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“Who could blame you?” Morris patted her arm when she joined them.
“We got our homicide, Peabody. Vic’s doing laps, maybe finishes up, or just stops when he sees someone. Grips the edging. Maybe says something…‘Hey, what’s up?’ But there’s no time for conversation. Have to get it done, get out. It’s a risk, but like with Foster, calculated. All you do is bend down, pump the syringe.”
Drawing off the goggles, she pictured it. “Had to be quick. No poison this time. He didn’t show any symptoms of any poison I know. Maybe the shock of the buzz on the scalp had him lose his grip, rap his chin. But…not a sedative. Too slow. He might have been able to make it out, or try. If he’d clawed at the edging, we’d have seen signs of that on his hands, his fingers. Numbed him, that’s what it did. Like the stuff MTs and doctors use to block pain and movements for some treatments. You’re awake, even aware on some levels, but you don’t feel anything, you can’t move anything.”
“And we are, once more, in accord.” Morris nodded. “I believe the tox results will come back with a standard surgical paralytic substance, injected through the scalp. Strong, fast-acting, and quite temporary.”
“Not temporary enough for him. He would’ve struggled. Strong guy, he’d have been able to keep his head up for a while, maybe try to float. There’s a set of stairs about five feet from where the sweepers found the skin. If he’d thought of it, tried to get there, prop his head…The killer might have had to help him out a little, hurry the process before someone wandered in. There are some long poles in there. Nets, brushes. Wouldn’t have taken much to nudge him under, keep him under until it was done.
“Then you just walk out, slide right back into the mainstream.”
“Slime bitch,” Peabody said, with relish. But Eve frowned.
“Morris, do you figure they keep paralytics in the nurse’s station at a private school?”
“They would probably have low doses of a basic number, for pain relief. But I can’t imagine they’d be authorized to have anything like this.”
“More likely the killer brought it in rather than took it from the school. So, impulse, passion is again unlikely. Prepared and calculated and controlled, while able to take risks.”
She’d run probabilities, she’d go back over every point, reevaluate time lines and wit statements. But for now, she looked back down at Williams.
“You were a sleazy son of a bitch, but you weren’t a killer after all. Whoever did Foster did you both.”
At Eve’s order, Peabody put in a request for a warrant to search Arnette Mosebly’s residence. Eve tapped her fingers on the wheel as she drove back to the school.
“Tag Reo back,” she decided. “I want a warrant for the Straffo residence.”
“You really think Allika Straffo might’ve done them?”
“I figure beautiful women know how to play, how to act the victim. I also figure Oliver Straffo’s a tough nut. Maybe he finds out his wife’s diddling with the teacher. And he finds out Foster knows and is considering blowing the horn. Protect the home front, protect the reputat
ion and your own personal pride.”
“Stretching.”
“Is it?” She sighed. “If I’d known about that vid they aired this morning, I’d have been tempted to hunt down the operator, the reporter, the producer, whoever I needed to find, and do them some bodily harm. I’d have rather kicked ass than feel humiliated publicly, then have to walk into that bull pen and feel it all over again.”
“Sorry. Um, can I just ask why that Magdelana whore-slut wasn’t in line for bodily harm?”
“I’d have saved her for last.” Eve’s fingers tightened and released on the wheel. “Which means I’d have probably blown my wad before I got to her, and still feel the way I do now. What’s the point?”
“Don’t say that, Dallas. You can’t—”
“It’s going back in the box.” Where it should have stayed, Eve reminded herself. “I only brought it out to illustrate a possibility we have to consider. Straffo’s a lawyer, and to give him his due, he’s a damn good one. He plans, he calculates, he strategizes. And as a defense lawyer he often knows going in that he’s doing all this to set the guilty free.”
“Lack of conscience.”
“We’re cops, we like to think that of defense lawyers. But it’s the job. That’s what it is. It’s their job, and it’s the law. But you have to have some stones to work at getting a killer, a rapist, an illegals dealer a walk—or a deal, for that matter. So he fits the profile, and we take a closer look.”
Just to be certain, Peabody checked her notes. “He wasn’t signed in this morning at the school.”
“No matter how good the security, there’s a way around it.” She’d learned that from Roarke. “And the security at the school is no more than decent. Something else that needs to be checked out more carefully.”
She’d have asked Roarke to help out in that area. That was a habit she’d fallen into, another kind of rhythm, she supposed. But she’d just do it without the aid of her expert consultant, civilian, this time around.
At the school, she uncoded the locks with her master, then stood inside, hands in her pockets, studying the security scanner.
The student or visitor was obliged to use the thumb plate—all prints of authorized students, guardians, staff, and faculty were on file. Guests were required to be cleared before entry. Bags were scanned for weapons and illegals.
