“I pretty well dumped my required Abnormal Physiology at the Academy.” Peabody moved her sturdy shoulders. “I did better in Psych, better yet in Tactics. This is over my head.”
“Mine, too,” Eve admitted. “But it’s a link, our first one. Computer, cross section of brain abnormality, Fitzhugh, file one two eight seven one. Split screen with current display.”
The screen jittered, went to fuzzy gray. Eve swore, smacked it with the heel of her hand, and bumped out a shaky image blurred across the center.
“Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. This cheap shit we have to use around here. It’s a wonder we can close a case on jaywalking. Download all data, you bastard, on disc.”
“Maybe if you sent this
unit into Maintenance,” Peabody suggested and received a snarl.
“It was supposed to be overhauled while I was away. The fuckers in Maintenance have their fingers up their butts. I’m going to run this through one of Roarke’s units.” She caught Peabody’s lifted brow and tapped her foot as she waited for the wheezy machine to download. “You got a problem with that, Officer?”
“No, sir.” Peabody tucked her tongue in her cheek and decided against mentioning the series of codes Eve was about to break. “No problem here.”
“Fine. Get to work on the red tape and get me the brain scan of the senator for comparison.”
Peabody’s smug little smile fell away. “You want me to bump heads with East Washington?”
“Your head’s hard enough to handle it.” Eve ejected the disc and pocketed it. “Call me when you get it. The minute you get it.”
“Yes, sir. If we get a link there, we’re going to need an expert analyst.”
“Yeah.” Eve thought of Reeanna. “I might just have one. Get moving, Peabody.”
“Moving, Lieutenant.”
chapter nine
Eve wasn’t one for breaking rules, yet she found herself standing outside the locked door of Roarke’s private room. It was disconcerting to realize that after a decade of going by the book, she could find it so easy to circumvent procedure.
Do the ends justify the means? she wondered. And are the means really so out of line? Maybe the equipment in the room beyond was unregistered and undetectable to Compuguard and therefore illegal, but it was also top of the line. The pathetic electronics budgeted to the Police and Security Department had been antiquated nearly before it was installed, and Homicide’s slice of the budget pie was stingy and stale.
She tapped her fingers on her pocket where the disc rested and shifted her feet. The hell with it, she decided. She could be a law-abiding cop and walk away or she could be a smart one.
She placed her hand on the security screen. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.”
The locks disengaged with a quiet snick and opened into Roarke’s huge data center. The long curve of windows, which were shielded against sun and flybys, kept the room in shadows. She ordered lights, secured the door, and walked over to face the wide, U-shaped console.
Roarke had programmed her palm and voice print into the system months before, but she’d never used the equipment alone. Even now that they were married, she felt like an intruder.
She made herself sit, snugged the chair into the console. “Unit one, engage.” She heard the silky hum of high-level equipment responding and nearly sighed. Her disc slid in smoothly, and within seconds had been decoded and read by the civilian unit. “And so much for our elaborate security at NYPSD,” she muttered. “Wall screen on full. Display data, Fitzhugh File H-one two eight seven one. Split screen with Mathias File S-three oh nine one two.”
Data flowed like water onto the huge wall screen facing the console. In her admiration, Eve forgot to feel guilty. She leaned forward, scanning birth dates, credit ratings, purchasing habits, political affiliations.
“Strangers,” she said to herself. “You couldn’t have had less in common.” Then her lips pursed as she noted correlations on a section of purchasing habits. “Well, you both liked games. Lots of on-line time, lots of entertainment and interactive programs.” Then she sighed. “Along with about seventy percent of the population. Computer, split screen display, brain scan both loaded files.”
With an almost seamless segue, Eve was studying the images. “Increase and highlight unexplained abnormalities.”
The same, she mused, eyes narrowed. Here the two men were the same, like brothers, twins in the womb. The burn shadow was precisely the same size and shape, in precisely the same location.
“Computer, analyze abnormality and identify.”
Working . . . Incomplete data . . . Searching medical files. Please wait for analysis.
“That’s what they all say.” She pushed away from the console to pace while the computer juggled its brain. When the door opened, she spun around on her heel and very nearly flushed when Roarke walked in.
“Hello, Lieutenant.”