Delusion in Death (In Death 35)

“And that’s suspect? The clean and tidy among us?”

“He also has a brother. Christopher Lester. The brother’s a chemist, with a lot of letters after his name, who heads up a fancy, private lab. The incident happened on his day off. He knows the ins and outs of the place, and could have planted the substance at any time. Maybe it was on some sort of trigger, timer. We don’t know yet. Devon’s going to personally notify the rest of the staff, and get a lot of attention. He’s center there.”

“Christ Jesus.”

“Look, notification sucks. Unless you’re telling people when you want the reaction. He spent the day with the art teacher. Nice alibi. I bet we’ll be able to confirm with SoHo galleries, with the restaurant where they had lunch. All clean and tidy again.”

“You see him as a potential mass murderer—of people he worked with every day—because his brother’s a chemist, and he has an alibi?”

“Did you hear Mira? I agree with her profile. The killer knows that bar, works at it or patronizes it. He’ll try to insert himself in the investigation, which Devon Lester just did. His reaction hit all the right notes, sure, and no, it didn’t seem faked. But whoever did this would have intended to talk to the cops, to others, and would have prepared. I have to factor all of that in.”

“You’re right. I don’t like it.” He shoved up, circled the room. “But the fact so many people are dead outweighs that. What now?”

“I want to go by the lab, see if there’s anything new, give Dickhead a push if I have to.”

“A bribe, you’re meaning.”

“I better not have to bribe him for this. But if I do, it’s nice to have my deep pockets with me.” She stood. “I want to talk to Shelby Carstein because I’m going to be giving the hard eye to anybody who walked out of that bar before the infection. Then I need to think. I want to check in with Morris on the way.”

“I’ll drive.”

“Figured.” She pulled out her ’link to contact Morris as they headed down to the garage.

Dick Berenski, chief lab tech, hunched over his station with its series of comps like a gargoyle. His egg-shaped head rose over the shoulders of the lab coat he’d tossed over a screaming orange shirt and plum-colored skin-pants. She sincerely wished she’d lived her entire life without seeing Dickhead in skin-pants.

He sported a gold hoop in his ear—a new touch, and fancy, textured shoes that matched the pants.

He gave her a sour look. “I was at a club. Salsa.”

She made a new wish, that she would never in her lifetime observe him doing salsa. “Gee, sorry for the inconvenience. I bet the eighty-three dead people are a little put out, too.”

“I’m just saying. I’ve been to that bar, you know. They have a good happy hour.”

“Not today.”

“Guess not. Tox screen’s over the roof, every one of ’em we’ve processed. You got that already.”

“Give me more.”

“Sent a runner over to get samples from the survivors so

we’d have a mixed group. Had to consider those who made it handled the substance different, or the substance reacts different if your brain’s still functioning, your heart’s still beating or whatnot.”

“Okay. And?”

“Same deal. It’s quick. In and out. Most drugs are going to give you a longer buzz—I mean, what’s the point in a twelve-minute ride?”

“Twelve minutes is confirmed?”

“That’s how long the effects last. Twelve minutes—give or take a minute depending on the size, weight, age of the vic, and how much alcohol or medication, illegals, food consumed. So it’s an eleven-to-fifteen-minute window, but average time is twelve.”

He scooted on his stool, played his long, skinny fingers over a screen. “What I did was mock up the substance. Got pretty damn close. I’m working on synthesizing a couple of the elements more exactly, but we’ve got the base here.”

“You can do that?”

He smirked. “Ain’t much I can’t do. I tried comp reconstruction, but the real deal’s going to give you more data. I put four micrograms together, infected a couple rats. Those fuckers went bat-shit. It wasn’t pretty either. It was kind of funny for a second or two, then … it wasn’t.”

“They killed each other.”