The Unquiet

opened her field kit again, crouched by the body. “Let’s verify ID, get TOD.”
    “If there are bite marks, they should get some saliva, and the impressions, too,” Peabody began.
    “We got better.” Eve lifted Billingsly’s lifeless hand. “We got skin under the nails. Billingsly got some flesh, too.”

NINE

    Eve put on microgoggles for a better look before she bagged the hand. “Tinted green flesh, so that’s our guy. We’ll get DNA.”
    “And see if one of our main suspects shows some recent scratches.”
    Eve looked up as Roarke came back in. “McNab’s working with Security,” he told her. “Everyone in the lab logged out, Rosenthall being the last at eleven twenty-six. The log shows Rosenthall swiping in again at twelve oh-seven, but the discs show Billingsly swiping in at that time, clearly entering alone.”
    Eve held up an evidence bag. “Billingsly had a clone swipe and a recording of Rosenthall’s voice.”
    “Nosy becomes very apt. No one else entered the lab after the last log-out at eleven twenty-six except Billingsly. No one exited until your Dr. Chaos at one fifteen.”
    “Well, he didn’t just materialize.”
    “TOD,” Peabody announced before Roarke could comment, “twelve fifty.”
    “That’s a lot of time between when Billingsly entered and TOD. It didn’t take that long to kill him. Contact the sweepers, and the ME,” Eve ordered, then, avoiding blood and debris, did another long study of the room, walked over to the break room area.
    “Peabody! Get us a warrant for these lockers. Six, digital locks.” Looking up, she studied the open ceiling vent. “There’s his access. It’s big enough for a man to get through.”
    “Low tech,” Roarke commented. “But classic.”
    “I need the ventilation layout. But for now . . . boost me up.”
    Obliging, Roarke hooked his fingers together. With her foot in the hammock of his hands, Eve bounced up, gripped the edge of the open vent. “Yeah, the grille’s in here. Maybe he initially planned to go back out this way.” She took a penlight out of her pocket, shined it in the skinny ventilation tunnel. “Tight squeeze. I see some scuff marks. So he logs out, comes back in somewhere else. Through the health center area, maybe the visitor’s lodging, pretty much anywhere. Scoots and crawls along. Pops out, then—”
    “Are you going to solve the case while I’m holding you off the floor?” Roarke wondered.
    “Hmm? Sorry.” She jumped down. “Pops out,” she continued. “Maybe gets into his gear here. Lockers, bathroom. Sweepers could find traces of the makeup. Would he be stupid enough to leave something in a locker?”
    “Shall I open them?”
    “When we get a warrant.”
    “Stickler,” he said and made her smile.
    “I could claim they’re part of the crime scene, which they are, so the PA could probably hold that line. But a defense attorney would make noises, so a warrant keeps it clean.”
    She set her hands on her hips, turned a slow circle. “Was he meeting Billingsly here? In it together, there’s a disagreement, death ensues. I don’t like it. This guy works alone. Billingsly got nosy, then got dead. The killer wasn’t expecting company. He came in for the serum, and he got it. Billingsly’s a bonus round.”
    “Why didn’t he go out the way he came in?”
    “Too hyped up from the kill to care,” she concluded. “By then, leaving where he’d be caught on disc—if he thought of it—just added some fun. Look at me!”
    Peabody came to the doorway. “I tagged Cher Reo,” she said, speaking of the APA. “She was about to call me a very bad name, but I showed her the body.”
    “Good thinking,” Eve told her.
    “She’s all over the warrant.”
    “Okay. When the morgue gets here, I want the skin sent to the lab asap. I want that DNA the same way. I need something for a bribe. Something really good,” she told Roarke. “For Dickhead.”
    Chief Lab Tech Dick Berenski wouldn’t drag himself to work in the middle of the night for less than a first-class bribe.
    “Two tickets, skybox, first game of the World Series, with locker-room passes.”
    “Excellent, but we’re still in play-offs.”
    “Wherever it is—transpo included.”
    “Nice. I’ll start with one, let him squeeze me for the second ticket—which he will. I’ll tag him on the way to Security. I want to see those discs. Peabody, wait for the morgue and the sweepers. I want that skin hand-carried to the lab. And I