Page 73 of Random in Death
As they walked to the lab, Eve tried to resist, ordered herself not to even consider asking. Then gave up.
“What the hell is a cocotte?”
“It’s a pot. A French cooking pot. I bet Summerset’s got one. I want it for my fabulous kitchen, but it’s like nine hundred dollars, so—
Eve stopped dead. “Nine hundred dollars? For a pan?”
“A pot. A French pot.”
“Does the price include going to France to buy it?”
“If only,” Peabody said dreamily. “But since I doubled my money, I can afford it. Now I just have to decide what color. I may go for the red, because big pop of color there. But the blue is so gorgeous.”
Eve put her hands over her ears and walked into the lab.
Early, yes, she thought, but already a hive of activity. That gave her a boost.
She made her way to Chief Lab Tech Dick Berenski’s workstation. Resorting to bribes became routine too often when dealing with Dickhead. But when the case involved kids, she could usually count on him moving without the added incentive.
His egg-shaped head bent over his work while his long, spidery fingers crawled over a keyboard.
When Eve approached, he looked up, scowled at her.
“How about giving me more than five fucking minutes on a fucking Monday morning?”
“Jenna Harbough, age sixteen, died Saturday night. Arlie Dillon, age seventeen, died last night. A lot longer than five minutes.”
“Yeah, yeah, some of us had the weekend off, and spent it at the beach with a big, busty blonde in a tiny red bikini.”
“You wear a tiny red bikini?”
“Har! The blonde wore one. On and off,” he said with a leer.
“I guess it’s just their bad luck these two teenage girls won’t ever hang on the beach again.”
“Yeah, yeah.” But this time he muttered it. “The weekend crew DNA’d your puke, right? And I’m checking their tox on the first vic, running the second. I got Morris’s report here says the first wasn’t a user.”
“She wasn’t, and I’ve just come from Morris. Neither was the second.”
“Both of them—what I’m seeing, both of them—got a bomb jammed inside them. The heroin, that was enough to do it alone. Not Junk, the pure. You don’t see the pure like this. Not seeing a cutting agent. I want to run them both again, but I don’t see it. Then there’s ketamine. See that?”
He pointed to his screen with symbols and equations Eve couldn’t have deciphered with a stunner to her throat. So she said, “Okay.”
“Given the first vic’s size and weight, enough of that to take her down if not out. Then you’ve got Rohypnol.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I’m looking at it, aren’t I? Threw in a roofie.”
“Fatal dose?”
“Nah, but he tossed it in. Enough to take her down again. Just this, I’d say he wanted to get her somewhere and rape her. But with the heroin? She wouldn’t live long enough. Then you’ve got traces of fucking potassium chloride. It’s overkill, it’s all overkill. Sick, twisted bastard son of a bitch. Used an infected needle on top of it.
“See that?” The anger came through as he pointed to the screen again. “That’s Treponema pallidum.”
“Berenski, I’m just a cop.”
“Ever had syphilis?”