Delusion in Death (29 page)

“Stone, any updates on the illegals?”

“I found a fresh source for Zeus that’s going to make my lieutenant
happy, but it doesn’t look like it connects to this. The LSD’s running cold, but I’m still pulling on it. I poked, and can tell you there haven’t been any on-record requisitions from Christopher Lester or his lab for the ingredients necessary to create the agent. Not in the last two years I was able to access.”

“All right, keep pulling.”

“Lieutenant? I think he’s got a legit source. I mean, a lab or chemical distributor. Some way to access the synthetics, the LSD off the street. I think he’s got a connection.”

Strong shifted as Eve waited for her to elaborate. “This guy? He’s not a street guy. He’s a suit. Nothing in his background shows he used, has or had any street connections. Some suit tries to make a buy like he’d have to for this? It should pop out. Going underground, overseas, even off-planet. There’s not even a whiff. There should be.”

“I agree,” Teasdale put in. “Added to it, he has no experience in this kind of chemistry. While he may follow the formula, I believe he’d need someone to show him how to set up, what he’d need, how to handle the elements. This is advanced work, and I don’t think a novice could accomplish it without guidance.”

“So, back to a chemist. Stone, have a talk with Christopher Lester. See if he has any ideas on where Callaway could access the synthetics. What labs in the area—because it’s going to be in New York—routinely handle that sort of thing. There’s a connection. Find it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Russell Callaway’s a medic, now into farming. Maybe he’s got a chemical source, or has some experience there. Farms use chemicals. Callendar, see what you can find out, see if the Callaways bought any strange chemicals in the last few months.”

“On that.”

“Doctor Mira, if I could have a minute. Peabody, take a deeper dig
on the Callaways’ financials. See if there’s any indication they’ve gotten any scratch from the grandmother out of England, or made any unusual purchases from a chemical distributor.”

She waited till the room cleared. “There are a lot of ifs,” she told Mira. “I need you to work with them. Let’s start with if Audrey Hubbard knew where she came from, knew her own story and passed that onto her son, does his background data give any indication?”

“It would depend, of course, how the information was related. All indications are Callaway had a reasonably normal childhood, though he would have needed to adjust to several moves during his formative and teenage years. While he was a loner, he was also uprooted several times during those formative years, and this makes it difficult to form lasting relationships. His records show no discipline problems, no juvenile record.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. Normal, normal, but all those relocations. Did they relocate because of the father’s itchy feet, or because there was something hinky with the kid?”

“Hinky?” Mira repeated.

“Yeah, hinky. He’s acting up, or causing some sort of concern, so you pick up and move, start again. The Hubbards did that—only once, but they picked up, moved, started over. Let’s try this.”

She stepped to the board, tapped Callaway’s photo. “He didn’t know, either because his mother didn’t know, or opted not to tell him. He finds out, comes across some sort of information, or somebody slips up and says something that makes him wonder. He goes back, hunts for the information.”

She tapped Audrey Hubbard’s then Menzini’s picture in turn.

“What’s a loner by nature, with no solid or lasting relationships, who feels he’s stuck on the promotion ladder because other people are getting the breaks going to do about that?”

“You think he found out Menzini was his grandfather, and this was his trigger, or his excuse, to kill.”

“His trigger or excuse to use his grandfather’s method to make a statement, to punish, to advance himself, to use others to kill. To be important. And by doing so eliminate two coworkers, both of whom he could consider in his way. A violent nature suppressed for so long, given release. Given, in a way, permission. This is who I am, where I came from. At last I know.”

“He was raised, by all appearances, by two decent people.”

“I don’t know that yet. What I have is an older, potentially dominant father. A mother who lived her life caring for others—her parents, then her child. He’d see that as weak.”

“Do you?”

“I see it as a choice—not one I’d make for damn sure, but a choice. Unless she’s been pushed into it, which I intend to find out. I don’t look at Callaway and see myself, if that’s what you’re worried about. Bad blood? I’ve got it, but it’s not an excuse to live a crappy life. It sure as hell isn’t an excuse to kill. Maybe I’ve got a violent nature, but I channel it. Mostly.” She shrugged. “I need to bring him in before he decides to do it again. I have to keep him in, because if he walks out, he’s going to do it again. He’ll find a way. I have to know him, know where to drill. I need his trigger.”

“Until you’ve talked to the mother—and I’d also like to talk to her at some point—it’s only speculation.”

“I may not have time to pull it out of the mother first, and I’ll take your speculation over most people’s absolutes.”

Mira drew in a breath, looked from Callaway to Audrey Hubbard to Menzini. “Then, he knows. How he found out, I can’t possibly say, but in my opinion, the knowledge didn’t repulse him, didn’t upset or concern. On the contrary, it freed him.”

“Okay.” She nodded. “Okay. I can work with that.”

“He’s nothing like you.”

“Damn right he’s not.”

Mira turned away from the board, focused fully on Eve. “You’ve come to some level of … is it peace?”

“I don’t know about that. I’ve got a mass murderer to take down, and I don’t feel peaceful about it.”

No, she realized, she felt revved. She felt ready. She felt right.

“But I’m good. Quick version—I had a dream, about this, about Stella. You made a cameo appearance. I finished it off punching Stella in the face. That violent nature, I guess. It felt right, just. It felt almost finished. Pretty much done. And I look at him?”

She turned to the board, again to Callaway. “And I see, yeah, I could’ve gone another way. I didn’t. And I like where I am. Most of the time I like who I am. That’s got to be good enough.”

“It’s very good.”

“I punched her in the face,” Eve repeated. “Stella. What do you think about that?”

“I think congratulations are in order.”

The laugh surprised her. “Is that like
brava
?”

“Yes, in fact, I’ll say that.
Brava
.”

“Roarke nailed that one,” Eve murmured. “So, anyway, I’m going to put a lid on it by telling Peabody what went down in Dallas. I’ve avoided that, just wasn’t ready to spill it out. It’s not right to hold back from a partner, so I’ll get that over. And it’s done. As done as I can make it.”

“If you need me, I’m here.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have made it through this without you. It’s not easy for me to say that, or to know that. But it’s not as hard as it used to be.”

“That’s also good enough. I’ll leave you to work. When Agent Teasdale arranges for the Callaways to come in, as I have no doubt she will, I’d like to sit in. Or at least observe.”

“I’ll save you a seat.”

She went directly to her office, noted her blinking incoming for data and for messages. She found the bulk of the messages from reporters trying to skip through channels for the story. She forwarded them on to Kyung, with a brief update.

The incoming data reminded her just how many dead lay in Morris’s house, how much of them was even now being dissected, analyzed, studied in the lab.

Though she found nothing new, no game changer, she added the new data on each body processed to her murder book.

She checked on surveillance. Callaway was in his office. Unless he decided to cut loose in his own department, he was as secure as she could make him at the moment.

So she grabbed her coat, walked out to the bullpen.

“I’m not finding anything off on the financials,” Peabody told her. “The Callaways live within their means, have a small, but steady nest egg. No major income or outlay in the last year. And no purchases of weird chemicals. They’re organic farmers.”

“Let that go for now. I want to talk to Cattery’s wife, get a feel. If there’s time, we’ll do the same with Fisher, talk to her roommate.”

“I’m all about it.” Peabody popped right up. “I feel like I’m swimming in the data stream and getting nowhere. Hey, I talked to Mavis,” she added, pulling on her coat as they headed out. “She couldn’t reach you so she tagged me last night.”

“I talked to her this morning.”

“They’ve got Belle swimming.”

“I heard.”

“I talked to my parents, too.” Peabody jumped on the glide behind Eve. “They’re worried, you know, just getting all that bullshit from the media. I told them enough to calm them down some, and to make sure they didn’t decide to rev up the camper and drive to New York. They were out of the Urbans, you know.”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Well, they were young, really just getting started when all that went on. Just a couple of Free-Ager kids doing their commune thing. They made clothes, grew food for people who needed it, but they were never in the hot areas.”

“It’s good they were.”

“My dad said he can’t remember hearing about Red Horse at the time. It was after, like a history book footnote. A lot of people barely heard of them, or not at all. I bet everyone’s heard of them now.”

Eve paused before they transferred to the garage elevator. “That’s a point, isn’t it? It could, maybe should’ve been a major deal, but it not only got crushed, it got buried. Some footnotes for historians and researchers, but no big play. Until now.”

“Do you think that’s what he’s after?”

“I think he’s a selfish, bastard coward, but it’s a factor. His grandfather might have been up there with Hitler given more time, more exposure. The powers that be snatched away his infamy. Recognition’s part of it.”

“Jeez, who’d want to be Hitler’s grandson?”

“People who think white’s right, lunatics, and selfish bastard cowards who want recognition.”

“Yeah, I guess there are those, but …”

“Your Free-Ager’s showing, Peabody. A lot of people are no damn good, and a lot of those people are proud of it.”

She got in the car. Maybe that was an opening, she thought as she programmed Cattery’s address.

“You should know what went down in Dallas.”

“With McQueen?”

“With McQueen’s partner.” She drove out of the garage, concentrated on traffic. It might be easier to lay it out if she had to pay attention to the external. “She was no damn good, and I’d say she was proud of it.”

“She was as fucked up as he is. Maybe more.”

“Yeah.” It tightened her belly to hear it, but she could live with it. That was the key, she reminded herself. Just living with it. “When we were looking for his partner, running the list and images of women who’d visited him in prison, something about her—as Sister Suzan—kept pulling me back. I thought maybe I’d busted her sometime, or interviewed her. Same deal with her other IDs. Just something that tugged, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

Curious, Peabody shifted toward Eve. “Had you busted her?”

“No.”

“Maybe you just recognized the type. Instinct kicking in.”

“That’s what I thought, but that wasn’t it. Or not all of it. You read the reports. You know we had her and her place covered. We were right there when she walked out of that townhouse, going to meet up with McQueen. Bad luck. A kid on a bike, a little dog, oncoming car. She made us, took off.”

“I wish I’d been there. I probably wouldn’t have at the time, flying down the streets after her van, crashing. You got banged up.”

“Not bad, it wasn’t bad.” A little bloody, a little bruised, Eve thought. The bad came later.

“She got banged up more—no air bags, safety gel in that clunky van. And she hadn’t taken time to hook her seat belt.”

“Good. She deserved to get banged up.”

“I was so pissed,” Eve continued. “Afraid she’d been able to tag McQueen during the chase, knowing damn well, we’d lost the best chance to find him and get the kid and Melanie back safe. So fucking pissed.”

All that rage, Eve thought, gushing through her like an open wound. And then …

“I yanked her out of the van, got her blood on me. I spun her around. Stupid pink sunglasses, crooked on her face. Pulled them off her … I looked at her face, into her eyes. And I knew her.”

It was Eve’s tone that had a chill working up Peabody’s spine. She spoke carefully. “You didn’t put that in your report.”

“No. It didn’t have anything to do with the case. It’s personal. She went by Stella back then, where I remember her from. She’d changed her eyes, her hair, had some work done, but I knew her. I knew Stella. She was my mother.”

“Jesus.” Peabody laid her hand on Eve’s arm, just a light touch though her fingers wanted to tremble. “You’re sure? I guess I thought she was dead. I mean, had been dead all along.”

“I had the blood. Hers, mine. I had Roarke run DNA to verify, but I knew. I don’t remember much about her, she left me with him when I was about four or five. I’m not sure; it’s vague. But I remember enough.”

“She left you with … did she know?” Even the thought of it had sickness coating Peabody’s throat. “Did she know what he did to you?”

“She had to know. She didn’t care.”

“But …”

“There’s no bittersweet aside here, Peabody. She didn’t care and
never had. I was a commodity, and the investment was taking too long, was too much trouble to suit her. That’s what I figure.”

The sickness faded. It its place rose a vicious disgust, icy hot. “Did she recognize you?”

“No. I wasn’t that important. All she saw was the cop who’d fucked up her plans with McQueen, who put her in the hospital, who was going to put her in a cage. I’d’ve put her in a cage. Maybe I should’ve put two men on her.”

“Dallas, I read the reports. You had her restrained, and under guard. There were still cops in the hospital when she escaped.”