Golden in Death (In Death 50)

Father, mother, stepmother, brother, half sister. All living, though none in the New York area. The half sister carried a little trouble along the way. Teenage shoplifting, truancy, underage drinking, possession of illegals. Married at eighteen—Jesus, who did that? Divorced at nineteen (surprise!). But no violent crimes, no major bumps. Just what looked like a long, rough patch that smoothed out in the mid-twenties.

Now a moderately successful writer of children’s books, married, two offspring, and settled in St. Louis.

She combed through his family, moved into his college years, med school ye

ars. And heard Peabody coming down the hall.

Her partner carried a fizzy and a tube of Pepsi.

“I thought you might want to switch it up from coffee about now.”

“Yeah, probably. Thanks.”

Peabody sat—gingerly—on the ass-biting visitor’s chair. “I got what you’d expect from the interviews with Louise’s staff and volunteers. People liked Abner. One of the med-van crew even admitted to having a little crush on him. Harmless,” Peabody added when Eve’s eyes narrowed. “He’s in a long-term relationship, was, in fact, throwing a birthday party for his partner at the time of the drop-off. It came off sort of like how I have this little crush on Roarke. You know.”

“Do I?”

Peabody shrugged, grinned, slurped some fizzy. “Abner tried to work in one run a month in the mobile, and none of that crew remembered any issues, any problems.”

“Somebody had one with him.” Eve cracked the tube. “Assassination.”

Now Peabody’s eyes narrowed. “You think it was a professional hit?”

“No. A pro would’ve killed him low-key. Gutted him on one of his runs, slit his throat on his way home one night. But assassination in that it’s target specific for a specific purpose, and contained to that target and purpose. Cold-bloodedly, precisely.”

“But what’s the purpose? We’ve got nothing on motive.”

“There’s always a motive, even when it’s ludicrous, petty, stupid, or just plain crazy. I’m looking at his history. Family, education, prior relationships, business dealings. Something’s in there.”

“Or.” Peabody shot up a finger. “Random specific.”

“What the hell is that?”

“If we follow the crazy, we have somebody, skilled, knowledgeable, who either by accident or on purpose develops this poisonous agent, and decides he wants to try it out. So now he works on a delivery system, then he has to pick a subject for the rest of the experiment. Maybe he knew Abner, maybe he just saw him on the street, decided he’d do. Maybe they struck up a conversation in a bar or Abner’s a friend of a friend’s cousin, but he decided on Abner.”

“Cold-bloodedly,” Eve added.

“Yeah. Like a mad scientist, and Abner’s just a lab rat to him, right? He has to continue his research, note down the subject’s habits, schedule, familiarize himself with the neighborhood rhythm. It’s all part of the experiment. He ships the package, waits for the results.”

“Wouldn’t you want to see the results? Note how long it took the subject to die? How his system reacted?”

“Yeah, there’s a flaw,” Peabody admitted. “But mad scientist, and being a mad scientist doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have some basic sense of self-preservation. Plus … how do we know he didn’t? The body wasn’t discovered for hours. Lots of windows in the house. Position yourself somewhere, stroll that way after the delivery. Mini pair of binocs. Or scientist—maybe you rig up a heat sensor. You can’t actually see the subject, but you can watch his heat mirror on your screen, time it. Like that.”

Eve sat back, rolled it over, scanned the board. “It could play. It’s a solid theory, Peabody.”

“It feels like if the motive is actually the result, that equals random specific. There’s a problem with it.”

“Which is?”

“Well, remember when you did science stuff, lab stuff in school?”

“I try not to.”

On a laugh, Peabody drank more fizzy. “I liked the lab stuff a little. Cooking and baking are like kitchen science. Or magic, depending. Anyway, some lab experiments need to be repeated with the exact same factors to prove the hypothesis or whatever.”

“If we go with your mad scientist theory, Peabody, he was always going to do it again. It worked. You don’t quit while you’re ahead.”

“You’re supposed to quit while you’re ahead.”