Golden in Death

“He couldn’t lead himself out of a room made of doors.” – Eve Dallas to Peabody about Marshall Cosner, Golden in Death

Golden in Death
Golden in Death US Hardcover
Book Number	50
Release Date	February 4, 2020
Publisher	St. Martin’s
ISBN	978-1250207203
Publication order
Previous	Vendetta in Death
Next	Shadows in Death

Plot Summary

Pediatrician Kent Abner received the package on a beautiful April morning. Inside was a cheap trinket, a golden egg that could be opened into two halves. When he pried it apart, highly toxic airborne fumes entered his body―and killed him.

After Eve Dallas calls the hazmat team―and undergoes testing to reassure both her and her husband that she hasn’t been exposed―it’s time to look into Dr. Abner’s past and relationships. Not every victim Eve encounters is an angel, but it seems that Abner came pretty close―though he did ruffle some feathers over the years by taking stands for the weak and defenseless. While the lab tries to identify the deadly toxin, Eve hunts for the sender. But when someone else dies in the same grisly manner, it becomes clear that she’s dealing with either a madman―or someone who has a hidden and elusive connection to both victims.

Spoiler warning! This article contains plot details about an upcoming episode.

Timeline

Story Date: April 28-May 2, 2061

Day 1 – April 28, 2061

Chapter 1

• Dr. Kent Abner begins the day of his death by kissing his husband of thirty-seven years, Dr. Martin Rufty, off to work and plans his day off activities. He muses that as a pediatrician, he handles adorable babies and charming children, while his husband, as headmaster of a K-12 private academy, juggles charming kids with hormonal and broody teenagers. He changes into his running clothes, and as he’s zipping his gym bag closed, he gets a delivery from a store he doesn’t recognize, All That Glitters. Since it’s addressed to him, he opens it to find a small faux wood box, which he opens. Inside is a cheap golden egg closed with a tiny hook. He opens it and feels the effect of the vapor instantly as his throat snaps shut and his lungs clog. He collapses, dead.
• Later that day, Lieutenant Eve Dallas stands over Dr. Abner’s body, which is face up despite him clearly falling face down. The crime scene has been shot to shit. She gets information from Officer Ponce, who was first on scene. Abner’s husband came home at 4 p.m., saw the body, walked through the body fluids, turned the body over, tried to revive him, and then called the MTs, who came in and walked all over the scene before calling it in. It looks like chemical poisoning and the victim has been dead for hours.
• Eve confirms the TOD: 9:43 a.m. Her partner, Detective Peabody, checks the security feed, seeing the husband coming home at 4:02, the MTs arriving at 4:10, and the uniforms at 4:16. She sees that Dr. Rufty left the house at 7:20 that morning, and a female from Global Post and Package delivered a package to Dr. Abner at 9:36. As Eve inspects the debris on the floor, she realizes whatever killed Abner was in whatever was in the box and she calls the hazmat unit. She doesn’t panic because the husband, MTs, and uniforms are all fine, but she does allow them to draw blood and clear her.
• The package was dropped off at a kiosk the previous night around ten p.m., but the security cam had a glitch, so no footage. It was charged to Brendina A. Coffman, an 81-year-old woman. Eve and Peabody visit her husband and her, and Brendi realizes that her ’link is missing - she last used it the previous afternoon when she was out shopping with her daughter and daughters-in-law.

Chapter 2

• Peabody suggests the killer looked for an easy mark - an older woman, distracted, crowded shopping area, bump and snatch - he just needed the ’link for that night’s charge. Lydia Merchant, the delivery person for GP&P, and her roommate are celebrating their raises (Teela’s was last week) and getting to move out of their hellhole apartment. They’ve seen The Icove Agenda twice and think Marlo Durn looks just like Eve in the vid, but Peabody is prettier than K.T. Harris. Lydia has no information on the package she delivered but is sad about the death because both doctors were kind.
• Eve and Peabody plan to meet at Dr. Abner’s office in the morning since it’s already closed for the night. Eve starts on a warrant on her way home - Reo says she can’t get a warrant for medical records but Eve just wants threatening correspondence. At home Summerset gives her grief even though she texted that she’d be late, telling her Roarke is worried because she was exposed to a toxin. He’s so relieved to see her that he rewards her with pepperoni pizza and no veg. Reo comes through with the warrant, and Dr. Louise Dimatto and Charles Monroe stop by and join them for wine. Dr. Abner walked into Louise’s clinic, Canal Street Clinic, the week it opened, and volunteered twenty hours a month.

Chapter 3

• They were all friends, but Drs. Abner and Rufty were on a medical trip to Africa at the time of Charles and Louise’s wedding, and held a neighborhood party for them when they returned from their honeymoon. Louise doesn’t know of anybody who disliked Kent and the only person she knows who liked him too much was a nurse who joked about it, in the “why can’t you be straight and single?” way you do.
• Louise asked what happened and deduces from Eve’s narrative that the poison was inhaled and dissipated. Nobody who needs money stands to gain. Eve tells Louise not to work on this with Dr. Morris and Roarke suggests they contact Dr. Rufty to offer support since Louise says the doctors were surrogate fathers to her.
• After they leave, Roarke pokes around their money - nothing rings, and Eve checks with the lab - no update on the substance. They call it a night and have passionate sex.

Day 2 – April 29, 2061

Chapter 3 (Continued)

• Roarke’s plans for the day included attending the first staff meeting for An Dídean and another meeting at Dóchas. Rochelle Pickering is working out well and is now living with Crack. Jake Kincade and his bandmates are going to give lessons on music and songwriting, Nadine Furst will come in to talk about journalism and screenwriting, in addition to continuing to mentor Quilla Magnum. He suggests Eve guest lecture on police work, but she suddenly needs to leave to meet Peabody.

Chapter 4

• Eve parks near Abner’s home to get an idea of his routine, since he walked to work regularly. The office manager, Seldine Abbakar. has worked for “Dr. Kent” for nearly twenty years, and was with her husband’s sister, who was delivering a baby, at the time the package was dropped off, and Dr. Kent’s associate, Dr. Melissa Rendi (“Dr. Lissa”), was at home with her fiancée, eating dinner and discussing wedding plans. She’s worked with him for three years, but everybody else has been there at least seven years.
• Dr. Lissa mentions a doctor Dr. Kent dressed down at Unger Memorial’s ER - Dr. Milo Ponti was berating and humiliating a woman for her child being dirty. Dr. Kent told him she was homeless, or next to it, and doing the best she could. He told the woman about Louise’s clinic, and got Dr. Ponti removed - this was shortly before last Thanksgiving, so he goes on the suspect list, which is now one person.
• Several other staff members talk about the three times Dr. Kent reported a parent for abuse. Since there are police reports on each one, there are three more people to interview. EDD will come by at 1 p.m. to pick up their electronics, giving them enough time to separate out patient data. Eve and Peabody walk back to Eve’s car, stopping at the bakery Dr. Abner frequented, splitting a turnover, because “when you cut calories in half, it’s a good thing. It’s an admirable thing. It’s practically a minus-over.” They also visit Dr. Abner’s gym and a local market. He will be missed by all, and has no enemies in his neighborhood.
• At the morgue, Morris is in full hazmat attire for Dr. Abner’s autopsy, and hasn’t gone home since they began working on his body. Eve dispenses Peabody to bring Morris breakfast. They know it’s a toxin but all Morris can confirm is that it’s a nerve agent, either a sarin derivative or sulfur trioxide, it was airborne, and it was a quick (three-five minutes) and painful death. It destroyed his nervous system, lungs, kidneys, liver, and intestines, he suffered a massive stroke with internal burning, and his esophagus was scorched from the inside. Peabody returns with coffee, bacon, eggs, and has browns from the DLE AutoChef. Morris advises finding the killer quickly: “He may not be one and done.”

Chapter 5

• At the lab, Dickie Berenski, who also worked all night, explains how the package was designed - the inside of the golden egg was coated with a lead-based sealant to beat a standard package scan, and there was a thin, airtight seal around the edges. When Abner unhooked the lock, he had to give it a little tug, which broke the seal, releasing the toxin - the oxygen triggered the agent. Dickie’s disappointed to learn it wasn’t military, but no money was lost in their pool because nobody guessed pediatrician.
• Peabody returns with real coffee, and Dickie pulls in their expert, Abdul Siler. Inside the egg was sulfur trioxide mixed with a soupçon of sarin, mixed with an agent that killed them both about fifteen minutes after it hits the air, meaning it was extremely target-specific. Since that violates all sorts of conventions and treaties and interplanetary laws, Siler figured CIA. Siler said you would need a seriously controlled lab, special containers, glassware, a fume hood, a bunch of skills, and a whacked-out brain.
• Next stop: the temperamental Dr. Ponti, who tells Eve if he poisoned everybody who pissed him off the ER would be overflowing. He was dealing with a teenager with three stab wounds the night the poisoned golden egg was dropped off at GP&P to ship to Dr. Abner. He was supposed to be off at ten, but they brought the kid in at 9:45 and he didn’t get out until at least 10:30. After that he went home and he and his wife drove to the Hamptons to stay at his friend’s beach house for a couple of days. “Bad attitude, bad temper, resents not having a pot of money. He stays on the list - along with the wife,” who could have made the drop before they left for the Hamptons.
• “Now let’s go talk to men who liked to smack little kids around.” Peabody says, “The fun never ends in Homicide.” Ben Ringwold has turned his life around - he and another ex-con, Jacques Lamont, own a food truck, Cajun Bon Temps, and both are in recovery. Ringwold was at an Addicts Anonymous meeting the previous evening, and went for coffee and pie with the kid he’s sponsoring afterwards. He’s been clean for nine years, eight months, two weeks, and four days and made amends to Abner several years ago. He’s working on repairing his relationship with his son, saying his ex has forgiven him but Barry is a little slower to trust. He’s grateful to Dr. Abner for the wake-up call.

Chapter 6

• Thomas T. Thane, who works for the division of Your Ad Here that handles ad blimps, was reported for child abuse five years ago by Dr. Abner since he noticed that his three-year-old son, who was there for his regular check-up, had extensive bruising. The kid spilled to his doc that he was punished for breaking something, and that was not the first time. Thanks to a good lawyer, Thane did six months’ mandatory counseling, community service and completed the anger management program, but no prison. He explained to Eve and Peabody that he had to discipline his child because his mother wouldn’t, she just let him run wild. Also the kid was clumsy, always falling down. Peabody asked if the mother was also clumsy since she had injuries. He was alibied for the night the shipment was dropped off, having drinks with three (male) friends at After Hours, and thinks Abner did him a favor because he got rid of the bitch and the brat, both whiners dragging him down, both more trouble than they were worth.
• After that charmer, they visit Curtis Feingold, a maintenance worker who also “disciplined” his child, resulting in two years prison. His five-year-old daughter had a concussion, three broken fingers, and a dislocated shoulder, and Abner testified against him at the trial. “Kid’s my flesh and blood, ain’t she? I can do what I like with my own flesh and blood. But the system’s rigged, so they tossed me inside.” He was alibied by whiny tenants wanting things fixed, and Dallas, who had threatened to call the Division of Building Standards and Codes if he wouldn’t open the door, tells Peabody to call them after they leave, since in a drunk, she can see him pounding somebody to death or picking up a sticker and slicing them. “He’s far too stupid to think of something as elaborate as shipping nerve agents but that doesn’t mean he deserves to squat in that filthy hole of his getting free rent from some slumlord who doesn’t give a shit how people live.”
• They next pay a visit to Dr. Rufty, who’s staying with his daughter, Tori, and her family. He remembered Ringwold, and that he came to see Kent several years ago when he was doing the Twelve Steps, apologizing and thanking Kent for helping stop him. Rufty’s son remembers Thane for getting off with “bullshit community service” and Rufty remembers Feingold as an abusive drunk who was sent to prison. They all know of Dr. Ponti, but can’t see killing a man for giving you a talking-to and don’t know anybody who would be so diabolical to kill Kent that way, or at all.
• They interview staff at Louise’s clinic since Dr. Abner volunteered there - same story, beloved doc, everybody loved him. Louise dishes on Dr. Ponti - he’s an arrogant asshole with considerable skill, particularly in emergency medicine, he’s not well-liked, and didn’t appreciate Dr. Abner’s setdown or the fact that he had him written up. He hit back with the claim that Abner was a rich, entitled elitist who wouldn’t last a full shift in ER. He has an altercation or disagreement every week or two, not that unusual for inner-city ER. His wife is rock steady and “the contrasting smooth to Ponti’s rough edges.” Eve tells her to stay out of it, and Peabody tells her the same, saying she’s not doing nothing, she’s trusting them to stand for her friend and get justice for him.

Chapter 7

• The suspect list is Ponti because as a medical, he has better than basic knowledge of chemistry, and Thane, who had a grudge and maybe had a connection to someone with knowledge and access. Bother had tempers, but that was a strike against since the killing was cold and remote. Commander Whitney stops by on his way to a meeting with Chief Tibble and the mayor, saying procedure and policy demand they report the death to Homeland, but the lab results indicate it wasn’t an act of terrorism. Whitney says there are concerns that it was a test case for a mass kill, but Eve wonders why the killer would have gone to all the trouble of adding a substance to ensure it would dissipate, would kill only the specified target. They agree it sounds more like an assassination, and HSO is passing for now.
• Eve tells Whitney “the killer’s a coward. He’s smart, precise, methodical, but a coward. Poison’s a weapon of the weak. A weapon most often used by women because they are, most usually, physically weaker than men.” She adds that the poison was used remotely so the killer didn’t need to see the results: “There’s no passion here.” Eliminating politics, power, money, and religion left jealousy and revenge for motives. Eve begins a methodical search, beginning with Abner’s parents, but there’s just nothing there. Eve has Peabody check IRCCA and they will work them from home.
• Eve gets home, thinking she will take time for a swim, but sees that Roarke is in the dojo, so she joins him there: “The best Christmas present ever.” He’s just finishing a session with the Master, and Eve and Roarke face off against each other, eventually calling it a draw and having sex, then finishing it off with a few laps before heading back upstairs for dinner. Eve just can’t see any motive, so Roarke digs into finances for “the snarly doctor and the child beater” while Eve checks the poisoned DBs Peabody pulled.
• Roarke tells her he bought Nowhere, the dive bar from the Pettigrew case, and plans to turn it into a neighborhood pub, keeping the name, because “Who doesn’t want to go to Nowhere for a pint?” The work is complete on Eve’s Nebraska property and they’re entertaining offers, letting a little bidding war play out. Eve asks why she gets the money since she lost the bet, and he tells her it’s her punishment.

Chapter 8

• After three hours of searching for like crimes, Eve concludes Abner was the first. Roarke found that Ponti was a middling student, but his wife, Cilla Roe, excelled at school, especially chemistry, including a well-received paper on chemical poisonings in her senior year of high school. She’ll visit her tomorrow, but for now they call it a night.

Day 3 – April 30, 2061

Chapter 8 (Continued)

• Over breakfast, Roarke shows Eve what Nowhere could look like and she is delighted to see waffles. Because they’ve been getting along so well, there’s a spat over money, with the end result being Roarke stuffing money in her pocket and Eve giving him a memo cube with an IOU to “Moneybags Roarke for $500 USD” and telling him Galahad has syrup all over his face as she left.
• Roe has the morning off, so Eve texts Peabody to meet her at the Ponti-Roe apartment, while she stops at the Abner-Rufty townhouse to see if anybody could have watched to observe Abner’s death, but it doesn’t play.
• Roe says she had thought to go into biochemical research before she fell in love with nursing and surgery. “I work to save lives. I’d never take one.” They both believe her, but since they have no other leads, they check if either Ponti or Roe spent a lot of the time in the lab sections of the hospital, since no way could they cook up the poison in their apartment - they didn’t.
• While they drove to Central, Elise Duran accepted a package from Allied Shipping. She was at home, preparing for her monthly book club meeting and musing about her mother’s family-owned bookstore, First Page Books, and how much she loved reading and books. She opened the package, wondering who would send her such a cheap gift, and who would send her a tacky golden egg, thinking maybe it was a gag gift. She unlatched the egg, tugged it open, and “never had time to understand the joke was on her.”
• Eve rules Ponti and Roe out and has just started digging into Thane’s background when her communicator signals - another poisoned egg victim. Hazmat is on scene and she and Peabody head over.

Chapter 9

• It’s the same situation except since Elise opened it on carpet, the egg is intact, and her mother found her about an house later. There are two teenage sons, so maybe Dr. Abner was their doctor? Other than that Eve can’t find a connection. One of the first on-scene officers grew up nearby and knows the vic and her mother from the bookstore, which has been around for fifty-three years and is an institution in the West Village.
• Elise’s mother, Catherine Fitzwalter, knows who Eve and Peabody are from reading Nadine’s book, which she has recommended more times than she can say. Elise and her husband, Jay Duran, have been married for twenty years and had no friction. Catherine arrived early for the book club meeting to bring desserts and help set up. She didn’t see her daughter so she tagged her and when she heard the ’link ring from the office, she found her.
• Catherine didn’t recognize Abner’s name but had heard about the poisoning death on Channel 75 that morning. Same story - Elise was loved, no angry employees or customers at the bookstore. Eve has officers go to the bookstore to bring her husband home, and arranges for other officers to drive her home. The package drop-off was the same - kiosk and charged to a ninety-three-year-old woman who reported her ’link missing about an hour ago.
• Eve begins the home search. The husband is a lit professor at Columbia, so Eve contacts Mira, who doesn’t know Professor Duran, but will ask her husband, Dennis, who also teaches in that department. Meanwhile Peabody has looked up Jay’s info and sees that he’s been at Columbia for almost eight years, but for nearly ten years prior, he taught language arts, literature, and creative writing at the Theresa A. Gold Academy, where Dr. Rufty is currently headmaster. Eve says, “You kill somebody, they’re dead. You kill what they love, they live and live with that pain every day.”
• Mira calls back - Dennis knows Jay very well and meets Eve and Peabody at Columbia for the notification. While he goes into Jay’s class to bring him to his office, Peabody tags Baxter and Trueheart to notify the kids and bring them to their grandparents. Jay has the same air of kindness, intellect, and a little vagueness that Mr. Mira has. He is, of course, devastated, and collapses into Dennis’s arms.

Chapter 10

• Peabody tells Jay his sons are being picked up and brought to his in-laws. He was at the Gold Academy with Dr. Rufty for just one semester, because he left to teach at college level when he got his doctorate, as planned. He says he didn’t have issues with anyone, but they had been going through some problems during the turnover: snipping, bullying, and cheating. The previous headmaster, Dr. Lotte Grange, fostered a kind of competition and a hierarchy, invariably taking the side of the parents who complained or objected if their child needed to be disciplined for infractions or bad behavior, and putting the emphasis on the wealthier students, with parents willing to make donations.
• Duran complained to the board about a cheating ring, as did many others, both teachers and parents, but couldn’t provide clear-cut evidence. Some students were pressured or threatened into cheating, even physically assaulted and the headmaster looked the other way. Dr. Rufty changed the tone when he replaced Grange, who took a headmaster position at Lester Hensen Preparatory School in East Washington. Eve asks him who was unhappy about the changes. Some students left when Dr, Rufty implemented disciplinary action for bullying and copying, and it became a better place to work and learn.
• Dennis took care of Jay’s classes while Eve and Peabody arranged transportation for Jay. Mr. Mira told Eve she’s a strong, brave girl, and he doesn’t know how she does it. He also told her to talk to Charlie, who’s another strong, brave girl, and she thanked him for his help. At the car, Peabody tells Eve Duran told her Dennis was the first person to take him out for coffee, and they agree they need to track down Dr. Grange. Dr. Rufty will come in for follow-up now that they know the school is at the center - he was finishing up arrangements for Abner’s memorial, which will be held in the morning, at the park where Dr. Abner liked to run.
• Back at Central, Eve fills Mira in, discussing her theory that it’s somebody with a grudge who had it easy under Grange but got disciplined under Rufty. Mira agrees that “What’s a momentary annoyance or past issue for one is a deep and abiding insult to another.” She thinks it’s either a student or staff member who got pushed out during the transition.
• The kill is dispassionate, but the person thinks he’s loved in the past and understands the pain of loss, and is a coward. He is the typical nice, normal guy, keeping the rage bottled up. His work area will be immaculate. He values money, since the box and egg are cheap - no need to spend money on those, but spends where necessary (the chemicals), lives alone, is driven, patient to wait eight years for revenge, no relationships, the type of person who undermines colleagues rather than confronting them, and he will have documented everything.
• Peabody runs updates Eve on Dr. Grange, including her second divorce, which happened the same year she transferred to East Washington. The ex is CEO of All Fresh, which manufactures household and commercial cleaning products, and therefore has chemists on staff. They plan to drop in on him after they talk to Rufty, since if they bring him to Central, he’ll bring a bunch of lawyers with him. Peabody stocks tea for Rufty in the conference room and Eve starts a dig on All Fresh, which has research and development labs in New York, with top scientists, chemists, herbalists, and innovators.

Chapter 11

• Rufty tells Eve there had been a number of complaints by parents and staff, rumors and accusations of inappropriate relationships with Dr. Grange, both teachers and parents, and claims she’d turned a blind eye to bullying, intimidation, cheating, illegals, and alcohol. Dr. Rufty was brought on to right the ship, and he met with every staff member, many of whom had the same stories. Dr. Grange provided a list of staff she’d had problems with, including Duran, but between his record and meeting with him, Rufty found Duran to be a dedicated educator. Others she’d listed had also filed complaints against her.
• Rufty thought Dr. Grange emphasized bringing in large donations, giving naming rights, and bolstering prestige over discipline and there was a bias toward students whose parents contributed. There was an unstated policy that students who were bullied should stand up for themselves, not look to the school to handle the problem. Students who failed tests were automatically allowed to retest, and when parents complained about grades, they were curved up. Cheating was rampant, with several students forming a business of it. Teachers were threatened, and drinking and illegals were allowed on the grounds.
• Rufty met with everyone on staff - his son-in-law, Gregory Brickman, who came in with him, said Rufty was given the position not only because of his reputation and qualifications, but because of his philosophies - the board needed someone to clean up the mess. Rufty instituted firm policies with specific disciplinary actions. Some students were suspended within days and some parents pulled their children out, some withdrew their donations, but by spring it had evened out. Nobody was expelled of fired, but some were encouraged to look for a better fit elsewhere.
• Eve asked him to go through the records from that period and note which students or staff were problematic. She also asked for the names of advanced chemistry students and teachers. Rufty agreed to start on that after Kent’s memorial and will contact Jay for help and to lend support since he knows what he’s going through.
• Eve, Peabody, McNab, and Callendar head over to the school with a warrant. One of Callendar’s friends, Miguel Rodrigues, graduated from there in ’53 or ’54, and now works for Roarke as a game developer. He was beat up pretty badly one time when he wasn’t fast enough to escape his bullies, and Callendar taught him some martial arts moves. He was at Gold on scholarship and got a full ride to MIT.
• The assistant headmaster, Kim Myata, leads to the chemistry lab while Peabody pokes around the classrooms and McNab and Callendar start on the electronics. Myata tells Eve she heard about the school she and Roarke are opening next month and tells her it’s a good and generous thing to provide a safe place to learn, socialize, and become, She teaches math to second and third graders - Dr. Rufty’s policy is that all administrators teach at least one class per term: “How can we administrate if we don’t also educate?” She leaves Eve with Ty Rosalind, who has been a chemistry teacher at the school for 38 years and has worked for four headmasters.

Chapter 12

• Rosalind was alibied for the night before Dr. Abner’s murder, and was, in fact, friends with him - they used to run together on weekends and Dr. Abner spoke to his students who were interested in going into the medical field. He had the same take as Rufty: Dr. Grange’s focus was courting deep pockets to the detriment of the less well-off students - no consequences for poor behavior, missed work, or poor grades if your parents were donors.Some students were ganged up on with impunity. Eve tells Rosalind Jay’s wife was killed that morning in the same manner as Dr. Abner and asks him who was unhappy with the change - students, parents, or staff. She also tells him to advise his family not to open any packages.
• Toward the end of Dr. Grange’s rule and in the first few weeks of Dr. Rufty’s, there was a bit of accessing and cloning swipe cards and using the chem lab and supplies for making stink, smoke, and flash bombs, but Rosalind didn’t have evidence and Grange vetoed meeting with the suspected perpetrators. When it continued after Rufty came on, he held a full assembly and gave notice that any student involved would face automatic suspension and anyone covering would lose sports and activities privileges.
• Before Grange left, one of the students was physically assaulted because he refused to cheat. His parents brought him in but Grange dismissed it because he was afraid to name names. They came back in when Rufty took over, had a private meeting with them and other parents and students with complaints, and at the end of the day, eleven students were suspended. Rufty kept it contained, but several of those students didn’t return.
• The boy who was attacked was Callendar’s friend, Miguel, who was in Rosalind’s advanced chemistry class. Kendel Hayward was a spoiled young woman who liked to humiliate others, but she came back and settled down after the suspension. Rosalind thinks her parents gave her an ultimatum - she always did satisfactory work, but she stopped mouthing off. He tells Eve he will let her know if he thinks of other students.
• Eve, Peabody, McNab, and Callendar will notify all of the people who were on staff eight years ago, plus board members, splitting the list four ways. Eve will start with the first ten on her way to Dr. Grange’s ex. He lives in a building Roarke owns, so no chance for Eve to snipe at anyone. Reginald P. Greenwald’s beautiful young and very personal assistant, Iryna, welcomes Eve to his home disclosing that she’s worked for Greenwald for three years, which not coincidentally, is the length of time she’s been in the U.S.
• Greenwald begins the interview by calling Eve “Roarke’s cop” and is interested to learn that Grange isa suspect, not that Eve told him that. He’s alibied for the nights in question. He called his marriage to Grange a small blip in his life and spilled the tea to Eve. He and Grange married on a sexual whim - she was physically striking, intelligent, ambitious, and had her own money (although not as much as him). They had an arrangement - if either of them opted to engage in sex outside the marriage, they would be discreet and they would clear such activities with the other party before going forward, but she broke the agreement.
• He received an envelope with compromising pictures of Grange and another man, whose face was turned away or conveniently obscured. They divorced, with her finding another headmaster position in East Washington. It turned out one of the instructors had walked in on her with another instructor, in a compromising position. Greenwald paid Grange a few million dollars not to play the injured wife card since their agreement wasn’t in writing and he’d also had affairs. She told the other instructors she’d go to the police and the board, and file sexual assault charges unless they kept their mouths shut, and she would be gone in a matter of weeks.
• He hasn’t seen or spoken to her since, and destroyed the photographs after the divorce was finalized. He says he learned a priceless lesson that marriage is for fools. “Why legalize and complicate what you can simply enjoy?” He then kisses Iryna on the cheek and asks, “Isn’t that right, my sweet?” When Iryna walks Eve out, she tells her if she’s not happy here, she can help, but Iryna is genuinely surprised that Eve would think that, saying Mr. Greenwald is very kind and generous, and doesn’t hurt her. She says she knows what it’s like when men do - he has no violence so she’s happy.

Chapter 13

• Eve arrived home to welcoming lights and Summerset: “I’d say look what the cat dragged in, but he’s been here all day.” She tells him not to open any packages. Roarke arrived home, also out-of-sorts - Maine rain has delayed a project. He gives Eve a blocker and she tells him she has the connection, but somebody else had to die for it. They agree that Dennis Mira is made of kindness and compassion, and then resume/finish their morning spat over money.
• Eve says she doesn’t want to depend on Roarke giving her money whenever she forgets to stop at an ATM, and he says he doesn’t want to worry about her leaving the house with empty pockets. She says Jay Duran was shattered and remembered kissing his wife goodbye before he left for work, but didn’t think he told her he loved her, and she wants to be sure Roarke knows that she loves him even though she didn’t kiss him goodbye that morning or say it and there will be other days when one or the other is pissed off when they leave. He asks her how she feels about spaghetti and meatballs, and she tells him he knows what button to push.
• Roarke says there’s a calculated cruelty to murdering the spouse of someone you have a grudge against, and, while she doesn’t think the killer will go for her, she’s been asking questions and having EDD access records, so “what better way to slap at the primary than to try for her spouse?” The strongest link is Dr. Grange, who didn’t care about the students or the instructors, just about the big donations.
• Roarke has met Grange’s ex a time or two, and therefore possibly Grange. Greenwald’s business is solid and the family runs it well. Eve tells him about the arrangement he and Grange had, saying she broke it and also there was a rumor about her sleeping with a student. She tells him about Greenwald’s twenty-four-year-old Ukranian personal assistant, but Roarke points out that even though the age gap is similar, she’s an adult, not a student.
• Eve said she’s considering mentioning knowing about the student affair when she goes to East Washington to interview Grange. Roarke says, “I’ll arrange a shuttle, and if that’s something you get used to, it’s to save you time and frustration - potentially lives - in the work. So it’s all to the good.” She’s planning to leave after Abner’s memorial, which is scheduled for 8 a.m.
• Next Eve asks him about one of his employees, Miguel Rodrigues, saying he was a target of some of the troublemaking rich kids, got beat up when he couldn’t avoid them, and wouldn’t cheat so they could get decent grades. His parents met with Grange, who blew them off, and then with Rufty, who took action and suspended the culprits. Roarke will talk to his supervisor and have Rodrigues come in whenever Eve wants to interview him. He suggests getting Whitney to contact the board of trustees or the school’s president to set up the interview with Grange, which she does, followed by a run on Kendel Hayward - cheater, bully, mean girl. She’s also in East Washington, so she’ll interview her after Grange.
• Eve continued researching the bullies and troublemakers now that she has Rufty’s notes. One of Kendel’s friends, Marshall Cosner, transferred from Gold to complete his last semester at Bridgeport Academy in Vermont, where his maternal grandparents lived. He’d gone on to study law, making him the fourth generation in his family to do so, but still hasn’t gotten his degree. He clerks at his family’s law firm in New York, but he took time off for rehab in a very pricy and exclusive facility after two illegals busts with no time served. There was another stint in rehab, physical this time as he busted himself and his vehicle up while under the influence. Some addicts like to cook their own, so she’s moving him to the list of possibles.
• She took a hard look at Kendel’s high school boyfriend, Stephen Whitt, who was also Cosner’s good pal and, according to Rufty, a ringleader of troublemakers. He also transferred during Rufty’s first few weeks, but to Lester Hensen, where Dr. Grange is the headmaster. He graduated in the top ten percent of his class, went on to study international finance at Northwestern University, a family tradition, and works at his family’s small, exclusive firm on Wall Street while he works in tandem on his master’s degree. Eve finds the no criminal on his record suspicious.
• Roarke provides info on Rodrigues, who is a stellar employee and working on his doctorate through MIT online. He was recruited straight out of grad school and requested the New York location, where his family lives. He’s bilingual, steady, and in mad love with another young engineer, but is too shy to ask her out.
• The Whitt Group tried to acquire Roarke’s portfolio, but, although they’re good, the head, Brent Whitt, is too much of a smug, entitled condescending asshole. His great-grandfather made the first bundle, and with his son (the grandfather) turned the bundle into a substantial fortune. He and the father, along with an uncle, formed The Whitt Group, bringing in Steve and a cousin.
• Cosner’s parents, Lowell Cosner and Marilyn Dupont, are both attorneys and good people - Dupont is very active in good causes, has her own foundation, and has appealed to Roarke directly for donations and sponsorships. Eve has met them at charity events.
• Kendel’s parents are Louisa Raines, who comes from wealth and is a top-tier party planner, and Benson Hayward, who gave up Wall Street to runs a dive shop in Jamaica. Kendel recently announced her engagement to former Senator Bilby’s grandson, a congressional aide with political ambitions, and whose mother is serving as secretary of education and slated to run for president in the next election.
• Eve sums it up as Whitt’s a dick, his offspring was a cheating bully in high school and it got covered up, the Costner kid liked getting buzzed more than studying, and probably didn’t have the guts to bully and cheat once he lost his cohorts, and Hayward had at least one parent who made her stick it out and at least pretend to work for a living. Since Roarke didn’t attend much in the way of high school, Eve explains that grudges and resentments formed in high school run deep, especially for people who were big deals there and not now.
• The plan is to finish up for the night and then have makeup sex for that morning’s fight.

Day 4 – May 1, 2061

Chapter 14

• Eve wakes up refreshed and gives Roarke the parameters for dressing her: “I’m going to start the day with a memorial, go down to East Washington and take on a nasty-assed headmaster, shift over to dead with a pampered mean girl before coming back, working on a couple of bullies. And very likely a whole bunch of high-priced lawyers.” Roarke comes up with a jacket and pants in fog with a sheen, calling it power.
• Breakfast is a full Irish and they discuss the differences between the rich private school, Gold, and An Dídean, the school for kids who’ve already had hard knocks and wouldn’t have a chance otherwise. After Eve dresses and accessorizes, Roarke presents her with a magic topper in leather the same color as her suit and she kisses him to thank him and another for goodbye.
• The memorial at the park is packed, with hundreds of people, including other runners, office staff, Myata with teachers and students from Gold. Louise and Charles are there, with Louise giving the eulogy because the family was afraid nobody else would be able to get through it without breaking down. Eve and Peabody offer condolences to Dr. Rufty and his family. They stay for the eulogy and another ten minutes but nobody gave them a buzz.
• As they leave, Eve allows Peabody to pet her topper, which says: “I may be classy, but you don’t want to mess with me.” They go over their strategy for Grange and Hayward. When they get to East Washington, there’s a black DLE waiting for them, already programmed with their seat specs and directions to the school, Hayward’s business (Party Elegance), and Hayward’s home.

Chapter 15

• Lester Hensen is formidable, with a lot of future lawyers, judges, and politicians being educated there. Grange’s assistant, Teesha Mulray, starts a pissing match by insisting they turn in their service weapons, but her boss quickly throws her under the bus, and she returns, saying she misunderstood Grange’s directive, and takes them to Grange’s enormous office.
• Eve asks Mulray how long she has been Grange’s assistant (five years), how long she has been with the school (nine years), and if she knew Stephen Whitt, who graduated in ’53 (she claims no, but there’s a picture of his father, a major donor on the wall).
• Eve and Peabody agree that she’s a liar, Peabody points out that the office decoration cost a couple hundred grand, based on the fabric and wood, and Eve points out there are no books, files, or discs on the desk or shelves, nor in the assistant’s office, nor in the assistants to the assistant area. The office is all about Grange.
• Grange is formidable, to go with the school, and Peabody starts by sucking up about the office, saying it’s lovely. Grange says she was sorry to hear about Dr. Rufty’s partner, because in her world gay marriage doesn’t exist, but she doesn’t know what that has to do with her. Eve asks why she resigned from Gold, and she tells her to accept the position at Lester Hensen, since she wanted to focus her skills on those vital years (grades 9-12) before college rather than a K-12 academy.
• Eve asks if it had anything to do with her divorce, Grange says no, she and Reginald agreed their marriage had run its course and parted without acrimony, which Eve calls bullshit on, saying she already talked to her ex. Grange finds Eve flippant. Eve finds Grange evasive. Eve asks her whereabouts on the nights the eggs were shipped (except she gets the dates wrong), Grange is furious and tells her she’s insulting, Peabody plays up the wide-eyed conciliator, and Grange has her assistant pull up her calendar and give Eve the info. Eve needs the name of the staff member with whom she had an affair while serving as headmaster, and Grange tells Mulray to get legal there asap. She asks Eve, “How dare you?” Eve tells her it’s really easy, she’s doing her job, and Peabody takes another one for the team, pulling off intimidated like a champ.
• Grange finally provides the names, although she claims she was fending off an advance from a teacher, and the incident was misinterpreted. Grange sums it up as “You conclude I’m somehow indirectly responsible for two murders because I exercise my sexual freedom? You believe that after eight years someone I may have slept with is punishing those who disagreed with my administrative methods?” Eve pauses, and then says, “In a nutshell.”
• Grange then rants about Eve’s “state-based, bare-bones, limited education,” which is “an unfortunate foundation for true critical thinking” and Peabody’s sad Free-Ager upbringing: “It’s a shame your parents didn’t afford you a real education. Being raised in the foster system didn’t allow Lieutenant Dallas much choice regarding her limitations, but your parents, Detective? How foolish and selfish of them to put their own odd lifestyle ahead of the welfare of their children. Still, considering your disadvantages, I supposed you’ve both made the best possible career choices by becoming police officers.”
• Peabody does not take this well, calling her an “arrogant, entitled, condescending snob,” and winding up with “I learned about compassion and tolerance and kindness.” Grange reprimands her and Peabody calls her a lying sack, saying she’s not worth to wipe the boots Eve will kick her ass with. Eve tells Peabody to take a walk, but when Grange starts on her about not being able to control her subordinates, Eve tells her, “Detective Peabody is my partner, and you’re going to be careful, really careful, with what you say about my partner.”
• Grange kicks her out, and Eve tells her she will address her lack of cooperation in a murder investigation with her board of trustees, just as they will be interested in the confirmation that Grange was engaging in her sexual freedom on school grounds, with parents, subordinates, and students she fancied while other students were being bullied, threatened, and kicked around. She also advises her not to open any packages since discarded lovers can turn, and when they do, it gets ugly. On her way out she tells Mulray “Brent Whitt. You think about that. Think about how you work for a liar who doesn’t care about anybody as long as she comes out on top.”
• Peabody says she couldn’t maintain the intimidated pretense once Grange started on her parents. Eve tells her she can start the report of the interview for Whitney while they drive to Hayward’s.

Chapter 16

• Party Elegance is “a pretty, peppy place with a pretty, peppy staff, like being surrounded by a bunch of former cheerleaders,” but their head cheerleader, Kendel, is at home. Peabody goes gooey over Kendel’s little dog: “Oh, aren’t you cute? Aren’t you the cutest little thing? It’s okay, baby. What’s your name, baby?” Eve says, “If it tells you, I’ll strip naked and dance the hula right here.” Alas, the dog doesn’t say answer Peabody. Kendel comes running out to assure them that Lulu doesn’t bite.
• They talk on the patio so Peabody and Lulu can play ball, and Kendel can keep an eye on Lulu even though there’s an invisible fence. She was a birthday gift from her fiancé the previous summer. Kendel has worked hard to put her years at TAG behind her and wasn’t aware of the murders. Dr. Rufty gave her a second chance, which she took. When he took over, she’d been making bad choices - bad behavior, illegals, drinking, making those less popular suffer, just being a mean girl. She resented it at the time but is now grateful. Her parents gave her the choice of shaping up or being shipped off to a private girl’s school in England. They saw she’d been a liar, cheat, bully, and brat up to then and she was under house arrest for the rest of the year.
• Mr. Duran’s classes were among the only ones she liked, and she says the status quo changed for a lot of the students and teachers, but her group shattered and scattered - parents either pulled their kids out or put the chains on, and she didn’t stay in touch with anybody from the school. She didn’t like school that much but she liked the peace of no longer having to be outrageous and mean, and liked getting decent grades without cheating. She promised her parents she’d give college two years, which she did, and then she came home and started working with her mother. She’s told Merritt everything, and his mother, who’s considering a run for president, thinks of her as “a case study in early redemption.”
• She remembers Marshall Cosner for being a terrible student and fun - he could always score illegals, booze, an empty house to party in. They called him “The facilitator.” She also remembers her ex, sexy Steve, who asked her to take off with him. Her friend, Annie or Allie (she can’t remember her name for sure), passed messages between her and Steve since Kendel’s ’link privileges had been revoked. Steve tagged Annie/Allie to talk to Kendel about taking off together, but when Kendel told her to relay the message that she couldn’t take off with him, he called her a stupid, spineless ¢unt and wrote her off.
• She told Eve, “Lie, and you have to keep lying. I’m living proof that you’ll eventually get caught, and the lies make it worse. We were bad kids, but we were kids. I don’t know anyone who’d commit murder over something from high school.” Eve thinks she does, but doesn’t realize it.
• They head straight for the lawyers when they return to New York. Marshall Cosner is still cruising on his family name and money, and is a dick, neither of which is a motive for murder, but Eve and Peabody agree that a simmering grudge over being yanked away from his gang of friends, a failure to reach family expectations, and the continuing illegals use could be. Both Rufty and Duran have built happy, satisfying lives, enjoyed long-term marital relationships, and have families who loved and admired them. “It’s the sort of thing that could stick in your craw if you remain an entitled, unaccomplished, addicted dick.”
• Cosner pretends to be on the ’link but Eve could see the blank display screen from the doorway. She’s entertained by the faces he’s trying on for the “important man on an important call” look, which he ends with “I need that completed before the end of the business day. No excuses. I have another meeting.” He acts delighted to meet “the famous Eve Dallas and her stalwart partner” until Eve asks for his whereabouts on the nights the poisoned eggs were shipped, telling him they are investigating the murders of Kent Abner and Elise Duran.

Chapter 17

• Cosner first claimed not to remember Dr. Rufty, and not to know about the murders. “I hardly remember the names of all the teachers I’ve had in my life, and Rufty was only headmaster for a couple of weeks before I left Gold.” Eve is surprised he doesn’t remember them since they had a part in his being shipped off to a boarding school in Vermont away from his circle of friends he’d formed for bullying, cheating, disrupting, and partying.
• Eve brings up Migues Rodrigues, who he also claims not to remember and asks him again for his whereabouts. He tells Eve and Peabody to leave on their own or he’ll have security escort them out. Eve recommends engaging an attorney, since he’s yet to earn his law degree, when they bring him into Central for formal interview. He says he was just taken by surprise, not being used to having police accuse him of crimes, although Eve disputes that given his use and trafficking of illegals. He tells her that was when he was young and foolish, and those days are over.
• He was badly alibied for the two nights poisoned golden eggs were dropped off at shipping kiosks. The night before Abner was killed he attended a dinner party with a number of friends, and the night before Duran’s murder, he was at a club with (many of the same) friends - both events where he could easily slip away for extended periods of time without being noticed. Eve says they’ll verify his alibi and they’re aware of the considerable trouble he and his circle caused during Grange’s tenure, and that Dr. Rufty changed all that. “Suddenly there were consequences.”
• Cosner explodes: “He was a fucking tyrant. Storming in there with his new rules, new agenda. He suspended a good third of the junior and senior classes, installed in-school detention, took the word of weasels there on our dime through scholarships over those of us whose families gave generously to keep that school running. He walked in there like he owned the place. If my parents hadn’t had the good sense to pull me out of there, I might not have gotten into law school because of his tyranny and arrogance. He actually accused me of cheating! And a handful of the substandard instructors, who begrudged the fact my family had wealth and influence and prominence and they were nothing, made wild, baseless accusations. Headmaster Grange understood a few... hijinks shouldn’t affect a teenager’s future.”
• He explains he’s taking a gap year to gain practical experience, and the cooking illegals charges were dropped. She tells him, “Oh, and the next time you want to pretend to be on the ’link, being important? At least turn it on.” On the elevator down, Peabody says he’s a liar and Eve says “the lying’s autopilot with him, and not very skilled. He lies about the obvious and inconsequential, so by the time he gets to the big stuff it’s just red-faced blather.” A woman in a business suit says it sounds like her ex-husband - “some people plan a lie. Other? It’s involuntary instinct, like breathing.” Another woman says she dated a guy who’d lie if you asked him his name. “He just couldn’t help himself.” Another one says “it’s worse when they believe the lie - convince themselves it’s true, keep beating you over the head with it until you start wondering if you’re the one who’s crazy.” The first woman says they all sound like her ex, and Eve says “he gets around.”
• Peabody sums up Cosner as “a lying sack who can’t lie worth crap, and a complete schmuck.” Eve says he’d have been better off agreeing to meet at Central with his legal rep, taking the time to prepare and having a seasoned mouthpiece with him. So, a deeply stupid, terminally arrogant lying sack of shit schmuck. She likes his arrogance for it, and the strong possibility he has some knowledge and skill with chemicals, and/or connections to people with more, and he is not remotely rehabilitated when it comes to illegals, but doesn’t think he’s cagey enough to have planned it all out or the patience to wait years for the payback. He would be more likely to mow Rufty down in the street if he saw him crossing, and lacks the ugly instinct to destroy what the enemy loves rather than the enemy. “If he’s a part of it, somebody else is running the show. He’s a follower. He couldn’t lead himself out of a room made of doors.”
• Eve parks in an overpriced lot and remembers to hit an ATM, baring her teeth and showing her weapon to a wanna-be mugger (no time to let him try and arrest him). At the Whitt Group HQ, the guy on security was on the job at Central when Eve was a rook, and Eve tells Peabody the department lost a good cop when Detective Swanson turned in his papers nine years ago. He says Stephen Whitt is fancy-pants and snooty with it, and “comes by it natural, from what I see. I’ve been on the desk here six years, and the father hasn’t said so much as kiss my ass to me.”
• After some back and forth with the receptionist, Whitt’s admin greets them by asking for more information before they can see his boss. When Eve refuses to elaborate beyond two murders, she tells Peabody to contact Reo to request a warrant to bring Whitt into Central for questioning. Of course, Whitt is suddenly available. Although it’s clear Cosner gave him the heads-up, he feigns ignorance of the murders and the victims before fake remembering Dr. Rufty, although they “barely crossed paths.” He puts on the “it was the end of the world for me at seventeen, all my friends were here, the girl I loved was here, and of course he blamed Dr. Rufty, but as it turned out it was the best thing for him because without the friends and the girl he focused on studying. “I don’t see how my crisis, as I saw it, at seventeen has anything to do with these murders.”
• He also claims not to remember Duran, despite being written up by him multiple times: “One would assume if any of those accusations were true, Headmaster Grange would have taken appropriate disciplinary action.” Eve tells him they don’t assume, as evidence shows the overlooked accusations, statements, complaints in return for generous monetary donations to the academy. He says that wouldn’t be on him, would it? Of course he behaved badly sometimes as a teenager, but his crowd was harmless and just exploring boundaries, stretching them, experimenting. She gets his equally flexible alibis. The first night was a restaurant and the second was the club with friends, including Cosner, who hadn’t mentioned him as one of the friends, “probably thinking he’d keep me out of all this nonsense.”
• He pretends to be unaffected by Kendel, playing up the overly dramatic teenage love and broken hearts angle, saying he pined for two or three weeks and then moved on. He tells them if they have any more questions, they should take them up with his lawyer, Lowell Cosner (Marshall’s father). Peabody checks the Whitts’ divorce, which happens to have been the summer Whitt graduated from Lester Hensen and Eve bets Whitt’s father is the one in the picture Greenwald was sent, but Peabody elects to save her money.

Chapter 18

• At the snooty French restaurant, they confirm that Whitt stepped out to take a ’link call around ten p.m. and was gone for under ten minutes, plenty of time to get the jammer and package out of the limo and walk the two blocks to the kiosk to drop off Abner’s package. The club they used for the second drop-off alibi has no door cams and no real security so a good place to slip away from without being recorded.
• Peabody thinks they won’t send another egg since they know they’re suspects, but Eve points out that Whitt is made of arrogance and might even bump up the schedule. They need to look for a separate work place and/or mad scientist on their payroll - maybe a dealer connection of Cosner’s or old associates of either of them, enlisting EDD for help with that. Eve writes everything up while they wait for Rodrigues to arrive. She thinks Whitt’s father was the person in the photo with Grange so maybe they should talk to the wife to confirm the affair. Eve figures losing the girl (Kendel) and seeing that she hooked up with another rich guy, one who’s from an important rich family and whose future mother-in-law might be president because in the future women get elected president, that’s a kick in the balls. Whitt is looking for who ruined his life so he’s stuck being a junior exec at daddy’s firm and the girl who belonged to you gets to marry political royalty, and came up with Rufty, Duran, and the rest of the teachers who screwed up a good thing. Whitney tags her just as Peabody comes to her office to tell her Rodrigues is there. She tags Whitney’s office back to say she and Peabody are going to interview an individual and will report to his office immediately after, figuring it will be to address Grange’s complaint.
• Rodrigues is waiting in the lounge, looking exactly like the perfect target for bullies like Whitt to pick on, and reluctantly talks about the beatdown. He doesn’t want to get anybody in trouble, because you have to let it go, but he says Headmaster Grange knew all about the cheating and bullying, but he can’t prove it. He was ambushed because he agreed to help Cosner and Whitt study, but that wasn’t good enough - they beat the crap out of him and threatened to do worse to his younger brother and sister. They dragged him into a car and he thought they were going to take him somewhere and kill him but they dumped him out downtown, near the piers. He passed out and woke up in an ambulance. He wouldn’t name them to Grange, and wanted to stay at TAG.
• When Rodrigues came back to school after being hospitalized for the attack, an athlete, Quint Yanger, now a defensive tackle for the Giants, told Whitt if he hit Miguel, he’d hit him twice and harder and if Miguel got shoved, he’d shove him out the nearest window. They left him alone and when Dr. Grange left and Dr. Rufty came on, the bullying stopped. He and Quint are still best friends: “big guy, big heart.” Rodrigues says he doesn’t know Whitt and Cosner anymore, and people change, but he thought they would kill him that night - they wanted to and if they’d been sure they could have gotten away with it, he’s sure they would have.
• Eve and Peabody head up to Whitney’s office. He tells them Headmaster Grange complained about Detective Peabody using abusive language toward her during her voluntary interview. Peabody said her language wasn’t abusive, but it was strong in response to Grange heaping insults on her family and coworkers, her profession, and her lieutenant in an attempt to deflect from the line of questioning. Eve agreed, saying Grange became insulting in a deliberate attempt to distract and also because it’s her nature. Peabody used the opportunity to reset the interview, since good cop/bad cop wasn’t working - they tried hot cop/cold cop instead. By suggesting Peabody take a walk, it allowed Grange to think she had the upper hand temporarily until Eve reset the interview again.
• Whitney tells them “Well played. All around” and Eve gives him her theory, saying Cosner is the weak spot so they will bring him in and put more pressure on him. Whitney says to make it happen: “I don’t want another spouse on a slab.” On the way back downstairs, Eve tells Peabody to contact Cosner’s firm, going through reception, and ask for Lowell Cosner, and then if he answers, “identify herself, remind him you spoke earlier about the homicide investigation. Realize your mistake, apologize. You misread your notes, and are trying to contact Marshall Cosner.” Arrange for Cosner to come in tomorrow for a follow-up interview, and also let Morris know Eve is coming by the morgue for the rundown.

Chapter 19

• At the morgue, Morris tells Eve she looks gorgeous, like a perfect spring day. She wants another look at Elise Duran, and tells Morris she looked into the eyes of the killer today and saw “not a damn thing - this kind is dead inside. Duran has more life in her than he does. It’s not even revenge, not the kind you’d get bloody for. It’s more fuck you.”
• Peabody tags Eve on her way home - Lowell Cosner, who did not know about the earlier visit, will represent Marshall and they’ll come in at ten the next day. He had pissed, sad, scared, and disappointed dad look. Reo tags Eve, saying it’s a lot of circumstantial, but Eve says Cosner will break - he’s weak, lazy, and an addict. Reo says they’ll start with on-planet and deal down for whichever of the two flip first.
• Once home, Eve and Roarke walk to the pond, which now has a waterfall and pavers with the same Celtic design as their wedding rings, and a bench to look over the pond, and an unplanted tree with trailing branches and pink buds for them to plant together as the final touch. They go back inside and Eve fills Roarke in on her day over dinner. She asks him to look into Whitt and Cosner’s finances. After meeting Cosner, she doesn’t think he was smart enough to figure out the formula, so he and Whitt had to have paid somebody. Eve suggests they started the revenge plot last summer, around the time Kendel announced her engagement. She’s going to dig into the teachers and other students who will talk to her.

Chapter 20

• Using Rufty’s notes of meetings with staff, Eve compiled a list for interviews the next day and then began contacting the staff no longer in the city. She finds Darcie Finn-Powell, who currently teaches in upstate New York, and quickly becomes Eve’s favorite with: “She hit on my husband.” Thad is a firefighter, and when Darcie was pregnant with their first child, he came in to speak to her third-graders. Afterwards, Grange had him come to her office to talk about field trips and moved on him, with a bunch of bad wordplay. When she confronted Grange the next day, she laughed at Darcie, saying Thad misconstrued her remarks, and he must be unhappy at home, claiming he flirted with her, which she considered harmless, and if Darcie wanted to keep her job she’d keep her marital issues out of the school. She signed complaints with the others when they went to the board, and it got better when Rufty took over, but she left for parental leave and then they decided to leave the city so she never went back.
• Eve asks Darcie if she thinks Grange is qualified to serve as headmaster of an educational facility, and she says no, not at all. Grange was caught having sex at school with Van Pierson - another teacher, Wyatt Yin, walked in on them. She also knows of at least one parent by name, Grant Farlow, because his son, Deke, was in her class the previous year and she knew the mother. After it came out, they pulled him out of TAG and they moved to Philadelphia for a fresh start, although they subsequently divorced. “Grant’s not blameless, but the woman is a predator.” She knows Stephen Whitt was a bully, cheat, ringleader, and headmaster’s pet who could do no wrong and knew it. There was speculation about an affair between Grange and Whitt’s father, and since Whitt transferred to the same school as Grange, it was all but confirmed.
• Yin, who relocated to Colorado because he likes teaching underprivileged kids better than private school ones, but would have been happy to work under Rufty, and who would also not describe Grange as a dedicated and fair headmaster, confirmed Grange having non-consensual sex with Pierson - both teachers were new and very young. Yin talked Pierson into reporting it to the board, since she used her power and authority to coerce him into sex, but Grange turned it around, accusing Pierson of assault, leaving him with a black mark, which meant he couldn’t get another teaching job. He moved to Michigan and died five years ago in a vehicular accident. Yin was also aware of the rumors of Whitt’s father’s affair with Grange.
• Eve looks into Whitt - it looks like everything was smoothed over academically, and gossip pics have him with different women at fancy dos, never the same one twice, and most resembling Kendel. Roarke brings her a big cookie and tells her to run Lucas “Loco” Sanchez, who was killed about a month ago in what appeared to be an illegals deal gone south - stabbed multiple times in an alley in Alphabet City. Jenkinson and Reineke caught the case and it was still open.
• Sanchez had one semester at TAG on a science scholarship, scholarship revoked when he was arrested for illegals possession - he was high and tried to mug a couple of tourists in Times Square. One of them kicked him in the balls while the other called the police. He showed flashes of brilliance with chemistry to earn the scholarship and was most likely Cosner’s supplier in high school. Roarke found two transfers of $10,000 each from Cosner to Sanchez, at the same time Whitt reported gambling losses in the same amount. The payments doubled in January and then stopped near the end of March, when he met with a sudden and violent demise. Eve figures they had the formula by then and he either got greedy or mouthy or maybe they just didn’t want to keep an addict in the loop.
• She tags Jenkinson, who is playing poker with Reineke, Feeney, Callendar, and Harvo. Jenkinson says a couple of the LCs Loco used said he bragged about rich guys paying him for his work, and Whitt and Cosner sound like those rich guys. Roarke finds their warehouse/lab downtown, so they arrange to meet there. The property is in Cosner’s name, behind a shell company called The Golden Goose. Whitt funnels money to Cosner every month, like you would for a loan or a share of an investment expense.
• While that’s going on, Cosner, wearing designer street thug wear, is pacing the living space in the converted warehouse, and Whitt, who’d slipped out of a hotel service entrance after giving a dinner speech, borrowing his cousin’s scooter, which he had parked at another hotel a block away, was trying to talk Cosner down before he cuts him loose. Marsh dropped the next egg off at the drop, but he’ll never stand up to the pressure of being interviewed, so Whitt pours him a drink with illegals mixed in at the tacky mirrored bar Loco had demanded. He tells Marsh they should send two eggs out that night and then be done, and take a vacation in the tropics. Whitt then dons an air mask and has Cosner open a container holding an already filled egg, releasing the agent. Whitt tells Cosner, “Sorry, bro. I gotta do what I gotta. I’ll miss the hell out of you.”
• Armed with a search warrant, Eve expected to find an empty warehouse, but saw lights shining behind privacy screens. McNab checks heat sensors - nothing, Roarke bypasses the locks, and they go in with air masks on and weapons drawn to find a living area that’s been set up in sex-starved tackiness. They clear the bedroom and bath, designed to fulfill a teenage boy’s wet dream, complete with currently deactivated sex droid, and a game room similarly outfitted for Loco.
• Eve smells Cosner’s body before seeing it - he’s in the second floor lab. Peabody calls the hazmat unit, Jenkinson seals the back entrance, Reineke gets uniforms for backup and canvassing, Callendar tags Morris, and Eve comments on how the murder is supposed to look like an accident while Cosner was packing up another poisoned egg without protective gear. Harvo offers to collect evidence after the place is cleared, since the average human sheds between fifty and a hundred hairs a day, and they only need one from Whitt.

Chapter 21

• Once inside, Morris says it could be less tasteful, but it would take effort. Roarke assures him it could and is - Morris hasn’t seen the bedroom. Morris calls Cosner’s death just deserts, and Eve calls it damned inconvenient since she would have broken Cosner in the box. Eve and Roarke leave to make the notification to Cosner’s parents, who live in the same building as their son. One of the door people says Whitt was there from about 5 to 5:30 that afternoon, carrying a large briefcase and a fancy messenger bag. Eve arranges to get the security feed while she and Roarke go up to the penthouse.
• Lowell is furious to see them, but shattered and not all that surprised to hear the news. He knows the name Lucas Sanchez, saying he exploited his son’s weakness. He tried unsuccessfully to separate Marshall and Steve, knowing there was something wrong with Steve - his wife said something was missing in him. His wife had seen Stephen’s father with Grange at a hotel, and knew they were having an affair, which was particularly upsetting to her as she was friends with Brent’s wife. Lowell Cosner assures Eve he is not Steve’s attorney (“another unnecessary lie”).

Chapter 22

• At Cosner’s apartment, Roarke finds a number of files were deleted from his comp at 5:08 p.m., during Whitt’s drop-by visit. Eve starts giving Peabody directives, until she tells Eve it’s after midnight, so Eve holds on contacting people until 8:00 a.m. Harvo found 1216 human hairs in the warehouse, and the sweepers are just starting. Eve and Roarke continue to search Cosner’s apartment, finding his stash of illegals, neatly labeled, his old Gold Academy uniforms, and a box of memorabilia on the top shelf of a closet - lots of photos, clippings, school bulletins, and announcements for dances and events.
• There was also a thick notebook where Cosner journaled their high school escapades, like, “We beat the hot shit out of that f@ggot [edited to be allowed to be saved, slurs not allowed] Rodriges [sic] last night. Jerkwad actually believed we wanted him to tutor us, but me and Steve tutored the hell out of him. Talked about finishing him - who’d miss the little fucker? But we decided just to dump his sorry ass, then go have a few brews.”
• Roarke finds the detailed target list (one of the deleted files), cleverly named “Payback Time,” like they’re still in high school. Eve remembered there was a missing egg, so she knows another was sent that night and has Peabody contact Rosalind and Zweck, a nurse from Gold, to see if they received any deliveries. McNab needs to contact Stuben, an art teacher, and she will contact the remaining two, Woskinski and Flint.
• Eve tags Reo for warrants, wakes up CI Junta to look for the egg, and contacts EDD to pick up the electronics. Roarke says Whitt isn’t nearly as smart as he thinks he is, and Eve says, “What he is? Smug, self-important, a sociopath who’s been protected by privilege and money all his life. That’s about to end.” They watch the security feed on the drive home, with Roarke asking, “Doesn’t he realize you’d check the security?” Eve says, “Cosner wasn’t killed there - that’s how he sees it. Why would we bother? And again, by the time we found the body, the feed’s overwritten.”
• Roarke looks for Whitt’s alibi, figuring it would be someplace public since he needed to be gone for about 30 minutes, and Eve decides they will hit Whitt with the search warrant bright and early, since he thinks he’s home free, sleeping like the sociopath he is, with the formula for the nerve agent, and thinking about how he will sell it for billions in a month or two. Roarke looks at Cosner’s picture on Eve’s murder board, saying, “He had everything going for him - wealth, privilege, education, opportunities. All wasted.”
• The Whitt Group had a major client seminar and dinner that night at the New York Grand Hotel, and Whitt was a featured speaker, scheduled for 8 p.m. It’s too far from the warehouse to walk, and only has valet parking, but is a block from the Hubble Hotel, which has an accessible parking garage. Roarke suggests other cops, ones who are actually still on duty at 2 a.m., would also be able to review the security feeds, so Eve delegates and they sleep for a few hours.

Day 5 – May 2, 2061

Chapter 22 (Continued)

• Junta wakes Eve up at 5:12 a.m. with the news that her team secured the package dropped off at an Allied kiosk a couple of blocks from the warehouse at 1940 the previous evening, addressed to Lilliana Rosalind (the chem teacher’s wife), with the bogus return sender Duck, Duck, Goose. Eve dresses in kick-ass black, mostly leather, and begins assembling her team for the morning raid on Whitt’s home.
• At 0630 Eve is in front of Whitt’s uptown townhouse, realizing that of course he went for that instead of a fancy penthouse - no real neighbors, fewer people to notice his comings and goings, and only himself in charge of security. Callender finds one heat source, second floor, Whitt still in bed. Eve says, “Then this should fulfill my quota of waking people up this morning.” Feeney disables the locks and alarms, and they go in, weapons drawn, announcing themselves.
• A naked, pissed-off Whitt comes out of the bedroom and after Eve reads him his rights she adds that he has the right to put on pants before she cuffs him and has him taken to Central. He tells her she’s going to pay for this, and she points out that standing there looking at him naked with bed hair and a bad disposition means she’s already paid.

Chapter 23

• Peabody found the hidey-hole, a secret compartment in the floor of his bedroom. By 9 a.m., Eve and Reo are going over the evidence in her office when Peabody stops by to tell them Whitt and his attorney, Broward Kobast, are in Interview A, with another lawyer with the commander. Reo adds that the third lawyer is probably arguing for dismissal, and all three will be disappointed. Kobast says his client will exercise his right to silence so they should speak to him, and Whitt “disputes all of these injurious charges.” They’ve files charges of harassments, false arrest, blah, blah, blah.
• Eve asks for his client’s whereabouts between eight and ten the previous night. Kobast says he was giving a speech, but it turned out that only covered eight to eight-twenty, and Eve says Marshall Cosner’s time of death was nine-twenty. Whitt asks surprised to hear about his friend’s death but can’t quite pull off horror or lose the sneer. Peabody displays the security feed that shows Whitt leaving the Grand by a service door, and then the Hubble garage feed showing a scooter with a man wearing a helmet and visor, but the same clothes as Whitt was wearing, a few minutes later; the scooter is registered to Whitt’s cousin, and Whitt has those codes.
• Next, Eve asks where he was at five, and then rephrases it as what was he doing entering Marshall Cosner’s apartment at five and spending 32 minutes there. He said he was there to retrieve earbuds he lent him to try out. When Eve says several items were missing from Cosner’s apartment, Whitt asks how she would know, and she takes out the tablet, mini-comp, and a drop ’link from the evidence box, saying they were removed from Cosner’s apartment and found in Whitt’s hidey-hole. The lawyer says it’s not illegal to hold electronics for a friend, and Eve says he’s got her there, and neither is it illegal to have five hundred thousand dollars in cash, but it does seem a poor decision for a money guy given the lack of dividends. Also, it is illegal to have a jammer and false ID, which she also tosses on the table. They take a break so Whitt can talk to his lawyer, who wasn’t aware of the latter items.
• Reo goes for cold drinks while Mira tells Eve Whitt’s lies aren’t holding so he’ll need to shift them and work out how to blame Cosner for everything. Since he has no feelings of guilt or remorse, it will be his anger that trips him up. Eve says, “Whitt’s a lying, murdering, homicidal sociopath. He’s also the spoiled, pampered, rich son of an important family. People are supposed to clean up his messes.”
• Sure enough, Whitt was trying to protect his oldest friend, one he’s just learned has died, so he “shaded the truth on certain matters” and will now make a brief statement to explain how certain items in evidence came into his possession. He noticed Cosner was acting strange and he suspected he was using illegals again, so he tried to talk to him about it. Cosner blew him off, but Whitt found out he had a deal going with Sanchez, who had been supplying Cosner with illegals since high school. When they met at the club the other night, Cosner was really whacked out, talking about TAG and how he got a raw deal, and how he’d found a way to pay the teachers back. Whitt didn’t know he meant to hurt anyone, he thought he was just bullshitting, so he got into it, joking around, but then when Eve came to his office he hadn’t put it together, never even considering it was Cosner. But then Cosner tagged him with the drop ’links they used as kind of a gag, just their little thing, and was in a panic, saying the cops were closing in. Whitt thought he was high but Cosner begged him to go by his place and get his electronics, that he had something to finish but wouldn’t tell him what. That was the last time they spoke, and the last thing he said was “You’re my best friend, Steve. I’m doing this for both of us.”
• Eve wondered why it took Whitt so long to find the items since he knew where everything was, so Whitt tries to improvise, not a good look for him. He was worried about his friend and looked for illegals because he was going to try to do an intervention and get him back into rehab. Eve says it’s funny that although Whitt didn’t find the illegals, Eve’s team found his stash in the top left-hand drawer of the master bathroom vanity in about three minutes. Also, Whitt hasn’t explained the false ID, which he does by saying he found them when he was looking for the illegals and scooped it up to keep until he had a chance to talk to Cosner. He was baffled and shocked that Cosner had made false ID for him, but none for himself.
• Eve then asks him about the building Cosner owns downtown, which Whitt knew nothing about, saying that Cosner set it up for Sanchez to live in and set up a lab for him to work, until he was murdered, which is also news to Whitt, except oops - they found, identified, and matched DNA with 223 hairs Whitt left in the converted warehouse, including the one caught in the strap of the air mask he used to protect himself when he killed his old pal. Before Whitt and his lawyer can ask for another confab, Eve tells him about the thumbprint they found where he removed the spy camera in the lab, and also they found the knife that killed Sanchez in Whitt’s kitchen drawer, not as well-cleaned as he probably thought.
• Kobast asks Eve to put her cards on the table, and she says, “It all goes back to Gold Academy, to Grange. Your father had a sexual relationship with her. It didn’t bother you she had sex with some of the teachers and other fathers, but yours?” She shows him a picture of Grange and his father from his hidey-hole, and another one Cosner took of Grange with Stephen Whitt, a minor at the time. Whitt is the one who sent the picture to Grange’s husband, with his father’s face obscured, but he didn’t expect Grange to leave the school and for him to have to lose the girl.
• Eve continues to goad him, calling him stupid, until Whitt snaps, saying, “If I’m so stupid, how come Rufty’s f@g husband’s dead? And that asshole Duran’s bitch? How does stupid get some loser junkie to focus in, to do the work to make something the military would pay billions for? If you’re so goddamn smart, how come you didn’t figure it out sooner? Before Marsh got high and took out the egg?” Eve tells him he gave Cosner the illegal in the scotch and tampered with the seal of the egg, and Whitt says, “So the fuck what? He still did it himself. And if you’re so much smarter than I am, why is that pontificating excuse for a chemistry teacher’s older-than-dirt wife dead?” Eve assures him that Lilliana Rosalind is fine, they intercepted the shipment because Whitt is an idiot. Kobast says the interview is over, and Eve agrees, saying his client has confessed, on the record, to four murders and an attempted murder, and other assorted charges, “all because somebody said he couldn’t have everything he wanted when he wanted it. Now you’ll spend the rest of your life in a cage being told every day what you can’t have.”

Epilogue

• At the end of shift, Eve is in her office, asleep at her desk. Roarke comes to get her to go home with her, saying her board is clear for now. Eve told Kendel so she would have a heads-up before the media dug up her name and the connection. Whitt had nothing inside him, and no one who meant more than he to himself. Grange is also done - Eve had a discussion with the powers that be at the prep school, gave them documentation, including her naked with a minor student. Eve and Roarke stop by Rufty’s house to give him the outcome, and the same for Jay Duran. Then they go home and sit by the pond and hold on to their peace while it lasts.

Character List

List of Main Characters Appearing in this Book

• Eve Dallas
• Roarke

List of Secondary Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book

• David Baxter
• Detective Carmichael
• Uniform Carmichael
• Ryan Feeney
• Mavis Freestone
• Nadine Furst
• Galahad
• Jenkinson
• Leonardo
• Ian McNab
• Charlotte Mira
• Morris
• Delia Peabody
• Reineke
• Detective Santiago
• Lawrence Summerset
• Troy Trueheart
• Jack Whitney

List of Recurring Characters Appearing in this Book

• Bella Eve
• Dick Berenski
• Callendar
• Crack
• Louise Dimatto
• Harvo
• Jake Kincade
• Quilla Magnum
• Dennis Mira
• Charles Monroe
• Rochelle Pickering
• Cher Reo
• Officer Shelby
• Chief Tibble
• Trina

List of Minor Characters Appearing in this Book

• Seldine Abbakar
• Dr. Kent Abner
• Victoria Abner-Rufty
• Gregory Brickman
• Carl
• Brendina A. Coffman
• Roscoe Coffman
• Marshall Cosner
• Lowell Cosner
• Professor Jay Duran
• Sarah Eisner
• Curtis Feingold
• Darcie Finn-Powell
• Catherine Fitzwalter
• Dr. Lotte Grange
• Reginald P. Greenwald
• Kendel Hayward
• Iryna
• CI Michaela Junta
• Broward Kobast
• Officer Mike Krasinsky
• Jacques Lamont
• Landa
• Ernest Lauder
• Grace Levin
• Mac
• Marcus
• Lydia Merchant
• Muffy
• Teesha Mulray
• Assistant Headmaster Kim Myata
• Officer Ponce
• Dr. Milo Ponti
• Dr. Melissa Rendi
• Ben Ringwold
• Miguel Rodrigues
• Cilla Roe
• Ty Rosalind
• Dr. Martin Rufty
• Sharleen
• Abdul Siler
• Detective Swanson
• Teela
• Thomas T. Thane
• Olivia Tressle
• Stephen Whitt
• Wyatt Yin

List of Peripheral Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book

• Annie or Allie
• Ava
• Barry
• Tiger Bellows
• Senator Bilby
• Patience Bilby-Scott
• Francis Xavior Black
• Marion Coffman Black
• Carly
• Ms. Chelsic
• Sergeant Joshua Coffman
• Rabbi Miles Coffman
• Rebekka Greene Coffman
• Consuela
• James Cutter
• Deke
• Congresswoman Delaney
• Marilyn Dupont
• Eli Duran
• Elise Duran
• Simon Duran
• Marlo Durn
• Grant Farlow
• Gregor Finski
• Mr. Flint
• Susan Franco
• Theresa A. Gold
• Alicia Gorden
• Horace W. Greenwald
• Philip A. Greenwald
• K.T. Harris
• Benson Hayward
• Hella
• Henry
• Lester Hensen
• Wilfred B. Icove Jr.
• Wilfred B. Icove Sr.
• Charmaine Inghram
• Dr. Oliver Inghram
• Jamar
• Kyle Jenner
• Jordan
• Lionel Kramer
• Lulu (dog)
• Nigel McEnroy
• Meris
• Merritt
• Patrinki
• Darla Pettigrew
• Lyle Pickering
• Van Pierson
• Rachel
• Louisa Raines
• Rob
• Lilliana Rosalind
• Lucas “Loco” Sanchez
• Rayleen Straffo
• Stuben
• Thad
• Ms. Troski
• Richard Troy
• Brent Whitt
• Woskinski
• Master Lu
• Quint Yanger
• Zweck

Trivia

• Eve ran track in state school
• Washington, D.C. achieved statehood around the year Eve was born (2028), becoming East Washington and remaining the political center of the country

Memorable Quotes

Eve figured Jenkinson’s tie would burn your corneas if you viewed it from space. Risking temporary blindness, she walked over to his desk.

• Eve: “You said you got those ties off the street. Where?”
• Jenkinson: “A stand on Canal. He’s doing the street fair on Sixth on Sunday. You looking to get one for Roarke?”
• Eve: “Sure, if I want him to have me committed. One day, one fine day, I’m going to do a drive-by of that stand, buy all the ties, and have them destroyed - it may take a vat of acid - for the public good.”
• Jenkinson: “Aw, LT. They got pizzazz.”
• Eve: “I don’t think that word means what you think it means. Don’t even think about showing me your socks.” She pointed at Reineke. “Don’t even think about it.”

YANNIs

• Dr. Milo Ponti was either in his early forties or late thirties
• Not a YANNI, but a typo and audio difference: in the text, Peabody told Eve she “got Trinia’d” but it was read correctly in the audio as she “got Trina’d.”
• Although Eve asked most of her suspects for their whereabouts on April 27 and 29, the nights poisoned golden eggs were dropped off at shipping companies, meaning the first murder would have been April 28 and the second April 30, she asked Dr. Grange her whereabouts for April 26 and 27, meaning the first murder would have been April 27 and the second April 28
• When Eve and Roarke went to Marshall Cosner’s parents’ penthouse, the security comp responded, “Mr. and Ms. Cosner have retired for the evening” but Mr. Cosner’s wife was Marilyn Dupont