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“Why? Because I’m right?”
“Yes. And snotty about it.” But his smile warmed a little. “Why did you call?”
“So I could be snotty. I’m at the lab, about to tackle Dickhead. I’ve got a few stops to make after this. I’ll check in.”
It was a casual way to let him know she understood he worried. And he accepted, in the same tone. “I’ve several ’link conferences this afternoon. Call in on the private line. Watch your back, Lieutenant. I’m very fond of it.”
Satisfied, she swung into the lab. Dickie, the chief tech, was there, looking sleepy-eyed and pale as he stared at the readout on his monitor.
The last time she’d been in the lab, there’d been a hell of a party going on. Now those who’d bothered to come in worked sluggishly and looked worse.
“I need reports, Dickie. Wainger and Ring.”
“Jesus, Dallas.” He looked up mournfully, hunching his shoulders. “Don’t you ever stay home?”
Since he looked ill, she gave him a little leeway. Silently she opened her jacket, tapped the silver star pinned to her shirt. “I’m the law,” she said soberly. “The law has no home.”
It made him grin a little, then he moaned. “Man, I got the mother of all Christmas hangovers.”
“Mix yourself up a potion, Dickie, and get over it. Dave’s got number three.”
“Dave who?”
“Palmer, David Palmer.” She resisted letting out her impatience by cuffing him on the side of the head. But she imagined doing it. “Did you read the damn directive?”
“I’ve only been here twenty minutes. Jesus.” He rolled his shoulders, rubbed his face, drew in three sharp nasal breaths. “Palmer? That freak’s caged.”
“Not anymore. He skipped and he’s back in New York. Wainger and Ring are his.”
“Shit. Damn shit.” He didn’t look any less ill, but his eyes were alert now. “Fucking Christmas week and we get the world’s biggest psycho-freak.”
“Yeah, and Happy New Year, too. I need the results, on the rope, on the paper. I want to know what he used to carve the letters. You get any hair or fiber from the sweepers?”
“No, wait, just wait a damn minute.” He scooted his rolling chair down the counter, barked orders at a computer, muttering as he scanned the data. “Bodies were clean. No hair other than victim’s. No fiber.”
“He always kept them clean,” Eve murmured.
“Yeah, I remember. I remember. Got some dust—like grit between the toes, both victims.”
“Concrete dust.”
“Yeah. Get you the grade, possible age. Now the rope.” He skidded back. “I was just looking at it, just doing the test run. Nothing special or exotic about it. Standard nylon strapping rope. Give me some time, I’ll get you the make.”
“How much time?”
“Two hours, three tops. Takes longer when it’s standard.”
“Make it fast.” She swung away. “I’m in the field.”
She stopped at the morgue next, to harass the chief medical examiner. It was more difficult to intimidate Morse or to rush him.
No sexual assault or molestation, no mutilation or injuries of genitalia.
Typical of Palmer, Eve thought as she ran over Morse’s prelim report in her head. He was as highly asexual as anyone she’d come up against. She doubted that he even thought of the gender of his victims other than as a statistic for his experiments.
Subject Wainger’s central nervous system had been severely damaged. Subject suffered minor cardiac infarction during abduction and torture period. Anus and interior of mouth showed electrical burns. Both hands crushed with a smooth, heavy instrument. Three ribs cracked.
The list of injuries went on until Morse had confirmed the cause of death as strangulation. And the time of death as midnight, December twenty-fourth.
