The coffee was wearing off and the words beginning to blur when her communicator beeped.
“Dallas?”
“I’m going to get me a big sloppy tongue kiss.”
“I never said anything about tongues,” Eve said, and made a mental note to warn Mavis to keep her mouth locked tight when Dickhead was backstage. “What have you got, Dickie?”
“Something that should make even your cold, cold heart pitty-patter. I got a little swab of Seal-It off the edge of the tub.”
“Jesus, tell me you got a print, I’ll kiss you myself.”
“Cops always want a miracle.” He hissed out a breath, deflated. “What I got is Seal-It. My guess is he used it to protect his hands and feet, but he got a little carried away with it. You know what happens if you hit it too thick?”
“Yeah it glops some. You can knock or scrape it on something and end up leaving some behind. Damn it, Dickie, what the hell does a swab of Seal-It give me?”
“You want to hear this, or you want to mouth off? He knocked some of the seal off, probably when he was getting your guy thrust up for the last spin in the bubble tub. That’s why it’s pretty damn likely this little piece of fingernail I got, which my diligence and sharp skills located, is your killer’s.”
She held herself level. “Have you checked the DNA against Bayliss’s?”
“What do I look like? A moron?”
She opened her mouth, reminded herself she needed him, and virtuously shut it again. “Sorry, Dickie, it’s been a long night.”
“Tell me. It doesn’t match Bayliss. I got it—and I mean it’s barely a sliver, the little darling—off the underside of the tape. Got Bayliss’s hair with it. You figure that came off his arm, as that’s the location label on the evidence bag, but you don’t figure to get a piece of the dead guy’s nail on the under side of the tape, do you?”
“No, no, you don’t. Goddamn, Dickie, that’s good. That’s beautiful. I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“They all do, in the end. Got the prelim data coming through now.” He shot across the room on his favored rolling chair. “Male. Caucasian male. Can’t give you much more than that right now. You want me to try to pin down approximate age and heritage and all that happy stuff, it’s going to take time. And I ain’t got a lot of this sucker to work with. Could be I’ll find more. He broke the seal one place, might be he broke it another. So far, the only hair is from Bayliss.”
“Keep on it. Good work, Dickie.”
“Yeah. You know what, Dallas? You bring this guy in, we’ll nail him in court. Get it? Nail him.”
“Yeah, I get it. That’s a real knee-slapper.”
She cut transmission, sat back.
A sliver of a fingernail, she thought. Sometimes a man could hang for nothing more than that.
A sliver of a fingernail. Carelessness. The first small chink of it.
Thirty pieces of silver. Symbolism. Religious symbolism. If the victims were Judas, who was the Christ figure? Not the murderer, she decided as her mind drifted. Christ was the sacrifice, he was the pure. The Son. What was the phrase?
The only begotten Son.
A personal message to the primary. Conscience. The killer had a conscience, and his mistake with Kohli troubled him enough that he needed to soothe it by explaining, by justifying. And by setting up an ultimatum.
Bring down Ricker. It circled back to Ricker.
Ricker. The Son. Purgatory.
Roarke.
Business, she thought. Old business.
She was in bed, in the dark, but she wasn’t sleeping. It wasn’t safe to sleep, to let herself hide in dreams.
He was drinking, and he wasn’t alone.