by J. D. Robb
“He never cared about anybody but himself.” Over Sima’s head, Trina’s eyes met Eve’s fiercely. “And that’s not on you, either.”
“Run the names Trina gave us,” Eve said as they started back to the car.
“On it. It really flattened her.” Peabody pulled out her PPC to begin the runs when she got into the car. “Imagine it. Imagine finding out someone you thought cared about you, someone you lived with, slept with, slipped you a sex drug. If he did. We’re not a hundred percent sure.”
“I’m sure enough. Profile it, Peabody. Everything we know about the vic. Is he the kind of guy who makes tea for his girlfriend when she’s too tired for sex?”
“Probably not, no.”
“And then, coincidentally, once she drinks the tea, she’s, bang, in the mood to do it after all? If that’s straight tea, I’ll eat the leaves dry.”
“It’s rape.” Peabody scowled at her PPC as she worked. “If we’re right, and I think we are, it’s rape. It’s no different than holding a knife to her throat. It takes choice away.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“It was bad enough when he was just an asshole.”
“Whatever he was, he’s dead. We do the job. We can think it’s too damn bad Trina didn’t get a chance to skin his balls, but we do the job.”
She answered the in-dash ’link when it signaled, watched Mira come on screen.
She’s done something different with her hair, Eve thought. What did they call that sleek sort of curve. A bob? Why did they call it a bob? What kind of name was bob for hair?
“Eve. I’ve read the report you sent. I actually have a fairly light morning, so I can certainly meet with you.”
“Great. I’ve got another stop to make, but I’m not sure how long it’s going to take.”
“If you can be here in an hour, I have time. If not, I have time, a bit, later this afternoon.”
“I’ll make it in an hour, thanks.”
“Hey, Dr. Mira.” Peabody angled over. “I really like your hair.”
“Oh, thanks.” As women did, Mira fluffed at it. “Not too severe?”
“Totally no.”
“I wanted a change, so I’ll live with it a few days. I’ll see you in an hour, Eve. I have a session about to start.”
“I’ll be there. Thanks.”
Eve signed off as she hunted for parking. “Why do women always want to change their hair? If they liked it one way, why change it to another way?”
“For fun. Or just to mix things up. You change your shoes or your jacket or whatever all the time.”
“They’re not attached to me.”
“So changing your hair makes it even more about you, the way I see it.” Peabody twisted a lock of hair that poked out from her cap. “I think I’m going to try something different for the holidays. I should’ve talked to Trina.”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Eve decided, pulling into a slot. “We’ll take Schubert’s hair to Harvo.”
“The Queen of Hair and Fiber.”
“Yeah, her. Just give it to her, ask her to get us the results as soon as she can, then we’ll get Dickhead to make some tea.”
Holiday fever had infected the lab with colored lights and a tree – twice the size of the puny reject in Homicide – decorated with evidence bags, brushes, tweezers, and other sweeper tools.
But the centerpiece was a fat Santa dressed like a sweeper toting a banner that read:
CSI SANTA KNOWS WHEN YOU’VE BEEN BAD!
It kind of gave Eve the creeps.
But then, so did Dick Berenski.
Still, she carted her gift bag toward his long counter where he sat on his rolling stool. His spidery fingers switched between two computers. He sported a half-assed goatee – that was new. The pointy triangle on his chin, the sparce hair above his upper lip made her think of graffiti drawn inexpertly on an egg.
She set the gift bag on his counter. “Merry Christmas.”
He paused in his work, gave her then Peabody a wary look before reaching into the bag.
Surprise flooded his face, then delight – demonstrated by the shift in the poor excuse for a mustache when his skinny lips curved.
Then with eyes darting left, right, he shoved the bottle back into the bag, shoved the bag into one of the drawers of his workstation.
“Thanks.”
Eve wiggled fingers at Peabody, who lined up evidence bags on the counter.
“What’s this?” Berenski demanded.
“That’s what I need you to tell me. Now.”
“You want me to do an analysis on all this, right now?” He swept his arm over his workstation. “Can’t you see I got work going here?”
“This is work, too. We had samples sent in already.”
“Low priority.”
“Now it’s high priority. Start with this.” She pushed the tea labeled Relaxation toward him. “That might be enough for right now. If you’re so busy, delegate. How long does it take to analyze some tea leaves?”
“Get in line. We’ll get to it when we get to it.”
Saying nothing, Eve tapped the drawer where he’d hidden the scotch.
He radiated insult. “That was a gift.”
“Yeah, and if you ever want another gift, you’ll analyze this evidence.”
Maybe Summerset couldn’t be bought, she thought, but she knew damn well Dickhead could.
“I’m doing you a favor.” He pointed one of his long, skinny fingers at her.
“Okay.”
He snatched up the tea, did a fast roll to the other end of his counter, muttering all the way.
Satisfied, Eve said nothing, leaned on her side of the counter. She watched him pull on thin gloves, open the evidence bag, unstop the container.
He took a sniff of it, frowned. “Chamomile and lavender shit.”
He took tweezers out of a tray, transferred some of the leaves into a tube, put the tube in a slot of a small machine on the counter. He repeated the process, this time adding liquid to the tube with an eye-dropper.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Do I tell you how to do your job?”
Eve only shrugged as he gave her the evil eye, then went back to work.
He lowered a clear lid over the tubes, ran those skinny fingers over a control panel. The machine began to hum, and Eve, still leaning on the counter, felt it vibrate.
Curious, she pushed off the counter, intending to walk down for a closer look.
“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody.”
Dr. Garnet DeWinter, the new forensic anthropologist, swept up. She wore a hot pink lab coat over a pink-and-green striped dress that molded her tall, curvy body. She’d slicked her hair back into some sort of sleek twist that made her exotic eyes dominate the sharp-featured face.
Her green, ice-pick heels sported tiny pink bows at the ankle straps.
“Dr. DeWinter.”
“Someone must be dead.”
“Someone always is.”
“That’s true, isn’t it? Oh, well, it keeps us busy. Richard, I just wanted to come down and thank you for getting that report to me so quickly this morning.”
Richard? Eve thought, and watched Berenski preen.
“No problem, Doc. We’re on the same team.”
“Yes, we are.” She moved down, laid a hand on his shoulder, studied the computer screen along with him. “Chamomile, lavender, valerian. Tea? A soother?”
“So far.”
Stuffing her hands in her pockets – no way she was touching Dickhead – Eve moved down the counter to read the screen herself.
“What’s that?” she demanded with a long, unpronounceable element scrolled on.
“Hold on,” Berenski murmured, then nodded as a second, then a third element popped up.
“Those sure as hell aren’t herbs. That’s a Rohypnol-bremelanotide compound. Erotica with a twist. It’s a sex drug.”
DeWinter glanced over at Eve. “The combination would st
imulate the sexual drive, yes, and potentially lower inhibitions. The tea is a relaxation blend, and would mask the chemicals, add to the lack of inhibition and certainly increase sex drive.”
“Your vic didn’t have any of this in him,” Berenski told her. “I saw his tox screen, and it was clean.”
“No, he didn’t drink it. He used it on women.”
“What you’ve got here is like a super soother, and it’s laced with illegals. Sort of a mild date-rape drug.”
Eve scorched him with a look. “Nothing’s mild about rape.”
“Don’t get twisted. I ain’t saying that. I’m saying the product’s on the mild side. It’s not like whore or rabbit, and the user’s likely to feel relaxed instead of jumpy after the job’s done. It don’t make it legal, and it sure don’t make it right. Your vic was an asshole if he used this without telling the women what it was.”
“No memory loss with this,” DeWinter added. “No wild up and downs or desperation. But compliance and escalated sexual desire. His victims, as that’s just what they were, would likely have thought themselves agreeable, even pleased. Afterward, again depending on the circumstances, there may have been some regret or embarrassment.”
“He used these, too.” Eve gestured for Peabody to put the incense case on the counter. “In combination.”
“I’ll check them out. You want the other teas analyzed?”
“Yeah, do the whole lot, but I think we hit the mother lode. Appreciate the quick work,” she added, and turned to go.
DeWinter fell into step beside her. Eve spared her a look.
“Richard?”
“It makes him feel special, and by making him feel special I often get my samples and specimens moved to the head of his list. Is he a bit of a dick?” DeWinter said with a hint of a smile. “Absolutely. But he’s also excellent at his work.”
“I just bribe him.”
“Also a viable option. I wanted to say I’m looking forward to your party. Li’s bringing me.”
“Morris? You and Morris?”
“Yes – and no, so don’t look so appalled. We have the dead, an appreciation of music, and absolutely no interest in a relationship in common. So it’s nice for both of us to have a date for your party. So, I’ll see both of you then.”
“It is nice,” Peabody said as they headed out. “It’s nice that Morris has someone to hang out with. He’s a sociable guy.”
“Maybe.” Eve had yet to make up her mind about DeWinter.
Eve pushed through the door. “I want you to start on Trina’s list, start talking to these women. Any one of them admits to drinking Ziegler’s tea, give her the details, and get a full statement. Press the money angle, too. Let’s find out who gave him cash and why. Get a feel for them, Peabody.”
“Because one of them might’ve killed him.”
“Get started. I’ve got to get to Central, meet with Mira. I’ll tag you as soon as I’m done, catch up with you.”
“I’ve got this, Dallas. I’ll be the sympathetic cop – because I do sympathize. I can usually get more that way than going in tough.”
“Is that the fly, sugar, vinegar deal?”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“I still don’t get it,” Eve said and strode to her car.
7
Mira’s admin offered silence and a frosty stare when Eve walked into Mira’s outer office. Eve wondered if she should’ve grabbed another one of those handy gift bags, but the woman with the icy eyes tapped her interoffice ’link.
“Lieutenant Dallas is here. Of course.” She tapped it again. “You can go in.”
“Thanks.” Eve opened the door, walked in. “Your admin’s pissed I went around her.”
Mira glanced up from the work on her desk, smiled a little. “She’s protective. But I do have some free time this morning, and I do enjoy consulting on your cases.” She rose. “Tea?”
“Definitely not, but that’s something I want to discuss with you.”
“Tea?” Mira said again as she turned to her AutoChef.
“Yeah. Turns out Ziegler mixed a low-grade date-rape drug with loose tea, brewed it up when he got the urge.”
Eve flipped out her notebook. “A Rohypnol-bremelanotide combo mixed with chamomile, lavender, and valerian. Dickhead called it Erotica with a twist.”
“I see.” Mira programmed one cup of the flower-smelling tea she liked. “I’m not surprised to learn that.”
“Because?”
“Sit,” Mira invited, bringing her tea over to one of her pretty blue scoop chairs.
They suited her – elegant and functional. As the soft coral of her dress, the slightly bolder color of her ankle-breaking heels, the understated but excellent jewelry suited the department’s top shrink and profiler.
“He was a narcissist,” Mira began. “Extremely self-focused. His choice of career, and apparent skill at it, provided a service to others, but put him in control of them, physically and emotionally. Even spiritually for some who consider their physical regimen a kind of religion. It also put him in the spotlight.”
“Yeah, I get that. Add the photos – of himself – in the apartment, the mirrors, the clothes, the really extensive collection of hair and body products. He could’ve opened his own store there. I also get some people can self-focus, can indulge themselves without being narcissists. Or rapists.”
“Rapists.” Mira sipped her tea. “Tell me about that.”
“One of the women who slept with him – married, a client – described the experience.”
She laid out Martella Schubert’s statement, her suspicions, and the discovery of the tea.
“He laced tea to gain this woman’s – and you believe other women’s – acquiescence for sex. Tea he served them as if a kind of romantic gesture.”
“Exactly. He even used it on his former live-in girlfriend when she wasn’t in the mood.”
“He wouldn’t have seen it as rape.”
“That doesn’t change the fact.”
“No, but he would’ve seen it as a kind of seduction. Setting the scene. And it again, put him in control, physically and emotionally. To this man sex was another act of being admired, a validation of his prowess, his physical appearance, his body. He gave them a service, he’d think. He gifted them with his skill. And as with his other skills, why shouldn’t he be paid for it? A narcissist, a sex addict with sociopathic tendencies.”
“No friends,” Eve added. “Coworkers who could respect his skill, but only tolerated him at best. All that money in his locker.”
“His secret. Banking or investing money is so ordinary, isn’t it? He was extraordinary. And why should he make an effort to be friendly with coworkers when he was so obviously superior?”
“Too special, too superior to go through training and channels and get a license for sex.”
“Why train for something he excelled at? Be screened by some bureaucracy? A license? Far too regimented.”
“And it costs. Word is – and it’s bearing out – he was cheap with everything but himself. He dealt in cash, cash only. Unreported cash. And I think greedy enough to resort to blackmail.”
“Oh, absolutely, though again he wouldn’t have considered it blackmail. The exchange of pay for a service.”
Mira sipped her tea, recrossed her very fine legs. “In his mind, he deserved it all, and more. I believe he’d have escalated – sex and money – as he went on. The use of the illegals certainly demonstrates his driving need to have exactly what he wanted, to control the women he selected. They not only succumbed to his allure – in his mind – but paid for the privilege. Every success would reinforce his self-belief, and he would have wanted more.”
“The awards – the trophies – they played in.”
“Reinforcing again he was special, above the rest. You’re approaching this from a different angle,” Mira commented. “A profile of your victim rather than the killer.”
“The more I learn about him, the more it’s clear pre
tty much anyone who knew him could’ve done it. Temper, payback, an argument over sex, blackmail, a competition, a client. I think the murder itself was a moment of fury, impulse, but the rest…”
“Cold, calculated. Still angry. How could you drive a knife into a dead man unless there was anger? The message left? An insult. A brutal sort of sarcasm.”