“Yeah. It’s Cosner, Marshall Cosner. It looks like he was packing up another poison egg, and had a little lab accident.” Her eyes narrowed. “That’s how it’s supposed to look.”
“Very handy he’d have that accident the night before you’d have him in the box,” Roarke commented.
“Yeah, isn’t it? He went whining to Whitt, that’s what he did, and Whitt found a way to cut his losses. The thing is, he wouldn’t expect us to find Cosner so fast. Wouldn’t expect us to find this place. There were more eggs up there, a whole lab set up, a shipping prep area. Boxes, packing stuff. But he’s not stupid enough to come back here.”
Thinking, thinking, she paced the sidewalk. “No, he’s done here. Maybe he took some of it with him. Maybe he really is cutting his losses. He’ll let it end with Cosner. Can’t continue the fun with Cosner dead and have us pile the blame on Cosner.”
“He’ll figure he has plenty of time and room now,” Feeney added. “You were taking the DB in the box tomorrow.”
“Yeah, we had that set.”
“So when he doesn’t show, we go looking. We find something that clicks to this place, find it, find him. And there’s your dead guy, piles of evidence, killed by the same method he used to kill, which has a nice clang to it.” Feeney nodded as he studied the building. “Asshole figures case closed.”
“Yeah, and he’ll have a cover for tonight. But it’ll have a hole somewhere. Cosner was a follower. No way he came here tonight, all wound up about the interview tomorrow, and decided, on his own, to pack up another egg.”
“And without precautions,” Roarke added. “Would you, knowing what’s inside the egg, handle it without a suit? Or the very least gloves and a mask?”
“No, and good point.”
Harvo, who perched on the hood of Jenkinson’s ride, ticked a finger in the air. “You have to figure, right, the other bad guy was here—sometime or the other. Right?”
Eve glanced back. “Had to. He runs the show.”
“On average, a human sheds between fifty and a hundred hairs a day. Some experts say up to two hundred, but I lean more toward a hundred. Average.” She smiled. “We’d only need one.”
“It’s a big place, Harvo, with cleaning droids, and without any way—at this point—to confirm when the suspect was last inside.”
Tonight, Eve thought. She’d make book on it, but …
Harvo angled her head, spread her fingers to examine glossy blue nail polish. “Do you doubt the queen?”
She’d be a fool to, Eve admitted. “Okay, Harvo, once the specialty team clears the building, you can go in, take a look.”
“Mag-o!” She hopped down from the hood. “Will you hold off the sweepers, let me have first pass?”
“I can do that.”
“Even more mag-o. Can I get a lift to the lab and back? I need some stuff.”
“McNab,” Feeney said. “Take my ride.”
When the uniforms arrived, Eve had them set up barricades, start the canvass. Then she waited as the specialty team donned their protective suits.
When Junta came out a few minutes later, she walked straight to Eve. “The air’s clear, but I need you and your team to stay out. There’s another egg loaded, and there are hazardous chemicals. We need to secure and remove before I can clear you in.”
“How long?”
“I’ll let you know. And I’ll tell you something, Dallas. Whoever was living in that place, in the same place we’ve already found and identified sarin, chlorine gas, sulfur trioxide, fricking anthrax? They’re a fucking lunatic.”
“Were,” Eve said.
“Yeah. Well, let’s all stay alive.” She replaced her hood, started back.
21
It took nearly an hour, but that gave Morris time to arrive on scene. He wore a jacket over a light sweater and jeans, and had his hair in a loose tail rather than a complex braid.
Which told Eve he’d been at home, relaxing.