window—raised—but the window closed.
In her mind’s eye, she saw the victim taking the package at the front door, walking into what appeared to be her home office space. She placed the package on the desk, got the opener. Dug through the packing for the box. Set it down, opened it, took out the egg.
And opening that, released the agent and went down. From the placement and position of the body, she hadn’t tried to get to the window as Abner had. But then, he’d been a doctor, likely had a few seconds to understand what was happening.
This one never saw it coming.
Eve moved to her, avoided what she could of the fluids, did the official ID. And noted the same burns on the thumbs.
“Victim is identified as Elise Duran of this address. Age forty-four, Caucasian. Married to Jay Duran, age forty-six. Two sons, Eli, sixteen, Simon, fourteen.”
She took out her gauges. “TOD is established at ten-oh-two. The mother entered at approximately eleven—security feed to verify—so the agent dissipated within that time frame, as specialty team has tested and cleared the mother.
“No visible signs of physical trauma, no signs of struggle. She opened the egg, which we have intact, released the agent. Succumbed. ME to verify.”
Did you know Kent Abner? Eve wondered. Two kids, maybe he was their doctor.
What’s the connection?
She called for a dead wagon, flagged the body for Morris, added a note on COD.
“Dallas.” Peabody came to the doorway. “I got the feed. The package arrived at nine-fifty-four—male delivery guy in an Allied uniform. No other activity, in or out, until a woman—late sixties, early seventies—rang the bell at eleven-oh-three. She waited, then took a swipe out of her purse, used it. She had a bag—Village Bakery and Sweets, and a second bag from First Page Books. She carried them in. Next activity, the MTs—she let them in—at eleven-eighteen.”