Page 20 of Bonded in Death

Eve spared Peabody a glance. “Under consideration. There are easier, less risky, less expensive ways—thinking spies. Bump into him on the street, give him a little jab. They’ve got shit that’ll kill you in seconds that way. And if you’re going to all this trouble, why not poison the wine? Has to be simpler than rigging up some toxic gas.”

She thought of the smirk.

“Because he didn’t want the simple. He’s showing off his clever, his skill.”

“Maybe he showed off, killed the others he named, and showed off the same way.”

“Yeah, we’re running a global on like crimes once the lab identifies the gas. He’s got a kill list, and there are seven names still on it.”

“They could be anywhere.”

“If he wants me hunting him, they’re in New York, or like Rossi, he’ll get them here. If he killed the other three, why leave the card on this kill?”

“Maybe Roarke will dig up a connection.”

Eve wasn’t sure if she considered that a good thing or not.

In the lab, she scanned the labyrinth of counters, cubes, glass walls. It always made her think of a hive.

She spotted Chief Lab Tech Dick Berenski’s egg-shaped head bent over at his station. Imagined his long, spidery fingers at work.

If necessary, she’d bribe him to push on the gas angle.

He’d earned the title Dickhead for a reason, and she figured a couple of box seats to the ball game would do it this time.

As they made their way through the maze, Eve saw him slide his rolly chair from one end of his workstation to the other, then back again.

Something, she decided, had his attention. With luck, she could hold back the bribe for another time.

He looked up, scowled at Eve.

“What the hell you got going?”

“You tell me. Morris said the victim was gassed.”

“Like a rat in a hole. What they used it for back when. We’ve got better ways now for pest control.”

No bribe this time, Eve noted because she saw the interest in his dark, beady eyes as he gestured to a screen where she saw formulas, symbols. Something that looked like a three-legged pyramid.

“Okay, what is it?”

“Phosphine.”

“And what is it?”

“Jesus, Dallas. It’s your freaking murder weapon. Colorless, odorless—for the rats and all, technical grade, they added shit that made it stink. What you got here’s a mix of pure phosphine with some CO2—that agent’s to take down the flammability point. The pure shit’ll go off. It can self-ignite.

“I alerted the sweepers. Might be more in there, so they need to follow protocol.”

He held up a spidery finger, rolled down his counter. “It’s bad shit, and got phased out for commercial use over thirty years ago. Planetwide.”

“So not something the killer could access easily.”

“Hell no. You can make it, yeah, if you know what you’re doing and don’t mind the risk. Close quarters, like that limo, inhaling it? You’re dead pretty quick. But…”

“But?”

“If you know how to make it, you ought to know how to make something that wouldn’t maybe light you up in the lab. Or in liquid form spill on you and give you a hell of a case of frostbite. Like hydrogen cyanide. The fucking Nazis used that—Zyklon B. Or arsine. Or—”

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