questioning, Beckel identified her neighbor Allison Nighly, and Phips a coworker, Macie Snyder. We pursued with five more survivors. Three of those knew a total of seven of the dead or injured from the bar. The remaining four survivors were in surgery or unable to be questioned. We’ll follow that up.”
“So out of the eight survivors you were able to question on this point, five had a connection to one or more victims from the first incident.”
“Yeah, that’s more’n half, Loo. I call bullshit on coincidence.”
“I second that bullshit. Keep on it. Following that theme. Baxter?”
“We’ve been doing the cross, employment, relations, residence. Survivors, vics, wits, persons of interest. Our boy Trueheart made a graph.”
“It’s more of a spreadsheet.” Trueheart, young and built in his uniform, flushed a little. “There’s a lot of cross, Lieutenant, like you figured. I programmed it so it’s easier to see. Peabody loaded it if you want it on screen.”
“I do. Peabody.”
When it flashed on, Eve rocked back on her heels as she scanned. “Run the numbers, Trueheart.”
“Sir?”
“Run it through. Explain.”
He looked a little ill, but he rose, took the laser pointer she handed him. “We’ve grouped them by type—DB, wit, survivor, POI. We cross that with places of employment and residence. An additional cross with relations. We highlighted areas of connection—blue for employment, green for residence, yellow for relationships.”
“It’s colorful,” Eve commented.
“Yes, sir. We anticipated considerable employment connections as both scenes catered to the offices in that area. And as you suggested, there’s also additional matches with residences. The numbers drop off with relationships, but as you can see there are crosses there, too. The highest percentage of connections involve Stevenson and Reede for place of business, excluding the crime scenes themselves, sir. For residence, the highest percentage of connection ranges along this block of Franklin. A probability scan has a sixty-eight-point-three the target or targets and/or perpetrator or perpetrators work or worked in, um, the highlighted triangulation.”
He cleared his throat. “With more time, I think I can eliminate some of the connections and refine the results.”
“Do that.” Geography, she thought again. Geography and relationships. “Give Feeney a copy. I want this transferred to a board we can work on. That’s good work, Trueheart, Baxter. Feeney, will you run the EDD report?”
She stepped away, pulled out her ’link when it signaled, then slipped out of the room.
When she came back, Feeney had several ID shots on screen.
“We don’t need all of them,” she told him. “Just her. Just Jeni Curve.”
Feeney’s eyes narrowed. “You got something.”
“She’s the source. I asked Morris to do a secondary exam on her and the others you’ve got up there. Curve’s tox levels were significantly higher than the other vics, the inflammation more pronounced. At this time forensics is testing her clothing, and the minute pieces of glass recovered from her jacket pocket.
“Morris has also determined that Macie Snyder, a vic from the first incident, exhibits those same elevated levels. Her clothing is also being examined at this time. She was the source on the first.
“Peabody, bring up Trueheart’s chart again.”
“Yes, sir. There’s no connection between them,” Peabody said when the data was on screen.
“Yeah, there is. It’s just not highlighted yet. We’ll use red for the killer. It fits. Replay Curve’s security image. Walking into work. Stops, smiles, waves, calls out what lip-reading program makes out as
“But CiCi Way, the friend who survived the first attack, didn’t say anything about Snyder being approached,” Peabody began. “Wait. Bumped into someone at the bar. She said Macie bumped into somebody at the bar.”
“Crowded, talking, bump—easy to drop it into her pocket. He’s ballsy,” Eve observed. “He’s plenty ballsy. Unseal or open the container, drop it into a pocket, walk away. The couple minutes he’s exposed in the bar—if that long—doesn’t worry him.”
She lifted her eyebrows when Teasdale raised her hand. “Agent?”
“I would like to know the nature of the substance. Has your lab fully identified it, or—”
“We have it. Peabody, put up the lab report.”
When it came up—all those long, strange scientific names, all the odd symbols, Teasdale folded her hands in her lap, studied and nodded.
“I see. Concentrated, and with the synthetic … But it would require … Hmm. Yes, I believe I see. I’d like to have a copy of this formula, and any data pertaining to it. I assume you’ve verified my security clearance.”
“You assume correctly. Peabody, copy the nerd file for Agent Teasdale. No offense.”
Again, that slight smile. “Absolutely none taken. As you appear to be both efficient and thorough, I assume you know the genesis of this formula.”
“Revelation, Six,” Eve said coolly. “So HSO is aware.”
“I can’t verify this formula is in HSO’s files, but can verify a substance containing much of these elements, and some which were not identified at the time it was discovered, has been documented. I’ve studied what was available to me.”
“Care to share with the rest of the class?”
“Red Horse. Hard data on the cult, and the man suspected of using this substance has been classified. Above my clearance. I am, however, well versed in the history and culture of the cult. To believe the use in these two incidents of the same formula used in the name of Red Horse during the Urban Wars is coincidence would be, as Detective Reineke succinctly put, bullshit. Therefore, there must be a connection between these incidents and those. Though the details are buried, and most—again to my knowledge—were destroyed before the end of the war.”
“We agree on the bullshit.”
“I can and will request authorization to access more data.”
“Do that. Meanwhile, Detective Callendar’s been looking for that connection.”
“I’ve got names,” Callendar reported. “Names of people known to be or suspected to be members or associated with Red Horse. Names of children reported abducted. Names of those recovered, and those unrecovered. I’m working on crossing those names with our vics, wits, and those connections. It’s not finding the needle in the haystack, Lieutenant, it’s finding the right sliver of hay in the stack.”
“Here I could help,” Teasdale stated. “Authorization will take time, even with Director Hurtz’s backing. But on this I can be useful now. If Detective Callendar is agreeable.”
Callendar glanced at Dallas, got the nod. “Yeah, sure.”
“What about chatter?”
“We’re monitoring that,” Callendar told Eve. “We’ve got some excitement from the sickos, but nothing that mentions Red Horse, nothing that claims credit.”
“Keep at it. Detective Strong, progress?”
“It’s the mix,” Strong began. “The peyote, the mushrooms. They’re natural substances and easy to come by. And they’re old school so not a lot of dealers bother with them. In the mix, it’s the LSD and the Zeus that have the better potential to track. I’m tugging some lines, poked at a couple of my weasels. A significant buy of LSD would pop. It’s not a popular illegal. None of my sources know anything about a major buy. I think he’s cooking it.”
“If so,” Teasdale commented, “he’d need equipment; a safe, private area, preferably a lab, and a strong knowledge of chemistry. It’s a dangerous recipe.”
“If he got his hands on the formula, he doesn’t have to know much chemistry,” Strong argued. “No more than your average chem cook. But the ingredients mean he needs funding and contacts. He’d need ergotamine tartrate —according to my research. That would flag, too—unless he sourced it outside the U.S. Belize is a popular source, and one of the lines I’m tugging.”
“He’d require reagents, solvents, hydrazine—”
“Tugging those lines,” Strong repeated. “Maybe he’s a chemist, or works in a lab. But if the recipe for the
