• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“I say it, straight out.”

“And knowing you, knowing you wouldn’t send me a body unless you had strong cause, we’ve proceeded accordingly. His tox screen isn’t back yet. Shortly, as I flagged it.”

“What do you think’s in him, and how did it get there?”

“For the what, we’ll wait. For the how. Have a look.”

He handed her goggles, then gave her a finger curl. When she walked to Williams’s head, she noted Morris had shaved a circle of hair away on the crown.

“Man, would he hate that. Bald spot. And lookie, lookie.” She bent closer, and with the goggles could just make out the faint mark. “Pressure syringe,” she said. “Barely shows, and on the scalp, with a headful of hair, the naked eye isn’t going to see it.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Now she glanced over at Morris, grinned. “Yours excepted. I missed it. I looked over his body, between his fingers and his toes, even checked his tongue, the inside of his cheeks, but I missed this. Nice catch.”

“I ate a whole brownie,” Peabody confessed.

“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,