Big Jack by Nora Roberts & J. D. Robb

Author:Nora Roberts & J. D. Robb
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: mystery, romance, police procedural, SF
ISBN: 9780425234907
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2010-02-23T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Eve viewed a session in the lab with Dickie Berenski as she did a dental checkup. You had to do it, and if you were lucky it wouldn’t be as bad as you imagined. But it was usually worse.

And like the dental techs in her experience, Dickhead exhibited a smarmy, self-righteous satisfaction when it got worse.

She swung into the lab with Peabody and pretended not to notice several techs slide looks in her direction, then get busy elsewhere.

When she didn’t see a sign of Dickie, she cornered the first tech who couldn’t skitter away fast enough. “Where’s Berenski?”

“Um. Office?”

She didn’t think she deserved the quaking voice or the frozen rictus of a smile. It had been months since she’d threatened a lab tech. Besides, they should know it was physically impossible for her to put a man’s internal organs on display by turning him inside out.

She crossed the main lab, over the white floors, around the white stations manned by people in white coats. Only the machines and the vials and tubes filled with substances best not considered had color.

All in all, she thought she’d rather work in the morgue.

She walked into Dickie’s office without knocking. He was kicked back at his desk, feet propped up as he sucked on a grape-colored ice pop.

“You got the box seats?” he asked.

“You’ll get them when I get my results.”

“I got something for you.” He pushed away from the desk, started out, then stopped to study Peabody. “That you in there, Peabody? Where’s the uniform?”

Delighted with the opportunity, she pulled out her badge. “I made detective.”

“No shit? Nice going. Liked the way you filled out a uniform though.”

He hopped onto his stool and began to ride it up and down his long white counter as he ordered up files, keyed in codes with his spider-quick fingers. “You got some of this already. No illegals in either vic. Vic one—that’s Jacobs—had a blood-alcohol level of point oh-eight. She was feeling pretty happy. Got her last meal. No recent nooky. Fibers on her shoes match the crime-scene carpet. Couple others here she probably picked up in the cab on the way home.”

His fingers danced; the screens revolved with color and shapes. “Got a couple hair samples, but says here she was clubbing prior to getting dead. Coulda picked those up in the club. If any of them are from the killer, we’ll match ’em when you nab ’im.

“Now we’ve reconstructed the wound—used her ID photo and some others to create an image of her at time of death.”

He brought it up so Eve could look at Andrea Jacobs as she had been, on screen. A pretty woman in a fancy dress, with a gash at her throat.

“Using our techno-magic, we can pretty well determine the size and shape of your murder weapon.”

Eve studied the split-screen image of a long, smooth blade, and the specs beneath it that gave her width and length.

“Good. That’s good, Dickie.”

“You’re working with the best. We concur with the investigator and the ME re the positioning of vic at time of the death blow.

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