Golden in Death (In Death 50)

“We appreciate your help.”

“You’re looking out for the love of my life. I’ll do everything I can. I want to say your Dr. Morris was very kind.” His eyes filled again. “Everyone’s been very kind. I wonder if it would be appropriate for me to contact Jay, to offer my condolences. And it’s possible we could jog each other’s memory of that term. Maybe tomorrow, after…”

“He spoke highly of you. I think he’d appreciate it.”

“Then I will. Tomorrow, after we say our goodbyes.”

When Peabody walked them out, Eve arranged for the warrant, then pulled out her notebook.

She wanted the names of the graduating class of Gold Academy from ’53. The names of students, and their parents, who were pulled out during Rufty’s first term. The instructors and administrators on staff at that time—those who stayed, those who left. Any and all students who were suspended or otherwise disciplined during that same timeline.

Had to be that time frame, she thought, or else why hit Duran? It had to stem from the changing of the guard.

The board of trustees, she mused. Did they pressure Grange to transfer?

She continued to make notes as Peabody came back. “We need the chemistry instructors, and let’s focus first on advanced students.”

“We’d be going young, just a few years out of college now, or maybe in grad school. What, like twenty-five?”

“Around your age. You too young to be a cop, Peabody?”

“Hell no.”

“And so.” Considering, Eve leaned back in her chair. “When I was still a beat cop, I had to chase down this street thief, and when I caught him, he pulled out a sticker, tried to slice me. He was ten. Anyway, we have the older type on the list, too. Greenwald—Grange’s ex.”

“He should be home in about an hour,” Peabody said. “His residence is on Riverside Drive. He has the entire top floor.”

“Pays to be clean. Check if Feeney can spare McNab, maybe Callendar. We’re going back to school.”

Eve went back to her office, and figuring a trip to the school, then a drop-by with Greenwald, potentially a pickup on the tablet, grabbed a file bag, gathered what she thought she might need to wind up the day with work at home.

“They’ll meet us at the car,” Peabody told her when she walked back into the bullpen. “It turns out Callendar knows somebody who went to Gold. He graduated after Rufty came on, so it might be another source.”

“A handy one.”

“Oh, and they got word on the naked running guy.”

“I’ve been on the edge of my seat about that all day.”

“Turns out,” Peabody continued, undeterred, as they got on the elevator, “he really is a runner. A marathoner. He had a whacked-out reaction to meds—prescribed for an injury—in combo with some homeopathic stuff he took. Stripped down and started running.”

“What do you bet he gets a sportswear or running shoes contract—maybe both—by the end of the day?”

Peabody pursed her lips. “That would be really smart. You should say something to Roarke.”

“If I thought of it, he thought of it before it actually happened. Like: Whatever Sportswear. The next thing to running naked.”

Surprised, Peabody let out a laugh. “Hey! That’s really pretty good.”

“It writes itself.”

In the garage, she crossed over to her slot, where McNab and Callendar already waited.

And here they had geekwear in Callendar’s purple (to match the streaks in her hair?) shirt, polka-dot baggies worn with rainbow suspenders, and purple high-tops.

McNab paired a shirt of plutonium green with orange baggies thinly striped in the same green, orange airboots, and a green knee-length floppy coat that all but glowed.

She supposed in