“Why should I?” She headed for the door. “You get such a charge out of doing it for me.”
Roarke glanced down at the cat as he listened to his wife’s boots click down the hall. “That’s a point.”
In the conference room she’d booked at Central, Eve played the security disc from Moniqua’s building.
“We see here she’s more in line with Bryna Bankhead. Similar physical type, more sophisticated appearance and lifestyle. He uses yet another look himself here, which tells me he doesn’t like to repeat his character. Keeps it fresh for him. Same pattern, but he can walk through the performance from a new angle. Feeney?”
He picked up the rhythm. “According to the overscan of her home unit, he used the name Byron in correspondence with her. Probability indicates this is from the poet guy. Lord Byron. The e-mail messages go back two weeks.”
“Again, follows pattern. He takes his time. With this pattern he’d have studied her in real life. Finding a place near her apartment or her workplace. We check both.”
She glanced over as the door opened. Trueheart, young and ridiculously fresh in his uniform, flushed as heads turned in his direction. “Sorry. Excuse me, sir. I’m late.”
“No, you’re on schedule. Report?”
“Sir, subject Cline’s condition remains unchanged. No one without authorization entered her hospital room. I remained on post, inside the room, throughout the shift.”
“Were there any calls of inquiry relating to her?”
“Several, Lieutenant, beginning at approximately oh six hundred when the first media report hit. Five inquiries from reporters requesting medical information.”
“That jibes as I’ve had double that on my office ’link. Sign out, Trueheart. Go get some sleep. I want you to resume your post at the hospital at eighteen hundred. I’ll clear your duty sheet with your sergeant.”
“Yes, sir. Lieutenant? I appreciate you requesting me.”
Eve shook her head when he’d closed the door behind him. “Thanking me for sticking him with the most boring duty on or off planet. Okay, Roarke’s digging into Allegany. I want all pertinent data on J. Forrester, and this Theodore McNamara who’s currently dodging my messages. And we slog away at the online dealer. We concentrate on the chemicals. How, why, and where they get their supply.”
“My source in Illegals only came up with one strong possible,” Feeney said. “One known local dealer who specialized in the upper-end sex trade and made a profit. Name’s Otis Gunn, and he was in the swim about ten years ago. Had a pretty good line going until he got cocky and started cooking and serving his own Rabbit at parties.”
“What’s he up to now?”
“Year nine of twenty.” Feen
ey pulled a bag of nuts out of one of his sagging pockets. “Rikers.”
“Yeah? I haven’t visited the old homestead in a while. Wonder if they’ve missed me?” She broke off as her communicator signalled, paced away to answer. “I just cleared Louise through,” she said as she tucked the communicator away again. “She claims to have some information on last night’s hit.”
She looked at the case board, at the new picture she’d pinned to it. She’d kept Moniqua’s face separate from the dead. She wanted it to stay there.
When she turned back she saw something pass between McNab and Peabody. Something with just a little heat, so she looked away fast.
“Peabody, why don’t I have any damn coffee?”
“I don’t know, sir, but I will rectify that immediately.”
Peabody popped up, was actually humming under her breath as she programmed the AutoChef. And there was a bright look in her eyes when she carried the coffee to Eve.
“Eat any good pizza lately?” Eve muttered, and the light in Peabody’s eyes turned instantly to embarrassed guilt.
“Maybe. Just a slice . . . or two.”
Eve leaned in. “Ate the whole damn pie, didn’t you?”
“It was really good pizza. I sort of, you know, missed the taste of it.”
“No more humming on duty.”
Peabody squared her shoulders. “No, sir. All humming will cease immediately.”