Page 40 of Random in Death

“We’ve got the timing. We’ve got the drugs he put in her, and got a glimpse at a dooser in baggies.”

“We’ve got that her two best friends can’t come up with anybody who’d want to do this,” Peabody added. “Nobody at the club that night, nobody before last night. I’m saying you’re right. She didn’t know him.”

“We need to find out if he knew her. We can start with her school and her neighborhood. Contact the school, see if we can line up her teachers from last year. We can put uniforms out on the neighborhood after we check her room.”

“I’ll get on it.”

“There’s a reason for the roofie in the mix,” Eve speculated. “Maybe he watched her, wanted her. She didn’t blow him off so much as not see him. Too good for me, she thinks, doesn’t even know my name. That builds up until he decides, she’ll notice me now. She’ll pay for ignoring me. And nobody will have her. Ever.”

“Extreme.”

“Yeah, shooting her up with a heroin cocktail’s pretty damn extreme.” She pulled out her signaling ’link. “Text. Julia Harbough. They’re ready for us. We’re in the field,” she called out to Santiago and Carmichael, then headed for the elevator.

Chapter Six

On the way to the garage, she checked in with Feeney.

“No luck here,” he told her. “I’m about to head in.”

“Try asking if any of them noticed a shortish dooser type, black baggies, hands in pockets, kind of strutting off the dance floor toward the johns near the end of the set. Or anyone like that near the victim prior.”

“I’ll roll it out.”

“We’re on our way to check out the victim’s bedroom. Carmichael and Santiago are doing runs on interviewees.”

“If I hit with your dooser, you’ll know. Otherwise, I’ll work with McNab awhile.”

“Keep an eye out for that description, such as it is, when you do. Thanks.”

“Letting McNab know about the dooser,” Peabody said, then slid her ’link back into her pocket. “I’m not going to speculate how many black baggies walked into that club last night.”

“We take what we get as we get it.”

They crossed the garage to the car.

“He has to have a source.” Pulling out, Eve aimed for the exit. “Or the means, knowledge, and facilities to create that kind of cocktail. Her school first, going with the she-didn’t-notice-him angle. But if he was trolling, looking for a target, maybe college. The eighteen-to-twenty type. Better equipment in colleges, more time to study, practice.”

“So maybe a chem major, maybe a TA. Could even be younger and in college—one of the supersmarts.”

“Anything from that to a kid living with a chemi-head, a dealer, a cook and learning the family business. We start with the most probable. He knew the target, or wanted to, used source and/or knowledge to create the murder weapon. We work from there, then spread it out.”

It struck her that finding space to park barely three yards from the Harboughs’ rated as another Sunday thing.

She’d take it.

“Getting steamy,” Peabody commented. “But no bitching about it because I love summer. And love it more now that we’ve got an actual garden. Oh, and I love how Louise made a classy cottage garden out of the little front courtyard.”

“Why are they courtyards? Do people judge them? Hold court in them? They call them dooryards in Ireland, and I don’t get that, either, but at least there’s a kind of yard outside the door.”

She rang the bell.

Caught up, Peabody asked, “Why are they yards? It’s not like everybody’s is a multiple of three feet.”

Eve poked her shoulder. “Right. Why are they yards?”

She filed it away for later contemplation when Julia opened the door.

She looked like a woman who hadn’t slept in days. She’d pulled her hair back, leaving her face, its color dull, unframed. Shadows, like deep bruises, spread under her eyes reddened by weeping.

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