“Son of a bitch. Okay, shit. He had a rep for what you’d call innovation. Not your average cook. Coming up with new recipes, blending chems, ah, personalizing product. Couldn’t keep profits in his pocket because he blew it on LCs, his own product, or the horses. Couldn’t keep a legit job for the same reasons. Had a real knack and a brain with it, but no legit lab or research place would touch him. He had a sheet, went in and out because he was a screwup. Always getting caught, doing some time, bouncing out, then back again. I’m remembering the ME said he’d have been dead in ten anyway if he kept living and using the way he was.”
Roarke, cookie finished, worked on her auxiliary. Eve ignored him.
“I want you and Reineke to go over it again, reinterview. I’m going to send you pictures of the suspects. Stephen Whitt and Marshall Cosner. They went to school together for a while. Cosner is an addict, and he’d likely have used Loco as a supplier.”
“They rich guys?”
“They are.”
“We had a couple of LCs he liked to use. They said he’d brag about how much the rich guys paid for his work. He told one he was cooking up something special that’d make him a rich guy. But she said, and others confirmed, he was always talking big like that.”
“Doesn’t look like it was just talk this time.”
“Ah,” Roarke said from the auxiliary, “there it is.” He swiveled to her. “Would you like an address?”
“An address for what?”
“Well, I can’t say, not for certain, but it’s a property Marshall Cosner has behind a shell company he established last fall. It appears to be a small warehouse downtown. Loco had to live and work somewhere, didn’t he?”
“Roarke’s sending you an address,” she said to Jenkinson. “Get Reineke and meet me there.”
Once he had, Roarke followed Eve’s long-legged stride out of the room.
“I need to change, need my weapon. How’d you find the building?”
“Persistence, and process. They needed somewhere to set up the lab, to keep their cook happy. And Whitt funnels money to Cosner every month. Like you would for a loan or a share of an investment expense. The property’s only in Cosner’s name—Whitt’s careful. The shell company only shows Cosner’s fingerprints. They call it The Golden Goose.”
“Smug fuckers.” Eve pulled on boots. “But not for much longer.”
* * *
About the time Eve briefed Jenkinson, Marshall Cosner paced the elaborately furnished living space in the converted warehouse.
He wore a hooded sweatshirt, dark jeans, black high-tops—all designer label though he believed they helped him blend into the neighborhood.
Stephen Whitt, on the other hand, wore a fresh business suit, one he’d changed into for his dinner speech at a financial event at a Midtown hotel.
He knew he’d timed it well—he was good at timing. He’d made certain he’d mixed, mingled, made conversation before he’d jammed the cameras on a service entrance to slip out.
He’d had the scooter he’d “borrowed” from a cousin parked in another hotel lot a block away, and had made it downtown in ten minutes. Ten minutes back, he thought, ten minutes or so here, and he’d simply blend back into the post-dinner dancing and bar scene with no one the wiser.
Despite his panic, good old Marsh had delivered the next package to the drop. But he’d never hold up to the pressure that was coming. Steps had to be taken, Whitt thought, so he’d taken them.
Time to cut ties. Old school ties.
“Dad doesn’t believe me.” Cosner paced, paced. “He practically grilled me like a fish.”
“You denied everything.”
“Of course I did. I’m not an idiot, Steve, but he doesn’t really believe me.”
“You’re going in with a platoon of lawyers, Marsh. You’ll be fine.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Yeah, Whitt thought. It really was.
“I can’t figure out why she’s zeroed in on me. We did everything right, didn’t we? We’ve got alibis. We did everything right.”