by J. D. Robb
“I know it insults you for me to say you think like a cop, so I won’t say it.”
“Appreciated. There are other similar losses or outlays—such as Whitt listing a painting he claims he bought from a street artist in Paris for twenty thousand—cash—which remains uninsured. There are various and classic laundering schemes, and the outlay was regular, twenty thousand between them, twice a month from last September until January. In January until near the end of March, it doubled to twenty apiece, then nothing. Late March coordinates with Loco’s sudden and violent demise.”
“They had what they needed from him. Enough of the agent, or the formula. Doubled the initial payments—maybe he demanded still more. He got greedy or mouthy, or they just didn’t want to risk keeping an addict in the loop.”
“Agreed.”
She buzzed up more coffee for both of them to go with the cookie. “Hold on, let me tag Jenkinson, see if he can add anything.”
“I’ve more myself, but I’ll just finish my cookie while you do that.”
She tagged Jenkinson, who answered with a distracted, “Loo?”
She could hear chatter in the background, and somebody said, “That’s a full-of-shit bluff.”
Feeney?
“I’ll see that full-of-shit bluff and raise it ten.”
Definitely Feeney.
“Is Reineke in the game?” she asked.
“Yeah, him, Feeney, Callendar, Harvo.”
“Harvo?”
“She’s a killer. Something up?”
“That’s right. I need your attention.”
“You got it. I already folded.” She heard his chair scrape back as he got up, moved away from the table. “I’m losing my shirt to a girl with green hair and the captain of the geeks. It’s humiliating. What you got?”
“Lucas Sanchez. Loco.”
“Yeah, dead cook, addict. Stabbed a couple blocks from the flop he used. Hadn’t been seen around the neighborhood for months, according to every-damn-body. And that same every-damn-body didn’t see anything, hear anything, know anything.”
Scooping a handful of chips out of a bowl, he munched as he talked. “And every-damn-body said he was an asshole, but could cook good shit. Genius shit. No product on him, no cash. Took his shoes, too. Live by the junk, die by the junk. Or that’s how it’s looking.”
“Not anymore.”
Jenkinson’s eyes changed. “How’s it look now?”
“He’s linked to the nerve gas, to my two prime suspects.”
“Son of a bitch. Okay, shit. He had a rep for what you’d call innovation. Not your average cook. Coming up with new recipes, blending chems, ah, personalizing product. Couldn’t keep profits in his pocket because he blew it on LCs, his own product, or the horses. Couldn’t keep a legit job for the same reasons. Had a real knack and a brain with it, but no legit lab or research place would touch him. He had a sheet, went in and out because he was a screwup. Always getting caught, doing some time, bouncing out, then back again. I’m remembering the ME said he’d have been dead in ten anyway if he kept living and using the way he was.”
Roarke, cookie finished, worked on her auxiliary. Eve ignored him.
“I want you and Reineke to go over it again, reinterview. I’m going to send you pictures of the suspects. Stephen Whitt and Marshall Cosner. They went to school together for a while. Cosner is an addict, and he’d likely have used Loco as a supplier.”
“They rich guys?”
“They are.”
“We had a couple of LCs he liked to use. They said he’d brag about how much the rich guys paid for his work. He told one he was cooking up something special that’d make him a rich guy. But she said, and others confirmed, he was always talking big like that.”
“Doesn’t look like it was just talk this time.”
“Ah,” Roarke said from the auxiliary, “there it is.” He swiveled to her. “Would you like an address?”
“An address for what?”
“Well, I can’t say, not for certain, but it’s a property Marshall Cosner has behind a shell company he established last fall. It appears to be a small warehouse downtown. Loco had to live and work somewhere, didn’t he?”
“Roarke’s sending you an address,” she said to Jenkinson. “Get Reineke and meet me there.”
Once he had, Roarke followed Eve’s long-legged stride out of the room.
“I need to change, need my weapon. How’d you find the building?”
“Persistence, and process. They needed somewhere to set up the lab, to keep their cook happy. And Whitt funnels money to Cosner every month. Like you would for a loan or a share of an investment expense. The property’s only in Cosner’s name—Whitt’s careful. The shell company only shows Cosner’s fingerprints. They call it The Golden Goose.”
“Smug fuckers.” Eve pulled on boots. “But not for much longer.”
* * *
About the time Eve briefed Jenkinson, Marshall Cosner paced the elaborately furnished living space in the converted warehouse.
He wore a hooded sweatshirt, dark jeans, black high-tops—all designer label though he believed they helped him blend into the neighborhood.
Stephen Whitt, on the other hand, wore a fresh business suit, one he’d changed into for his dinner speech at a financial event at a Midtown hotel.
He knew he’d timed it well—he was good at timing. He’d made certain he’d mixed, mingled, made conversation before he’d jammed the cameras on a service entrance to slip out.
He’d had the scooter he’d “borrowed” from a cousin parked in another hotel lot a block away, and had made it downtown in ten minutes. Ten minutes back, he thought, ten minutes or so here, and he’d simply blend back into the post-dinner dancing and bar scene with no one the wiser.
Despite his panic, good old Marsh had delivered the next package to the drop. But he’d never hold up to the pressure that was coming. Steps had to be taken, Whitt thought, so he’d taken them.
Time to cut ties. Old school ties.
“Dad doesn’t believe me.” Cosner paced, paced. “He practically grilled me like a fish.”
“You denied everything.”
“Of course I did. I’m not an idiot, Steve, but he doesn’t really believe me.”
“You’re going in with a platoon of lawyers, Marsh. You’ll be fine.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Yeah, Whitt thought. It really was.
“I can’t figure out why she’s zeroed in on me. We did everything right, didn’t we? We’ve got alibis. We did everything right.”
“She’s bluffing, trying to get to you. We’re good as gold. Look, I’ve got to get back before somebody misses me. You just need to relax.”
“Jesus, you try to relax when you’ve got cops on your ass.” Pacing, Cosner wrung his hands. “Maybe I should take off. Head to Europe.”
“We don’t run. Come on, Marsh, take a dose. You’re jonesing.”
“Why’s she looking at us? We barely knew Rufty, TAG was years ago. She shouldn’t have looked at us. You said the cops would never look at us.”
Calmly, Whitt walked to the tacky mirrored bar Loco had demanded, picked up a vial, poured it into a lowball glass, added a good two fingers of unblended scotch.
“She’s got nothing. She’s fishing. Loco’s dead and cold, and that hasn’t come back on us, right? We’ve got the formula now. When we’re done here, we’ll do just what we talked about.”
“Take it overseas, sell it for billions.”
“That’s right.” And all mine, Whitt thought as he handed his oldest friend the glass. “Drink up.”
Cosner knocked it back, sighed.
Just enough, Whitt thought, to make him happy, and a little sloppy.
“Did you get the last egg ready?”
“Yeah. I’m glad we decided it’s the last, Steve. I thought this would be more fun, but it’s been a lot of work. What say when we’re done, you and me, we take a little vacay? Hit the tropics.”
“Now there’s a plan.”
He was already cruising as Whitt steered him out of the living area and up the iron steps to the lab. Across from the white counters, the burners, the refrigeration, the scopes, computers, containers, ranged an organized shipping and packing area.
Three golden eggs remained on shelves, one in a clear, airtight container—and Whitt regretted he wouldn’t be able to have the other two filled and all three delivered. A fourth sat in another clear container waiting to be packed.
“Looks good. You know, why don’t we pack it up, drop it off tonight. A twofer. Then we’d be done.”
“Done.” Glassy-eyed, Cosner smiled. “I’d really like to be done.”
“Yeah, shit, why wait? We’ll take that vacay,” he added, and made Cosner grin.
“Real ready for that.”
“Pack it up, drop it off, hit the tropics. Pack it up, Marsh.”
“Pack it up, get it done. Naked women on the beach. Whoo!”
Whitt stepped back, well back, drew on the air mask.
And when Cosner opened the airtight container, the egg, with its seal already broken, released the agent.
Staggering, Cosner dropped it so it shattered on the floor. He clawed at his throat as he stumbled, fell, stared up at Whitt.
“What?”
“Sorry, bro.” Whitt’s voice rumbled through the mask. “I gotta do what I gotta. I’ll miss the hell out of you.”
As Cosner’s system revolted, as he tried to crawl, Whitt checked the time. “Wow, I have to book.”
He jogged down the stairs, tossed the mask back in a storage room.
Ten minutes back, he thought as he let himself out, as he took some solution out of his pocket to clean the sealant off his hands.
He zipped uptown without a care in the world.
* * *
Since it made no sense for her suspects to take risks when one of them had a date in the box the following morning, Eve expected to find an empty building.
She had a search warrant—thanks to Reo and the sheer stupidity of naming the shell company The Golden Goose—and had figured to enter, go through, possibly turn a more comprehensive search over to her detectives.
But when they pulled up, she saw lights shining behind privacy screens.
“Could be on timers,” she mused as she and Roarke got out of the car. “Could just be careless about turning them off.”
“Could.”
“Or we could have the extra-special bonus of finding one or both of those assholes in there.”
“Possibly along with a supply of deadly nerve agent.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She’d thought of that, too, which was why she contacted Peabody, told her to log out masks from Central and meet her.
Now she paced the sidewalk.
“There’s only one reason I can think of for one of them, or both of them, to be in there.”
“Preparing the next shipment.”
“And make the drop tonight. That’s just the sort of thing the smug sons of bitches would do. We need to spread out, cover any possible exits. Box them in.”
Roarke studied the building as the thief he’d been might have. Considering security, best ways in, best ways out, vehicular and pedestrian traffic flow.
“They’d be idiots to work with that substance without protection of their own.”
Couldn’t argue with that, she thought. “So we’ll be even. Except there’ll be more of us, with badges and weapons.”
She recognized Jenkinson’s car as it rolled up, then saw Feeney’s roll up behind it.
Couldn’t hurt, she thought, then watched, surprised, as her two detectives, the EDD captain, Callendar—Jesus—Harvo, Peabody, and McNab all piled out of the two vehicles.
“What the hell is this?”
“More cops the merrier.” Jenkinson grinned as he walked up, and she was baffled enough not to notice he didn’t have a tie.
“Harvo’s not a cop.”
“Aw, come on.” Obviously revved, the queen of hair and fiber lifted her arms. “I never get to have the fun. I bet there’s hair and fiber in there, and I’ll be right on the scene.”
“There may also be one or two very dangerous men in there along with a supply of a deadly nerve agent.”
Harvo shook back her green hair. “So, you go first.”
Feeney lumbered up, his topcoat over a wrinkled beige shirt with a telltale salsa stain. “Figured EDD should get in on it. I told McNab to get some toys and we’d swing by and pick him up.”
“Good. Wait. Think.”
She took a few paces away to do just that. Paced back.
“Heat sensors in the toys, McNab?”
“You bet.”
“Check the building. Peabody, pass out the masks. Whatever the status, no one enters without a mask. Feeney, how about you and Roarke deal with any alarms and/or locks. Reineke, you and Jenkinson make the circuit. Let’s mark all exits, then we’ll cover them.”
“What about me?”
“You wait,” she told Harvo.
“Bogus. Roarke’s not a cop, either, and I’m an expert consultant, too. Plus, I work with the cops totally.”
“Are you authorized to carry a weapon?”
“No, but—”
“Then you wait.”
Reineke jogged back. “Back and front, first level, south side and back, fire escapes on the second level.”
“No heat sources,” Callendar called out.
“If there aren’t bad guys—”
“You still wait,” Eve interrupted Harvo’s next pitch.
“We’ll still take it front and back. Reineke, Jenkinson, Callendar, McNab on the rear. Peabody, we’ll take the front with Roarke and Feeney. We’ve got a damn army taking an empty building,” she muttered.
She marched up to Roarke. “It’s empty.”
“It’s bypassed anyway, alarms and locks.”
“Then this’ll be easy.” Empty or not, she drew her weapon, went through the door low.
The lights on full illuminated the gaudy tackiness of a living area with enormous gel sofas—a trio—done in dizzying patterns of red and black. Giant entertainment screens dominated two opposing walls. All the tables shined in mirrored gold, which was picked up by a bar fronted by a couple of stools designed to resemble the female form wearing only high heels.
She pointed Feeney and Roarke in one direction, Peabody in the other, and moved straight ahead.
On her sweep she noted a game system, posters—more naked women—bottles of high-end booze, a jar of Zoner, a bowl holding a variety of pills.
She added her call of “Clear” to the others as Roarke, Feeney, and Peabody moved back from the sides, the other team from the rear.
“Kitchen, storage for cleaning droids and supplies,” Peabody said.
“Bedroom and bath,” Roarke added, “designed to fulfill a teenage boy’s wet dream. Complete with currently deactivated sex droid.”
“Another john, and a game room,” Feeney added. “Refreshment area.”
“Let’s clear upstairs. They outfitted this for Loco. Neither rich guy’s taste runs to sex-starved tacky. Lab’s going to be upstairs.”
She started up the metal stairs, had gotten no more than a quarter of the way when she smelled it.
“Fuck!” She threw up a hand to stop the rest of her team, then jogged until she could see the second floor. “We’ve got a body. Back out. Everybody, back out, masks or not. Peabody, call in the hazmat unit.”
She took a sweep not only for the visual but so her lapel recorder could capture the scene. Then she followed her team back outside.
She yanked off her mask. “Jenkinson, go around and seal the back entrance. Reineke, let’s get some uniforms for backup, to canvass. Callendar, tag Morris, see if he can come on scene.”
She dragg
ed a hand through her hair. “Son of a bitch.”
“Do you know the DB?” Feeney asked.
“Yeah. It’s Cosner, Marshall Cosner. It looks like he was packing up another poison egg, and had a little lab accident.” Her eyes narrowed. “That’s how it’s supposed to look.”
“Very handy he’d have that accident the night before you’d have him in the box,” Roarke commented.
“Yeah, isn’t it? He went whining to Whitt, that’s what he did, and Whitt found a way to cut his losses. The thing is, he wouldn’t expect us to find Cosner so fast. Wouldn’t expect us to find this place. There were more eggs up there, a whole lab set up, a shipping prep area. Boxes, packing stuff. But he’s not stupid enough to come back here.”
Thinking, thinking, she paced the sidewalk. “No, he’s done here. Maybe he took some of it with him. Maybe he really is cutting his losses. He’ll let it end with Cosner. Can’t continue the fun with Cosner dead and have us pile the blame on Cosner.”
“He’ll figure he has plenty of time and room now,” Feeney added. “You were taking the DB in the box tomorrow.”
“Yeah, we had that set.”
“So when he doesn’t show, we go looking. We find something that clicks to this place, find it, find him. And there’s your dead guy, piles of evidence, killed by the same method he used to kill, which has a nice clang to it.” Feeney nodded as he studied the building. “Asshole figures case closed.”
“Yeah, and he’ll have a cover for tonight. But it’ll have a hole somewhere. Cosner was a follower. No way he came here tonight, all wound up about the interview tomorrow, and decided, on his own, to pack up another egg.”
“And without precautions,” Roarke added. “Would you, knowing what’s inside the egg, handle it without a suit? Or the very least gloves and a mask?”
“No, and good point.”
Harvo, who perched on the hood of Jenkinson’s ride, ticked a finger in the air. “You have to figure, right, the other bad guy was here—sometime or the other. Right?”
Eve glanced back. “Had to. He runs the show.”
“On average, a human sheds between fifty and a hundred hairs a day. Some experts say up to two hundred, but I lean more toward a hundred. Average.” She smiled. “We’d only need one.”
