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Eve: “Don’t get bitchy when I say you think like a cop when you think like a cop.”
Roarke: “Don’t get bitchy when you run out of the ready, and I haven’t.”[1]

Plot Summary[]

Jenna’s parents had finally given in, and there she was, at a New York club with her best friends, watching the legendary band Avenue A, carrying her demo in hopes of slipping it to the guitarist, Jake Kincade. Then, from the stage, Jake catches her eye, and smiles. It’s the best night of her life. It’s the last night of her life.

Minutes later, Jake’s in the alley getting some fresh air, and the girl from the dance floor comes stumbling out, sick and confused and deathly pale. He tries to help, but it’s no use. He doesn’t know that someone in the crowd has jabbed her with a needle―and when his girlfriend Nadine arrives, she knows the only thing left to do for the girl is call her friend, Lieutenant Eve Dallas.

After everyone on the scene is interviewed, lab results show a toxic mix of substances in the victim’s body―and for an extra touch of viciousness, the needle was teeming with infectious agents. Dallas searches for a pattern: Had any boys been harassing Jenna? Was she engaging in risky behavior or caught up in something shady? But there are no obvious clues why this levelheaded sixteen-year-old, passionate about her music, would be targeted.

And that worries Dallas. Because if Jenna wasn’t targeted, if she was just the random, unlucky victim of a madman consumed by hatred, there are likely more deaths to come.

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

Timeline[]

Story Date: August, 2061[2]

Day 1 - Saturday Night[]

Prologue[]

  • Sixteen-year-old Jenna Harbough is rocking out to the beat at Club Rock It where Avenue A is playing their greatest hits on the stage.
  • While Avenue A plays Baby, Do Me Right Jenna stares at Jake Kincade onstage, admiring his guitar playing, and dreaming of the day when she too would woo a crowd with her music. She has a demo disc she plans to slip to Jake before the night ends.
  • As the band plays It’s Always Now Jake catches Jenna’s eye and smiles at her. Jenna squeals in joy to her friends Leelee and Chelsea.
  • Suddenly, something stings her arm. As she closes her hand over the pain she sees a guy in the crowd giving her the middle finger before he moves away.
  • Jenna starts to feel like she’s floating. Trying to move back to their table when the band took a break, she starts feeling worse and as her stomach turns she runs for the bathroom.
  • Meanwhile, the band takes 15 minutes and Jake heads outside to cool off. Slipping out the alley door, he takes a deep breath. While relaxing he thinks back to his beginnings and how they got their first gig at Club Rock It.
  • As he’s about to head back into the club, the door flies open and a girl stumbles out. She looks sick and Jake suggests Sober-Up, but Jenna tells him “Not drunk. Can’t breathe right. He jabbed me! He jabbed me!” as she collapses into his arms.
  • Jake calls for an ambulance, seeing how sick she looks, but then realizes she’s dying. He begins CPR and Nadine Furst comes out and sees what’s going on. She looks at the girl and tells him she’s tagging Dallas.

Chapter 1[]

  • Eve and Roarke are enjoying a Summerset-free house and are about to embark on round two of sex when the call from Nadine comes in. They hurriedly dress and set out for the club, which Roarke doesn’t own (but he owns the building).
  • Eve decides to take a look at the scene before calling in Peabody. While Roarke drives, Eve looks up the club owners. When they arrive Eve determines that Jenna is, indeed, dead, and they need Child Services before they can interview the 200 or so teenagers who are there for Avenue A’s annual under-twenty-one summer concert. While Eve examines the scene, she has Roarke take Jake and Nadine away so she can get an unbiased look. When looking up the victim’s information, she realizes Jenna’s family live next door to Charles and Louise. Eve contacted Peabody and the morgue and sweepers to get the investigation moving.
  • Jake relays the events to Eve and she comforts him, telling him he did everything he could. She then talks separately with Nadine to get her timeline and report.
  • Leaving Peabody (with McNab) to start the interviews she and Roarke leave to notify Jenna’s parents. Mr. Harbough thinks Jenna missed curfew and/or needs bail posted, but Dr. Harbough recognizes Eve and knows Jenna is dead.

Chapter 2[]

  • Eve learns that Jenna was in perfect health and didn’t use drugs. She was an aspiring singer-songwriter, who hoped to get her demo tape to Jake. Her mother and Louise both confirm that Jenna was scared of needles and therefore would never have injected herself. Eve asks to see her room and her mother asks her to wait until the next day when they would be out of the house. She didn’t want Jenna’s little brother to know yet.
  • Dr. Harbough asks Eve if she will really work as diligently as she was portrayed in the Icove vid and Roarke confirmed that she would.
  • Since the lights were still on next door, Eve and Roarke stop by to question Charles and Louise. Louise, upon seeing them, immediately asked who was dead. Louise confirmed that Jenna would never use drugs. They also confirmed that Jenna was a rule follower.
  • As they drove back to the club, Eve and Roarke bantered about who allowed who to win in pinball in order to do the thing. Anything to lighten the mood.
  • Back at the club, parents are waiting outside for their offspring to be sprung.
  • The club owner, Harve Greenbaum, comes over and introduces himself to Eve and Roarke. He refers to McNab as “Blondie.” When Eve asks where to find Peabody he replies that “Pretty in Pink (PIP)” is in the back of the house. He also asks Roarke in passing if he will have someone look into the temperature control as the club was overheating. As he passes Eve over to where Peabody is, Eve gets the nickname of “Boss Cop.”
  • Peabody and McNab are interviewing and releasing the concertgoers. Eve and Peabody determine the timing and that the killer probably had the prepared syringe in his pocket and then left immediately after jabbing Jenna. As Peabody passes information on, she has to explain lots of jargon the teenagers are now using like gales, the squeals, and whooshed.
  • One of the sweepers alerts Eve to scuff marks under the window in the men’s room and threads from the killer’s pants caught on the window frame. This is their first break because they can lift a partial shoe print.

Day 2 - Sunday[]

Chapter 3[]

  • Roarke has reviewed the security footage of the concertgoers leaving, but Eve lets him know that the killer exited via the men’s room, so will only be seen entering the venue, not leaving. Eve talks to the owners, Harve and his partner, Glo Reiser, who are as upset as everybody else about the circumstances.
  • Harve sets up the lighting and play a recording of the song Avenue A was playing when Jenna was jabbed. Eve recreates the scene in her head and walks through the recreation while Roarke starts over with the security footage. He tells Eve that most of the teens have their heads ducked to look frosty and Eve tells him the killer is a short/slightly built teenage boy who Jenna didn’t know. He came in with a group so he wouldn’t be noticed, but wasn’t actually with the others.
  • Eve tells the group that it was planned. 90 seconds to get from the dance floor and into the john. Last song before a dance break and before the bathrooms are mobbed.
  • Everybody heads home and Roarke drops Peabody and McNab off at their apartment.
  • In the morning, Eve and Roarke talk about their plans for an interrupted Sunday. Roarke mentions he may go look at Eve's property where Stone use to live and work and that she needs to come up with a name.
  • Roarke set up her board while Eve started her murder book.

Chapter 4[]

  • As Eve drove into work with her windows down, she enjoyed the sights and sounds of New York. The thought crossed her mind that, “In New York, the carelessly rich and the quietly desperate breathed the same air.”
  • At the morgue, Morris was playing Avenue A in honor of Jenna. He posits that the injection contained a cocktail of drugs, including pure heroin, and the killer used a needle treated with a bacteria or virus to cause rapid infection at the puncture site, therefore making it extra painful for Jenna. He also used a dull, dirty needle and jabbed it in hard to cause extra pain.
  • Eve gifts Feeney with the task of re-interviewing the band members (minus Jake, who is coming in with Nadine to talk to Eve that morning) to compensate for the chore of looking for someone who entered the venue but didn’t leave.
  • Santiago and Carmichael were on weekend detail, so Eve let them know she would be sending them lists to run.
  • Jake and Nadine come in to Central for a second round of interviews. Eve starts out by assuring Jake that he is not a suspect, just a witness.
  • Eve assures Jake that “Nothing you could’ve done, once he put that needle in her arm, would’ve saved her. But because of you, she didn’t die alone.” She also lets him know that Jenna had a demo disc to give him; it’s in evidence but after it’s processed she will talk to the parents about letting him listen to it, as well as letting him pay a condolence call.

Chapter 5[]

  • Eve lets Jake know that what he did made a difference. It was important that Jenna wasn't alone while she was confused and hurting.
  • She recommended that Jake and Avenue A make a statement. Nadine agreed to work on him to get the right tone.
  • Back in her office, Eve arranges for the parents and friends of Jenna to come in for another interview.
  • The lab confirms that Jenna’s vomit contained high-octane heroin, ketamine, a trace of potassium chloride, and Rohypnol. Since death was the goal, Eve wonders why the killer added the other drugs and why he used a dirty needle, concluding that he wanted to add to the symptoms: “pain, dizziness, confusion, possibly hallucinations, potentially a seizure.”
  • Eve has Peabody pretend to jab her and determines that Jenna would have seen the killer, so they think it’s random rather than target-specific (since she yelled out “Asshole” instead of “Asshole Bob”).
  • Jenna’s friends Leelee and Chelsea come in with their mothers for an interview. Leelee remembers hearing Jenna yell out that someone jabbed her, but thought she meant with an elbow. The girls heard Jenna say “asshole” but they kept dancing. Chelsea saw the killer walking away, and remembered thinking “Dooser can’t wait until the end of the song to take a piss.” She describes him as kind of short and wearing black baggies and a black shirt, with his hands in his pockets. Eve reassures the girls that it wouldn’t have mattered how fast they got help, Jenna was basically dead as soon as she was jabbed.
  • Peabody schools Eve on some vocab: dooser = dick + loser, weeb = basically boring or awkward, and tot = slutty.

Chapter 6[]

  • Eve and Peabody search Jenna’s bedroom while her family goes to the morgue to visit her body, with Eve first telling Dr. Harbough exactly how her daughter was killed and that Jake stayed with her as she died. She told her that Jake wanted to hear the demo if they allowed it. The mother agreed tearfully because it was Jenna’s dream.
  • Peabody takes one look at Jenna’s bedroom and declares that it is like a music studio with a bed. Computer with screens, guitar, keyboard, headphones, a control board, and more recording equipment.
  • Peabody finds and plays several of Jenna’s original recordings, including a mash-up with an Avenue A song. Eve finds a series of notebooks in drawers under the bed. Some were diary type entries, other entries were song lyrics. Peabody tells Charles, who was at the Harbough house during the search, “You can tell [her family] we found Jenna to be a lovely young woman with an extraordinary talent. We’ll work very hard to find out who took her from them.”
  • As they leave, Eve asks Charles to let them know when and where the memorial is scheduled so they can attend.
  • Eve decides to call it quits for the day since it’s Sunday, and drives Peabody to the Great House Project, getting updates along the way. Roarke is already there and McNab head there too. Bella is beyond adorable, comforting Eve as she can sense how tired she is, and the seven of them lunch on the back patio. Mavis tells Eve she and Leonardo plan to have many more children. She also amazes Eve with her skill in picking vegetables she helped grow in their garden and whipping up a salad.

Chapter 7[]

  • After the dinner, Roarke drives them home. On the way, Eve comments that they were just at the happiest damn unfinished house.
  • Arriving back home, Eve muses why Sundays when you just laze around don't last as long as Sundays when you are busy. She is so tired she’s kind to Summerset when she remembered that he too had lost a child.
  • After a nap, they head to the pool for a swim and afternoon sex. Eve decides on a name for the venue that will replace Stoner’s in the building Roarke bought for her from Teegan Stone so they could evict him: Off Duty.
  • Meanwhile, Arlie Dillon and some friends are attending the Battle of the Bands at Memorial Park, dancing and having fun. She is there with her boyfriend, Moses, her friend Nikki, and Nikki’s girlfriend, Dawn. They are cheering on and dancing to all the bands and excitedly waiting for the performance by Arrow - a band that Moses has friends in.
  • She was enjoying watching all the outfits on people around her. She worked with her mother at the mother’s tailor shop and wanted to design clothes. While dreaming of the night ahead at Moses house, she is injected by the killer. She thinks at first a wasp stung her, and since she has spheksophobia, she is totally freaked out. Seeing a red mark on her arm, she sees a jerk grinning at her and shouts, “You think it’s funny?” at him.
  • Moses heads off to get some ice for Arlie’s arm. Arlie starts hallucinating, and her friend Nikki calls 9-1-1 and starts CPR as Arlie is having a seizure and turning blue. Arlie dies anyway.

Chapter 8[]

  • Eve and Roarke pick up where they left off the previous evening, but once again, they are interrupted by Eve’s communicator and the news that there has been another OD at another event. Roarke expresses the view that if the two vics are not connected, this was another random hit. Eve tells him, “Don’t get bitchy when I say you think like a cop when you think like a cop.” When Eve realizes she has no cash, Roarke stuffs some bills in her pocket, saying “Don’t get bitchy when you run out of the ready, and I haven’t.”
  • On the way to the scene, Eve runs the vic, Arlie Dillon, but can’t find anything she and Jenna have in common other than they’re both teenagers.
  • When they walk toward the police barricade, they see Jamie Lingstrom and Quilla Magnum – they were there because a bunch of kids from An Dídean are planning to put together a band for the following year, and they went to the concert to see how it all worked. Quilla was writing a story about the event and gave Eve a copy of video footage she shot, although they weren’t near the incident. Yes, they are now dating. Yes, Eve is twitchy at the idea.
  • Eve examines the body, seeing that it’s the same COD as Jenna. She assigns Jamie to work with McNab on interviewing the band that was onstage during the murder, and she sends Roarke to review the vid crew footage. She speaks to the uniform who’s in charge of Arlie’s boyfriend, Moses, Nikki, and Nikki’s girlfriend, Dawn, and is so impressed with her report that she assigns the officer to work with Roarke, interviewing the vid crew.
  • Eve and Peabody interview the trio, getting a rundown of the events, along with information on Arlie’s dating history. They reassure Nikki that she did everything she could for Arlie, and it was in no way due to anything she did or didn’t do that Arlie died. Roarke has found video footage of Arlie and her friends, but during the time she was injected the operator was focused on the stage rather than the audience.
  • Eve sends Peabody and McNab to Central to write up the report, while she and Roarke make their second notification in as many days. On their way out, she spots Nadine, Jake, and Quilla, and lets Nadine know, the two girls had nothing in common, thereby letting her know it’s random without actually saying that. The rest of the media get the standard “no comment.”

Chapter 9[]

  • Tisha Dillon had awoken with a terrible pain in her heart, and knew something happened to Arlie. Eve gets some basics on Arlie, explaining that she was injected, without her knowledge or consent, with a lethal mixture of illegals. She also tells Tisha that Arlie thought it was a wasp sting, and that everybody responded quickly to try to help her. Tisha calls Arlie her miracle.
  • Eve and Roarke head home, where she updates her board and book and requests a consult from Mira before heading to bed.

Day 3 – Monday[]

Chapter 9 (continued)[]

  • Eve dreams about Jenna and Arlie dancing together, exclaiming that they’re young and will live forever and never get old. They say they had another hundred years coming and got totally screwed. Jenna says “It hurt when he jabbed me,” pointing to the needle in her arm. Arlie says “It hurt when he stung me,” and a wasp the size of a golf ball sat on her arm. Jenna yells, “Asshole.” Arlie yells, “Jerk.” They then call out “Dooser!” in unison as they continue dancing. They tell Eve he’s not in their club, which consists of normal: “No wheezes, weebs, flakers allowed. Normal, living our life, so no you, either, Boss Cop.” Arlie says Eve wasn’t a normie even when she was their age – “no friends, no family, no nothing.” The dream changes to Eve in the hallway of her state school, with other kids brushing past her. She’s counting down the days until she has the freedom to move to New York and become a cop, which is when “she’d be somebody.” She is then sucker punched by the school bully, jarring her out of sleep at 5:22.
  • Roarke rushes in and she tells him about Big Bitch Brenda, how she bloodied her a few times before Eve learned boxing and martial arts and fought back. Unsurprisingly, BBB is currently doing 15 years in lockup for felony assault.
  • After a quick shower, they sit down to breakfast together and Eve describes her dream to Roarke. She thinks the killer isn’t a normie, isn’t in any clubs, maybe bullied but more likely just not seen or appreciated. Jenna and Arlie weren’t bullies, so they would have just ignored him, but not maliciously. She thinks he’s just wired wrong.
  • Roarke stacks the plates under a dome and puts them on top of a highboy, but naturally they hear the crash Galahad makes as Roarke’s walking Eve out.

Chapter 10[]

  • Morris confirms that the method is the same, with the jab a little lower on the arm since Arlie was taller than Jenna. At the lab, Dickhead tells Eve the heroin was pure and the needle was coated with the bacteria that causes syphilis. He confirms that the mixture was the exactly the same for both victims. The heroin most likely came from poppies, and the killer has to have access to a professional lab.
  • Harvo identifies the fabric as coming from cheap black baggies, brand new, calling it doofus wear. Peabody tells Eve that she’d die of embarrassment if she wore such clothing to a club: the conclusion is that the killer doesn’t know how to blend.
  • On the way to Central, Peabody looks up how to make heroin from poppies – it’s extremely complicated and time-consuming, so the killer probably has access to a greenhouse and definitely knows his science. Feeney has found the killer on the club feed – he kept his face down and came in behind two guys, but Feeney estimates his height at 5’6”, with brown hair, they can see the black baggies, and he’s not on the feed leaving the club.

Chapter 11[]

  • Eve and Peabody interview the two teens who walked into the club directly in front of the killer, Hank Kajinski and Devin Spruce, at the deli where they work. They went to the concert with three other friends, and noticed the “doof” who slid in behind their group on the way to the club. Dev remembered that when Chaz opened the door, the doof “did this dramatic pause, and said like, ‘Now it begins.’” Hank remembered that he was short, about the same height as his sister (5’5”, but Eve adjusted that to between 5’5” and 5’7”), white, and wearing “sad, sad baggies. Crap kicks, too.” Peabody makes Eve proud by saying Hank told them “that the guy who slid in behind him wasn’t worth noticing.”
  • Eve has a consult with Mira, who thinks the killer is “an involuntary celibate.” She thinks the addition of the date-rape drug and the STD bacteria indicate a sexual revenge element – he wanted to dose and infect them even though he knew they’d die within minutes, and he used a needle instead of a pressure syringe to represent penetration. “Though he wants them, he despises them as much or more. He needs their notice, their willingness, even their gratitude. They owe him attention, owe him sex, and as they give him neither, are to blame. They’re to be despised and eliminated. Eliminated in a way that demonstrates his cleverness, his skills and intelligence. His superiority.”
  • They agree that he’s working by himself because he wouldn’t want to share the attention, he’s probably the same age as the victims, and the addition of the potassium chloride is because he’s executing them, for crimes committed against him (not seeing him). He’s a misogynist, a narcissist, emotionally stunted, and socially inept. They think he will progress to rape because killing won’t be enough. He’s a loner, with minimal parental attention. Eve sums him up as “a sick, twisted, vicious little son of a bitch.”
  • As they’re finishing up, Eve hears back from the lab that his shoes were Kick It Zoomers, men’s size between six and seven, and we learn that Mr. Mira wears a size 10. Back in Homicide, Peabody is looking for stores that carry the shoes and Jenkinson is checking for labs in high schools and colleges.
  • Jamie and Quilla stop by Eve’s office so Jamie can get permission to join the investigation, and Quilla can explain she’s doing a story on EDD and wants to do one on Homicide next. Peabody comes in, saying L&W carries the shoes and other apparel. Quilla calls it “Losers and Wheezes,” saying she wouldn’t even lift a pair of socks from there. Jamie adds that Kick Its are “subzero. Maybe you buy them if you have to spend a day walking in mud, because they’re gonna fall apart in a couple weeks anyway.” Quilla says, “If I got caught dead in a pair, I’d die a second time of humiliation.”

Chapter 12[]

  • As Eve and Peabody head out to visit the L&W stores, Peabody comments on how cute Jamie and Quilla are together. Eve threatens to kill Peabody and plant evidence so McNab looks guilty, with another officer offering a helpful tip: “Use a knife out of their kitchen.” After they leave the elevator, Peabody tells her a whole elevator full of cops would pin the murder on her, but Eve tells her, “Which is why I’d wait until you got up, then bash you over the head with your fancy French cocotte,” referring to the $900 French pot Peabody is planning to buy.
  • At the first L&W, “even Eve recognized how the franchise earned its sarcastic name. Aunt Janes and harried parents with snarly preteens made up the bulk of the customer base. The teens joining them seemed mostly interested in the cheap accessories - jewelry, sunshades, hair ties. Music banged and boomed over the sound system while clerks shuffled along to refold stock heaped on display tables. Signs, a forest of them, screamed FIFTY PERCENT OFF! SUMMER SALE! BUY TWO GET ONE FREE!”
  • At their flagship store, Roarke calls Eve, who asks if he owns L&W. After a long pause, he replies, “I’m going to firmly believe you don’t know how insulting that is. And I’m going to assume from the vicious music you’re in one now.” He adds, “Substandard apparel is their business. We had their like when I was a boy in Dublin. I wouldn’t’ve pocketed a pair of socks inside those doors,” leading Eve to conclude that he and Quilla have more in common than she realized.
  • Eve and Peabody find the clerk who waited on the killer, remembering him because he was dressed in “dopey clothes, like his mom made him dress for school or church or to visit snooty Aunt Martha.” She also remembered that he had excellent shoes, “brown leather dress loafers, with the tassel. I mean, who puts a teenage kid in those? Lame. But real quality. Alan Stubens. You could buy a hundred Kick Its for one pair of Stuben loafers.”
  • They spend two hours visiting stores that carry Alan Stuben shoes, but strike out. Eve takes Peabody back to her apartment with instructions to meet up at 10 a.m. to resume the shoe search. Eve says his first mistake was the scuff marks and another was wearing his fancy clothes to L&W because it got him noticed. He doesn’t know any better. He has minimal parental supervision, or somebody would have noticed he was growing poppies and spending so much time in his lab. Everybody sees him as quiet and studious. He despises others for being so much dumber than him and for their lack of interest in him, their inability to see all he was and would be. He despises what he most craves – the girls who ignored him. He desperately wants to be seen, but makes sure he isn’t.
  • Eve stumbles upstairs, again too tired to insult Summerset. He tells Galahad, “She may be wet, but she’s wrung herself dry.” Eve falls into bed, with Galahad guarding her ass. Roarke returns from Philadelphia and joins her in bed for a ten-minute power nap.

Chapter 13[]

  • Eve wakes up, and pays Roarke back. They have a spat and agree that he will loan her money when she’s short, she will graciously accept the loan, and he will graciously accept the repayment. Eve fills him in on the case over dinner. They conclude that the killer goes to a fancy-pants private school, he knows how to present himself to whoever is in charge of him – smart, quiet, polite, well-dressed, trustworthy – so they don’t poke around in his business. He has no friends, so plenty of time to himself. He’s cerebral, not athletic, short for his age, puny, and weak. “There was cruelty in the entire thing, but an extra flourish of cruelty in the roofie and bacteria.”
  • Roarke says the killer doesn’t think Eve will find him because he’s so much smarter than anyone with a badge. He has an extreme sense of entitlement, and is afraid of females because of their mystery and power. Eve thinks when they find him, they’ll “find his records, logs, a journal, all meticulous and detailed.” They both think he will escalate to rape before murder the next time, and that he has already picked out the place and maybe the time.
  • Meanwhile, the killer is also thinking about his next move, deciding to hold back on rape that night. He puts on a trench coat and heads to the vids for the opening of the summer’s biggest hit, “yet another ridiculous, scientifically impossible installment of the Defenders franchise.” He bought his ticket in advance, in cash, and joins the queue to enter the theater, keeping his head down to avoid the cameras. He’s picked out two possible targets, and forces himself to calm down.
  • When somebody bumps him from behind, he almost bumps into one of his targets. She glances back but looks through him, so that seals her fate. He keeps close to her and the group she’s with, following them into the theater. When he pushes the needle into her arm, she shrieks, her popcorn goes flying everywhere, and her drink splashes onto his shoes. She raises her fist, and he stumbles backward, running out the emergency exit, pushing his way through the crowd as he hears her screaming, “That asshole stabbed me!” Pandemonium ensues.

Chapter 14[]

  • Eve culls the lists of labs Jenkinson and Reineke generated to just private, non-boarding or arts-related schools. When Roarke joins her, they decide to take twenty each, concentrating on white male non-athlete honor students fourteen or over who don’t belong to clubs or hold office.
  • They are interrupted when Eve’s comm signals with an incident: a sixteen-year-old was transported from a vid theater to a health center, and there’s a BOLO for the suspect. Eve sends Peabody and McNab to the theater while she and Roarke head to the hospital.
  • Eve gets to Kiki’s room, where she learns that Kiki fell off her airboard earlier that afternoon, banging her elbow hard. Because of that she had an impressive bruise on her arm, meaning that when the killer injected her, it hurt like the fires of hell. Since she screamed, the MTs were able to administer an antidote quickly, and medicals gave her a dose of antibiotics to counteract the bacteria. Kiki thinks Eve is Marlo Durn, telling Eve she looks just like her; Eve replies that she gets that sometimes.
  • The doctor tells everybody Kiki will be fine and then takes Eve out of the room to fill her in on Kiki’s condition. She tells Eve Kiki is “young, strong, healthy, and while she wouldn’t have considered it lucky at the time, she was very lucky the sick fucking bastard son of a bitch tried to inject on that bruise, and through two layers - shirtsleeve and jacket.” She adds that she just spent $20 since she swore in multiples on shift, and Eve replies that she’d need a beggar’s license in under a week.
  • Back in Kiki’s room, she tells Eve what she remembers. Roarke assures her that her brother’s friend, David, who she has kind of a thing for, won’t think she’s a wheeze because she puked, and she tells him he sounds like one of the Defenders, Aamon of Thrune. Eve deduces that Kiki is developing another thing for Roarke. Kiki says the guy who stabbed her [what she thought happened] wasn’t tall, he was wearing a trench, so he was a flaker, and he had WTF eyes. She was going to punch him but he ran away.
  • Eve heads for the waiting room to interview her brother and the two friends. David remembers that the killer’s trench coat was new instead of beat up (major fashion faux pas), and confirms he was short and wore doofus shoes. The killer pushed Lola when he fled, jabbing her with his elbows, saying “Out of my way, bitch.” Eve will have David and Kiki work with Yancy on a sketch the next day.

Chapter 15[]

  • At the theater, Roarke joins McNab, who is reviewing security footage. Eve joins Peabody, where one of the three male teenagers she is interviewing starts in about asshole cops and “the screamer” spoiling things for everybody. Eve gave him the choice of being arrested for underage drinking in a venue that didn’t allow alcohol (i.e., the bottle of gin in his pocket) or keeping quiet like his friends and walking away. He chose option #2.
  • One of the people working the concession stand remembered seeing Kiki and her assailant – she noticed Kiki because of her long red hair, and the other kid because he had on a trench coat even though “the rest of the group weren’t flakers.” He wore shades and his head was down when he was walking away. She remembered him as white and about the same height as Kiki. She thought his hair was brown and “floppy” - flopping over his face so she didn't really see it. Eve deduces that it's a wig since there's no way he would have long hair to go with his dressy clothes. Peabody alerted Yancy so he can work with Sharlie the following day. She agrees with the general consensus that wearing a new trench coat makes you a wheeze.
  • The sweepers processed the emergency exit door for Dickie, but it has a crapload of fingerprints. Eve decides he should have waited a few more minutes until they were closer to their seats before injecting her, but he has poor impulse control, and was probably wired up on a booster (he was). Trueheart also found a good witness for Yancy to work with.
  • McNab found him on the footage, always careful to keep his head down, light gray trench coat, black baggies, Kick Its, hands in his pockets, scoping out his target. Roarke is upstairs arranging for a private viewing of the vid for Kiki and her friends and their families when she’s well enough, with unlimited popcorn, because he’s awesome. He assures Eve they’ll still be able to afford spaghetti and meatballs. She promises to thank him properly when she’s off duty, which he collects on before they head home. Eve thinks the killer won’t sleep well that night, and will strike again soon since tonight was a failure, and she’s sure he has the time and place picked out.
  • Sure enough, the killer isn’t sleeping, although he assumes Kiki will die at the hospital since even the partial dose should have taken her down, or maybe she’ll be on life support but brain dead. His next time will be rape, then murder.

Day 4 – Tuesday[]

Chapter 16[]

  • At Central, Eve has DS Rabbit (see Jenkinson's Ties) and Reineke start a run on upscale barbers, and polite, well-mannered, well-dressed, Caucasian sixteen-year-old males who get a monthly conservative cut. On the way to Whitney’s office to argue her case for keeping the feds out, she gets a text from Peabody letting her know that Kiki’s condition is good and she will be released that morning. Eve tells Whitney it will take too much time to bring the feds up to speed and they’re really close to catching him. Whitney gives her 48 hours unless there’s another murder, in which case they have to bring in the feds. He tells Eve “I’ve never had a cop under my command with better [instincts].” She passes the private school angle to EDD.
  • Mira and her excellent legs are waiting for Eve in her office. She agrees that the killer rushed the attack, has no e-skills so didn’t think to jam the alarm on the emergency exit door (Roarke’s take), so no arcades or vid games in his routine. He then panicked and bolted instead of trying to blend, drawing attention to himself as he knocked people aside escaping. Mira thinks he will be harder on the next girl to make her pay for his failure, which was, of course, Kiki’s fault, not his. She doesn’t think he’s raped before, that he’s been working up to it.
  • Peabody drives them to Arlie’s place while Eve calls Special Agent Teasdale to have her check on like crimes in case Jenna wasn’t his first victim, and in case he’s raped before. Eve thinks he will go for somebody he knows, someone who “rejected” him, but Mira thinks he’s just looking at girls who represent all the ones who’ve ignored him. Guess who’s right?

Chapter 17[]

  • Arlie’s room yields no additional information. Dickhead has eliminated 73% of the prints from the door, and Eve narrows down the area based on the killer’s height. Eve and Peabody head to Jenna’s funeral. The killer didn’t show up there, not that Eve expected him to, since he’s done with Jenna.
  • Jake and his bandmates are there, and after Eve gets the ok from Jenna’s family, they offer their condolences. Julia tells Jake she and Shane were the first people to hold Jenna, and he was the last. She thanks him for being there for Jenna at the end, with Shane adding that it was a gift. Jake tells them the band listened to Jenna’s demo and want to produce and release it, basically as is. Art says “She had the magic. The shine.” They propose starting a scholarship fund in her name, and request more of her music to either release or record if there aren’t vocals. Julia tells them they are offering their daughter all of her dreams, and Shane tells them “Thank you’s not enough.”
  • Eve tells Jake they’re going to catch the killer. Nadine and Jake exchange “I love you”s for the first time and share a “lift you right off your feet, turn you around” lip-lock on the street.

Chapter 18[]

  • At the Rosenburg/Harris house, Eve and Peabody learn a little more about Kiki’s attacker, including that he reminds them of a kid they go to school with who’s “super smart, but clueless on real stuff” and wouldn’t get bullied if he’d just stop bragging about how much he knows. Kiki asks if she can go to Arlie’s memorial and tell her mom she’s sorry about what happened to her and maybe talk to Jenna’s parents sometime and tell them. Peabody says she will clear it with the parents.
  • Just as they’re about to give up on the shoes, Officer Carmichael tags them with three possibles. He’s close to one, so they take the other two. Carmichael and Shelby strike out, as do Eve and Peabody with the first one, but the third one is a personal shopper. As they wait for her to return to her apartment to check her records, they learn that Yancy doesn’t have a complete picture yet but is close, with two wits left to visit.

Chapter 19[]

  • Eve gets to chase a street thief, which makes her happy. He’s awed at being caught by a “serious” cop and the victim doesn’t press charges because that would take time and effort. Peabody explains personal shoppers to Eve. Quilla is waiting for Eve when she gets back, having distributed brownies to her bullpen but not saving any for Eve or Peabody. She checked with Mouser, an ex-street thief also in An Dídean, and got a list of high-end clothing stores “where you could maybe snag a wallet and a shopping bag full of snoot clothes [to sell or use as a costume, not to wear].” Eve tells her next time she brings brownies she’d better have one for her.
  • Impatient, Eve tags Charro and has police escort her into the city through heavy traffic. Eve has her review Mouser’s list and she is able to cross off two stores where she doesn’t shop. Teasdale calls back to tell Eve there are no like crimes. Yancy sends her a rough sketch, which Eve totally recognizes as the killer.
  • Eve’s trying to figure out how to run the sketch against yearbook photos when Roarke arrives and sets it up. She has Peabody contact Reo to get an arrest, search, and seizure warrant ready as soon as they get the name. Charro calls with the name just as the yearbook photo matches – Francis Bryce, son of Dr. Nolan Bryce, and they live on the Upper East Side. Peabody, Eve, and Roarke are off! [But not off in the way the killer is.]

Chapter 20[]

  • On the way to the garage, Peabody runs the father. Eve asks her what she has, and she replies, “some mild nausea from reading while running down this glide” before giving Eve the data on him: Dr. Bryce is head of a lab at a pharmaceutical company, and his ex-wife, Francis’s mother, died of an OD five years prior, after multiple drug-related busts, and prison and rehab stints. They head to the Bryce home, obtaining a warrant as they arrive.
  • According to the droid who greets them, neither Francis nor his father are home, so Peabody, Eve, and Roarke are free to search. The basement holds Master Francis’s lab, study, and recreational space, so they head there first. Roarke gets through all of his security and disables the droid so it won’t contact Francis or his father. Since his wig and cheap clothes are missing, they figure he’s out hunting.
  • The lab is as expected, with everything carefully labeled. He’s in the process of making more opium cakes [worst dessert ever] for heroin. Peabody puts out a BOLO on him and they bring in EDD and the rest of the homicide bullpen. Eve calls Whitney to update him and get the ok for more bodies to assist with the house search. Poppies are grown in a greenhouse on the roof and Eve calls Whitney back to have the lab ready for all the illegals and hazardous material that will be collected.
  • Roarke finds extensive notes about his “experiments,” including the fact that he is planning to rape and murder a girl that very night. McNab accesses his journal, which has an entry about his mother taking him to Coney Island, when he was not quite five. She met her dealer and Francis got sick on the rides. She laughed at him, thus turning a fun adventure into humiliation. He plans to go back there that night. In the interest of speed and efficiency, Roarke orders a jet-copter to take them there.

Chapter 21[]

  • Francis is at Coney Island, looking “frosty” (his word) and scoping out his prey while he reminiscences about his trip there with his mother, and how his mother had laughed at him when he threw up. He thinks about how in his sophomore year of college he will arrange a tragic accident for his father, so he can inherit his money. He chooses Delaney Brooke, a girl he was lab partners with once, as his target. He had asked her out for coffee, but she told him she was seeing someone, which he assumed to be a lie.
  • Eve outlines the operation during the copter ride to Coney Island. McNab reads a passage from Francis’s journal about the formula he created for Compliance: “The popular term is date-rape drug, but rape is a lie perpetuated by women in their endless quest to emasculate men to deny us our rights.” Eve decides he can spend the rest of his life thinking like that in a cage, where his “rights” will be severely limited.
  • Roarke takes Eve through the park, pointing out the possible attractions where Francis may have taken his victim. They rule out one for being a single-car ride and another for encouraging teams. Meanwhile, an attendant at the arcade reports noticing Francis walking by about thirty minutes prior because of his trench coat, thinking he was a pickpocket.
  • Francis waits for Del to put away her ’link, injects her with Compliance (he had coated the needle with a numbing agent so she wouldn’t feel it as much), then swats the air, saying a bee landed on her. Del thinks the imaginary bee stung her, and Francis introduces himself, reminding her that they go to school together. She’s on her way to meet her friends at the Cyclone and tries to shake him off, but as the drug begins to work, she slows her pace. Francis is immediately all over her like the creep he is, telling her she wants him and telling her what to say to him. He tells her they will have intercourse, having her say “I want to have sex with you.”
  • As soon as Eve sees the Tunnel of Terror, she knows this is the ride. She shows the attendant Francis’s picture, he confirms that “the doof in the trench” is on the ride with an “iced little chick,” and Eve orders him to turn the lights on and stop the ride. She orders her team to cover the exits and heads down to find Francis and Del, shouting “Francis Bryce, this is the police. You’re surrounded. Move away from the girl.”
  • Francis has taken Del out of the car and thrown her down onto the platform, tearing her shirt. He complains that since they only have six minutes he won’t be able to have her put his penis in her mouth, so they’ll just have intercourse. He slaps her and orders her to scream. Just as he starts unbuttoning his baggies, the lights come on and he hears Eve. He doesn’t have time to get the other syringe out of his pocket, the one with the lethal injection, instead panicking, throwing his body at the emergency exit, and running.
  • Eve hears Del weeping and the shrill of the alarm. She sees that Del has just one injection mark, so she has Roarke stay with her while she pursues Francis. Roarke reminds her that Francis still has the second syringe. Del tells Roarke Francis said he would kill her if she made a sound, and he literally gives her the shirt off his back before lifting her into his arms and carrying her out.
  • Eve easily catches up to Francis, who has the second syringe in his hand. She tackles him and puts her stunner to the side of his neck until he drops it, whining that he wasn’t finished. Eve assures him that he’s done and cuffs him.
  • Santiago says he and Carmichael had a bet going on who would get there first if someone else spotted Francis and called for backup, but they agree it was a tie, quite possibly marking the first time he hasn’t lost a bet. Carmichael is distracted by the sight of a shirtless Roarke carrying Del away from the ride. Eve reads off Francis’s charges, and he spits at her, yelling, “Bitch, you’re all bitches!” She adds assaulting an officer, attempted rape, and the use of a date-rape drug to the list, noting with satisfaction that he’d bashed his nose on the fall and it dribbled blood.
  • Jenkinson takes charge of escorting Francis to Central for booking. Francis whines, “Do you know who my father is?” to which Jenkinson grins and asks him, “Who’s your daddy?” Roarke approaches, no longer carrying Del, but wearing a black tee with the park logo of a silly face with a wide, toothy grin. He tells Eve McNab picked it out for him since Del didn’t want to let go of Roarke’s shirt. Peabody is with Del in the ambulance, and the drug is wearing off. Feeney takes over at the park so Eve can go talk to Del.

Chapter 22[]

  • Peabody is sitting in the ambulance with Del, who tells Eve that Francis is creepy, that she always knew that about him even before he abducted her. Del goes through the sequence of events, and Peabody assures her that none of this is her fault, that Francis took away her control by dosing her with a date-rape drug. Peabody arranges transportation of her three friends to the hospital to be with Del, who thanks Eve for catching Francis and Roarke for saving her.
  • Back at Central, Francis is in custody. He called his father on the way, telling him it was a terrible mistake and the police roughed him up. He lost a lot of the bravado during booking and lockup. Eve requests a shirt without a face for Roarke and sends everybody home. Dr. Bryce is coming in from a medical conference in Vegas, so they have about an hour. Eve updates Whitney and starts her report. She and Roarke eat pizza while sitting on the floor of her office, with Roarke wearing an NYPSD shirt. She promises Roarke sun, sand, sea, and sex as soon as the case is wrapped up – they’re going to fly to his island.
  • Eve and Peabody bring Dr. Bryce into an interview room to enlighten him on his prodigy’s evildoings. Dr. B doesn’t go into Francis’s lab because “It’s his space. Privacy is very important to Francis.” They show him a recording of Francis’s lab, zooming in on the names of the substances he had and the opium cakes. He tells them he’s never seen a sign that Francis used, to which Eve replies that he doesn’t use illegals on himself, but on others and shows him the formulas and Jenna and Arlie’s tox reports. He hadn’t heard about the murders since he’s been out of town, but assures Eve and Peabody that his son has never given him a moment’s trouble.
  • When they show him the journal entries, he finally gets it, including seeing that Francis wants to kill him for his money. He wonders what he has done and what he can do. Eve realizes that it wasn’t neglect, but indulgence, and that he had no idea his son was an evil little psychopathic monster. Eve dismissed Peabody until 10 the following day, and everybody heads home.

Day 5 – Wednesday[]

Chapter 22 (continued)[]

  • Roarke dresses Eve to show off her arms and weapon to full advantage, looking combat-ready – a woman of power and authority, saying that Francis will detest her. On the way in, she contacts Reo, who assures her there will be no dealing – he’s a stone-cold killer and will be tried as an adult.
  • At Central, she tells everybody good job, that she will be off for a couple of days, and asks Jenkinson to take Peabody off the roll (but on call) for the rest of the week as soon as they fry Francis. Eve tells Reo she’s going to get Francis to admit everything, on record. Nadine, Jake, and Quilla are there, so she sends them down to the Eatery after telling Quilla she was helpful and she can have her interview with Homicide, when Jenkinson tells her it’s convenient.

Chapter 23[]

  • Francis’s attorney, Marshall Derwood, says he should be treated like the minor/child he is, and Eve asks Francis if he wants to be babied. She shows Derwood crime scene photos, the scientific formulas, the tox reports, and the contents of the second syringe that was on his person after the attack on Del. Derwood argues that his mother was an addict who died from an OD, and that trauma affected him emotionally and mentally. Eve asks Francis if he wants to hide behind Mommy now.
  • Derwood says he intends to engage a top child psychiatrist, and Eve says that’s fine, that they’ve got their top shrink observing this interview. Francis throws a temper tantrum, complaining that Derwood keeps referring to him as a child, but he’s a man, and they should be filing charges against Eve for police brutality. He then turns on his father to chastise him for leaving him in a cell overnight, and then saying he has issues, and needs help. He fires Derwood and says he will file for emancipation. Dr. B tells him he loves him but now he has to pay for his choices and actions. He gives Eve parental permission to continue the interview, and he and Derwood leave.
  • Francis tries to play innocent with Eve, saying he doesn’t know who Jenna Harbough is, and has never been in the club, that he found the shoes and thought he’d look chill in them. Eve mocks his dress style (“old man designer shoes”) and asks where he got the wig, “MHF? Major Hair Fail?” Francis says he found all of it and wondered how it would look. After he put them on he had a breakdown and was like somebody else. The next thing he remembered was Eve knocking him down. Eve tells him he really is stupid, to which he replies that his IQ is easily the sum of Peabody and Eve’s combined. She starts in on his looks, saying it’s no wonder he can’t get laid. She tells him she’s in charge, he’s nothing in there, and girls don’t go for nothings like him.
  • Eve continues to goad Francis into admitting that he’s entitled to do what he wants with girls’ bodies, that women are weak but conniving, and he’s far superior. He agrees that he intended to kill his targets, and the theater wasn’t a mistake, it was an unforeseen complication. He says he deserved a reward for all of his time, work, focus, and dedication to creating the proper formulas. Rape is a lie perpetuated by women to deny men their right to intercourse, and it wouldn’t have been rape anyway since Del was compliant.
  • He tells Eve he was nearly there and she spoiled it all. He threatens to kill her for it one day. Eve points out that he confessed everything on record. Francis says it doesn’t matter because he’s sixteen so he’ll be out in two years, and will have access to his trust fund. Eve tells him since it doesn’t matter, they should go over it all again and also that having Francis come after her doesn’t worry her because her cat has a bigger dick than him. He then goes over everything from the beginning, starting with the poppies, showing pride in his “accomplishments.”
  • Dr. Bryce is waiting outside, devastated. Eve tells him nothing he’d have done differently would have changed Francis. Dr. B says when he told Francis his mother died, he didn’t cry and he was relieved, but now sees that was a warning sign. Eve recommends talking to Dr. Mira because of course.
  • Eve texts Nadine that it’s done: “Full confession, Tell Jake Jenna got justice,” adding that Jenkinson might give her a one-on-one. Reo tells Eve she and Peabody make her job easy and they would push for consecutive life sentences off-planet, and thinks they will get it. Eve writes up the report, notifies the families in person, and sleeps all the way to their island, where she and Roarke vacation, beginning with sex.

Character List[]

List of Main Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Secondary Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Recurring Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Minor Characters Appearing in this Book[]

List of Peripheral Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book[]

YANNIs[]

In Connections in Death, Eve and Roarke attended a party where Avenue A was playing. Jake Kincade mentioned that their drummer’s name was “Rocky”: “Between bouts with Glaze she (Loxie Flash) made movies on Rocky -- our drummer. Our married drummer. He didn’t move back.”[3] In the prologue of Random in Death, the drummer’s name was Mac: Jake swiped at sweat as the band’s drummer, Mac, grinned at him. “We still got it, boss.” Jake recalled that Mac had been with the band since they were in high school: “He remembered busking in subway tunnels with Leon, then Leon and Renn, before they’d hit fifteen. And watching Mac play the drums at their high school’s band concert.”[4] Also, Art was the only married band member in Random: “Art’s the married one.”[5]

Audio Error: In Chapter 11, Susan Ericksen read Eve’s paragraph in Peabody’s voice: “My pride nearly exceeds the magnificence of this babka. The minute he noticed the sad baggies, the one wearing them sank beneath notice.”

In Chapter 14 of Random in Death, the third victim, Kiki Rosenburg, was in the hospital. When Eve arrived, she was introduced to Kiki’s two moms: Connie and Andrea. Later in that chapter, Eve was questioning the other kids that were with Kiki at the movie theater, and the two moms entered. At this time, Andrea was now called Audrey: “She’s okay.” Audrey went to him and, though he stood a head taller, gathered him in. “They’re moving her to a room, just for the night. Just to monitor.” The next time we saw Kiki’s moms, the name was back to being Andrea. Note: It’s possible Nora got Andrea’s name mixed up with another character in the book, Audrey Fine.

Francis Bryce called Delaney Brooke’s hair black, but Eve called her a brunette.[6]

Footnotes[]

  1. ↑ Random in Death, Chapter 8
  2. ↑ Random in Death begins “in the sweltering summer of 2061” (Prologue). Then Roarke tells Eve that “every year, in the summer, Avenue A plays there one night for the teenage crowd” (Chapter 1). There are several other references to it being summer.
  3. ↑ Dark in Death, Chapter 18
  4. ↑ Random in Death, Prologue
  5. ↑ Random in Death, Chapter 3
  6. ↑ Random in Death, Chapter 21
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