“Yeah, yeah, okay. So,” she said, swiveling to Eve. “On one hand this is totally iced. On the other, it’s majorly fucked.”
“What is?”
“The hair. I’m the goddess of hair and fiber, and if I can’t ID it, nobody can. And I can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sorry, I’ve been at this all night. I’m a little wired on Boost.” She gestured with the jumbo tube in her hand before she took a gulp.
“Have you tried the new black cherry flavor?” Peabody asked her.
“Yeah, but it’s got an aftertaste. I’m pretty well hooked on the Lemon Zest. It’s got a nice zing.”
“I like Blue Lagoon. There’s something about drinking blue that feels energizing.”
“Excuse me,” Eve said, brutally polite. “This talk of flavors and favorites is fascinating, but maybe we could take a moment to discuss—oh, I don’t know—evidence?”
“Sure,” Harpo said as Peabody cleared her throat. “I got hair from your crime scene. ID’d some from each of your vics, no prob. Got some not theirs, but no roots. So no DNA for you on that, but I started a standard anal. You want to eliminate animal—like a rat, or a stray cat, whatever. And I could—I figured anyway—give you some basics. Synthetic, human, if it was treated, color, and like that. But I can’t, ’cause it’s not.”
“Not what, Harpo?”
“It’s not synthetic. That’s solid. But it’s not exactly human and not exactly animal. It’s sort of both.”
“It can’t be both.”
“That’s right.” Harpo pointed a finger tipped with a metallic purple nail. “But it is.” She glanced at Berenski for permission, then used one of the comps to call up her file. “What you have here,” she said, tapping that bright nail to the image, “is human hair, and this”—she split the screen with a second image—“is ape.”
“If you say so.”
“Science says. See, on the human hair the cuticle scales overlap smoothly. On the ape hair, they’re rough— they, like, protrude. Get it?”
“Okay, yeah. So?”
“So this—” Harpo added another image. “Okay, this is from your crime scene. It clearly shows characteristics of both—rough and smooth—on one strand. What you got here, Dallas, is mutant hair. It’s like somebody mated a human with an ape, and here’s the hair of the result.”
“Give me a break, Harpo.”
“Science doesn’t lie. It screws up sometimes, but it doesn’t lie. I ran this through everything I’ve got and did the same with the other strands the sweepers sent me. Same result. About two this morning, I gave up and tagged my old man—”
“Your—”
“My father’s head of forensics at Quantico. Look, Dallas, it’s not like I go running to Daddy whenever I hit a snag. In fact, this is the first time ever because it’s way out of orbit, and he’s the best there is—anywhere.”
“Okay, Harpo, okay. What was his take?”
“He’s stumped, just like me. This sort of mutation shouldn’t be possible. But I’ve got hair—five samples—that says it is.”
“So, you’re telling me I’m looking for an ape-man? Seriously?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re looking for, is what I’m telling you. Come on, Dickie, give her yours so she stops looking at me like they let me out of the ward too early.”
Berenski folded his arms. “Harpo got what she got, and I got what I got. You got green skin.”
“I know that, goddamn it.”
“I mean green. Not makeup, not tinted. It’s green down through the subcutaneous tissue. Your vic got some blood along with the flesh, and that’s not right either.”
“Green blood?” Eve asked, ready to be annoyed all over again.
“It’s red enough, but it’s not human. Not all the way. I get what Harpo got on the hair. A combination of human and ape. DNA’s like nothing I’ve seen before, and I’ve seen it all. It is what it is,” he snapped out before Eve could protest. “You’ve got some mutant freak running around killing people. I want some fucking coffee.”
He shoved up, stomped away.
“His girlfriend dumped him a couple days ago,” Harpo said. “He hasn’t said it, but we figure. He’s been hell to be around since. But he’s right. It is what it is. My old man, he’d like to consult on this if you give him the nod.”
Eve squeezed the bridge of her nose. “I’m going to get DNA from the suspects. When I do, can you match it to this?”
“Dickie’s got DNA from the skin and blood the vic scraped off. He can match it if you get him the killer’s. You get hair, I can match it. But it shouldn’t be a problem to find some half-ape guy with green skin. Right?”
“Jesus,” was all Eve could think of.
Wisely Peabody kept her thoughts to herself. She managed to be wise until they’d gotten back in the car.
“You know Harpo’s solid. And Dickhead’s a dickhead, but he’s one of the best there is. If they both come up with the same results, and really, when you look at the killer, he’s just not . . .”
“Human? Bullshit. Bullshit. And one more bullshit. They’re doing some sort of weird experiments in Rosenthall’s lab. Something unauthorized and twisted.”
“That’s what I’m saying. They created a monster—a killer ape-man monster. And now it’s broken out and wreaking havoc on the city. And—”
“Don’t make me slap you. It’s so damn girlie.”
“Not when you’re on the receiving end.”
“Experiments,” Eve continued. “The serum. It screws up the DNA, causes severe anemia. Louise said that could cause a green cast to the skin.”
“All the way down?”
“Obviously.”
“But the face, Dallas.”
She wanted to believe it was prosthetics, a device, some sort of elaborate mask. But . . . “I don’t know, but we’re going to grill Rosenthall like a trout until he clears this up. Mr. Hyde,” she muttered. “Maybe that’s not so far off.”
“Mr. Hyde?” Peabody scooted up and over in her seat. “Oh, oh, Rosenthall created the evil Dr. Jekyll. No wait, Dr. Jekyll’s the good part. Hyde’s the evil one. But they’re the same person. Rosenthall’s Mr. Hyde!”
“D minus, and only because you got the names right. Why would Rosenthall kill Jennifer Darnell—in that manner? That personal, intimate manner? The killer wanted her, and couldn’t have her.”
“Back to Pachai.”
“Think about it. You said he loved her—and wit statements indicate she was interested. Now maybe he moved, she decided she wasn’t interested after all. But who’s the odd man out in this? Who got Darnell and her friend the jobs at Slice? Gets her and her friend work, but she’s more interested in Gupta. And golly, where do we find one of the murder weapons? In Gupta’s locker—with blood and brain matter still on it.”
“Ken Dickerson. It is a frame-up.”
“Gupta’s Rosenthall’s assistant. Dickerson’s still an intern. Gupta’s caught the eye of Darnell, even though Dickerson went to his uncle and got her work—then did her another favor and got work for Vix. Gupta comes from a family of doctors, scientists, and had a leg up since his father knows Rosenthall. Dickerson had to work his way through, push for scholarships. And Gupta’s still ahead of him.”
“Why not kill Pachai?”
“One of the first three vics got wind of something Dickerson was up to, so they had to go. What better way to destroy Gupta than by killing the girl he loved and pinning it on him? Whatever he’s on makes him feel superior, but that was already in there. It makes him feel powerful, free. It makes him happy, and more, he’s found out killing makes him even happier. He destroyed the lab, took the serum. He doesn’t want anyone else to have what he’s got. It’s all his.”
“It plays, but it doesn’t explain the mutations.”
“So Rosenthall better,” she said as she pulled into the garage at Central. “We’ll take him first.”
