Chaos in Death (In Death #33.5)(26)

“Hmm? Sorry.” She jumped down. “Pops out,” she continued. “Maybe gets into his gear here. Lockers, bathroom. Sweepers could find traces of the makeup. Would he be stupid enough to leave something in a locker?”

“Shall I open them?”

“When we get a warrant.”

“Stickler,” he said and made her smile.

“I could claim they’re part of the crime scene, which they are, so the PA could probably hold that line. But a defense attorney would make noises, so a warrant keeps it clean.”

She set her hands on her hips, turned a slow circle. “Was he meeting Billingsly here? In it together, there’s a disagreement, death ensues. I don’t like it. This guy works alone. Billingsly got nosy, then got dead. The killer wasn’t expecting company. He came in for the serum, and he got it. Billingsly’s a bonus round.”

“Why didn’t he go out the way he came in?”

“Too hyped up from the kill to care,” she concluded. “By then, leaving where he’d be caught on disc—if he thought of it—just added some fun. Look at me!”

Peabody came to the doorway. “I tagged Cher Reo,” she said, speaking of the APA. “She was about to call me a very bad name, but I showed her the body.”

“Good thinking,” Eve told her.

“She’s all over the warrant.”

“Okay. When the morgue gets here, I want the skin sent to the lab ASAP. I want that DNA the same way. I need something for a bribe. Something really good,” she told Roarke. “For Dickhead.”

Chief Lab Tech Dick Berenski wouldn’t drag himself to work in the middle of the night for less than a first-class bribe.

“Two tickets, skybox, first game of the World Series, with locker-room passes.”

“Excellent, but we’re still in play-offs.”

“Wherever it is—transpo included.”

“Nice. I’ll start with one, let him squeeze me for the second ticket—which he will. I’ll tag him on the way to Security. I want to see those discs. Peabody, wait for the morgue and the sweepers. I want that skin hand-carried to the lab. And I want to know as soon as the warrant comes through.”

In Security, Eve studied the screen, the movement, the face. She ordered magnification, ordered freeze, replay.

“Gotta be a new strain of Zeus, or something like it. Along with some serious prosthetics. Nothing’s quite right about him. It’s almost as if his whole body’s disjointed.”

She magnified again to study the hands. Gloved, she noted, with long, sharp nails slicing through the tips. Then went back to the face.

“He couldn’t have taken those bites out of the vic wearing that gear. So he didn’t put it on until after the kill. Or he can manipulate it, because the bites had puncture marks like those pointed incisors he’s got. What is his deal?”

“Totally freak show,” was McNab’s opinion.

Eve glanced at the e-man, and Peabody’s cohab. He wore his long blond hair in a tail secured with silver rings that matched the half dozen hanging from his earlobe. His skinny frame vibrated with color from the many pocketed baggies in Day-Glo orange that picked up the zigs in his shirt.

The zags were nuclear blue.

“You’re wearing that getup and talking freak show.”

He grinned. “Easy to find these pants in the dark.”

“It’d be easy to spot them on Mars in the night sky with the naked eye.”

“They blind the bad guys,” he claimed, still grinning. “Anyway, Dallas, it looks real. This guy, I mean. He looks real.”

“Nothing about this guy looks real,” she corrected. “I want you to take this in to EDD for a full anal.”

She looked down at her com when it signaled. “Warrant’s in. Let’s open those lockers.”

“You’re not going to like this,” Roarke said as they walked back. “But I agree with McNab.”

“Yeah, I figure those pants could blind somebody if they stared at them too long.”

“Something I try to avoid. I also have to agree with him that your killer doesn’t look as if he’s wearing a disguise.”

“Because it’s a combination. Disguise and some kind of powerful drug.”

“How does he blink?”

That put a hitch in her stride. “What?”

“If his eyes aren’t real, if he’s using devices for the size, the shape, how does he blink? He looked directly at the security camera at several points, and his eyelids closed and opened. He smiled, if you can call it that. His jaw shifted, his mouth turned up. And we both saw him contort his body in impossible ways, and move at considerable speed.”

He did have a damn good eye, she thought.

“If he’s a scientist—and he damn well is—he’s figured out how to devise something, and he’s taking something that boosts his adrenaline. Monsters exist,” she added. “But they’re flesh and blood. They’re human, just like the rest of us. It’s what’s inside them that’s twisted. This guy isn’t some Frankenstein monster.”

“Actually, I was thinking of another classic. Mr. Hyde.”

“You’ve got to lay off those old vids,” she commented, and led the way to the lab.