“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“This isn’t the first time either, is it?”
She flipped back through her memory. “You weren’t chief nine years back.”
“Senior tech. I did the skin and hair on those four vics. Harte took the bows for it, but I did the work. Goddamn it.”
Harte, Eve remembered, had also had a nickname: Blowharte.
“So you did the work. Applause, applause. I need an analysis of this vic’s hair and skin.”
“I did the work,” he repeated, bitterly now. “I analyzed and researched and identified what was barely any trace. I gave you the damn brand names of the soap, the shampoo. You’re the one who didn’t catch the bastard.”
“You did your job, I didn’t do mine?” She leaned down, nose-to-nose. “You’d better back up, Dick.”
“Ah, excuse me. Don’t clock the referee.” Courageously—from her point of view—Peabody eased between the chief tech and the primary. “Everyone who was involved nine years ago feels this one more now.”
“How would you know?” Dick rounded on Peabody. “You were in some Free Ager commune sitting in a circle chanting at the frigging moon nine years ago.”
“Hey.”
“That’s it.” Eve kept her voice low, and the tone stinging. “You can’t handle this one, Berenski, I’ll request another tech.”
“I’m chief here. This isn’t your shop. I say who works what.” Then he held
up his hand. “Just back off a minute, back off a minute. Goddamn it.”
Because it wasn’t his usual style, Eve kept silent while he stared down at his own long, mobile fingers.
“Some of them stick with you, you know? They stick in your gut. Other shit comes in and you work that, and it seems like you put it away. Then it comes back and kicks you in the balls.”
He drew a breath, looked up at Eve. It wasn’t just fury, she saw now, but the bitter frustration that on the job could push perilously close to grief.
“You know how when it stopped, just stopped cold, everybody figured he got dead, or he got tossed in a cage for something else? We didn’t get him, and that was a bitch, but it stopped.” Berenski heaved out a breath. “But it didn’t. He didn’t get dead or tossed in a cage. He was just bopping around Planet Earth having his high old time. Now he’s back on my desk, and it pisses me off.”
“I’m serving as President of the Pissed-off Club. I’ll take your application for membership under advisement.”
He snorted out a laugh, and the crisis passed.
“I got the results. I was just rerunning the data. Triple check. It’s not the same brands as before.”
“The old brands still available?”
“Yeah, yeah, here’s the thing. He used shea butter soap with olive and palm oils, oils of rose and chamomile on the four prior vics. Handmade soap, imported from France. Brand name L’Essence or however the frogs say that. Cake style, about fifteen bucks a pop nine years back. Shampoo, same manufacturer, same name, caviar and fennel extracts.”
“They put caviar in shampoo?” Peabody demanded. “What a waste.”
“Just fish eggs, and disgusting if you ask me. Tech in Wales was good enough to work the trace, got the same deal as me. Same for Florida. They didn’t get anything in Romania or in Bolivia. But now he’s switched brands.”
“To?”
“Okay, what we got is still handmade soap, got your shea butter—cocoa butter addition, olive oil, and oil from grapefruit and apricot. Specifically—and this took a little finessing—your pink grapefruit. It’s made in Italy, exclusively, and get this, it’s going to run you fifty smacks a bar.”
“So he upgraded.”
“Yeah, that’s the thing. I took a look at the Internet site, check these out.” He brought the images of the soaps up. Each was a deep almost jewel-like color, with various flowers or herbs studding the edges. “Only one store in the city carries them. The shampoo’s from the same place. White truffle oil, running one-fifty for an eight-ounce bottle.”
He sniffed, he snorted. “I wouldn’t pay that for a bottle of prime liquor.”