“Yo. Heard you caught a hot one.”
“Scalding. You out?”
“Was. Scalding?”
“Total,” McNab confirmed. “Multi-search, single name cross, global, image matches with variance. Background, deep, on the bogus front—missing and presumed.”
“True? Psychic deal, yeah?”
“True. Fresh DB on the slab.”
“Want assist?”
“Won’t say no.”
“All in.” She pivoted, walked with them to the lab. She gave Roarke a sunny smile. “Dallas?”
“Had to make a stop. She’ll be along.”
“Chill.”
When they reached the lab, Callendar pulled off her green coat with its purple sleeves and unwound her scarf. Under it she sported a cap-sleeve sweater in puce over a long-sleeve turquoise tee, lime green baggies, and buttercup yellow knee boots.
Between her and McNab it looked as if neon had invaded the planet. Then Feeney stepped in wearing his habitual shit brown jacket and wrinkled beige shirt. The contrast only made the neon glow more fiercely.
He scratched his fingers through his wiry mop of silver-threaded ginger and studied the transported electronics with his baggy, basset hound eyes.
“Callendar, let’s you and me give these toys a what-for while the others get set up.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”
Roarke found it surprisingly easy to fall into work rhythm with a lab of cops. He shifted away from that work for a moment and ordered three large pizzas with a variety of toppings. His wife would mutter about it, but she’d eat.
In the shorthand geek-speak that made Eve’s eyes glass over, he and McNab worked out a plan of attack and, with Peabody on auxiliary, settled into it.
Through the glass walls of the lab, Eve noted the sharp and colorful Callendar chair dancing as she worked beside Feeney. Peabody huddled over a comp while McNab stood, that bony white ass tick-tocking, and Roarke—suit jacket shed, sleeves rolled up, hair back in a leather thong—sat on a stool dancing his fingers over a keyboard and a touch screen.
She stepped in and frowned at the chatter. Why couldn’t geeks just speak regular English?
“Status?”
“We’re running deep on your vic’s e’s,” Callendar told her. “In case something’s buried or pinched.”
“Doing background, underlayment,” Peabody said, “on the two Roarke pulled.”
“Image matches on auto.” Roarke continued to work. “Analysis of facial elements, probability run on possible reconstruction.”
“Got reports on the missings and presumed,” McNab added. “And jiving into search and cross on remaining names.”
“And there. See it?”Roarke asked.
McNab shifted toward Roarke. “And there’s the bingo. Collect the stuffed elephant.”
“Carroll, Niles George, licensed psychic and hypnotherapist, London, 2039 through 2044. You could toss this image in the mix, Ian.”
“All about it.”
“A bit of trouble here.”
“Yeah, I see that.” Eve stepped closer to read the data on the screen. “Had a client walk out of his place, go to her son’s place, and, Jesus, set fire to it. The son, his wife, and two children got out. The client didn’t.”
She felt the pieces fall into place as she read on. “Hallucinogens found in her system. By the time they traced her steps back to this Carroll—and you have to wonder about anybody with three first names—he was in the wind. He could blow pretty far with the three-quarters of a million he’d pulled from the dead client over six months. Some other clients dumped another five million and change on him during his London stint.”
“See here?” Roarke brought up another report. “The son was taking legal steps to take over his mother’s finances, citing mental and emotional instability.”
“Which gives Carroll—or whatever the hell name—motive to get rid of the son, and the client while he’s at it. Drain them, eliminate them, and blow. He doesn’t just blow, doesn’t just shift away from one client to an easier mark, because deluding the client into killing a loved one is part of the whole. Maybe his end game.”
“His name wasn’t Carroll.” Peabody swiveled on her stool. “Niles George Carroll with that ID number didn’t exist before 2038. It’s pretty good fake data, but there are holes, and when you go into them, it falls apart.”
“Got more names here.” Feeney leaned back in his chair. “Dupres encoded them, sandwiched between other data.”
“Looks like she did the input about three this morning,” Callendar added. “The way it reads, Dallas, these are all pre–your bogus Carroll dude. Six in total.”
“Let’s throw them in. Which is the first?”
“First, if we figure this is chrono order, is Ravenwood.”
Eve pulled up a stool next to Roarke’s.
“I can run it,” he began.
“Yeah, do that. I’m taking Bright. If this is chrono, and Bright wasn’t just a rhyme, this could be who he is now.”
“Hit on Simon.” McNab did his little boogie. “Got your pattern, clear as they come. François Simon, psychic advisor and spiritualist, New Orleans, 2053 to 2057, went missing on a sabbatical to South America. Presumed dead.”
“Three to four years, each spot habitually,” Eve said as she worked. “He’s still here, but probably not for long. Callendar, I want you to—”
“Run a search for murder/suicides each location just prior to the fuckhead’s exit. On it.”
Roarke hit on two others, with the pattern holding.
When the pizza arrived, Eve did indeed mutter—but grabbed a slice of pepperoni. The lab might have smelled like a pizzeria, with a sugary topping of fizzies, but the work got done.
“Louis Carroll Ravenwood,” Roarke announced. “McNab, do a double, would you, to confirm this is the first?”
“Can do.”
“Daresbury, England—which, as I’ve spent a little time boning up on Lewis Carroll—was where Carroll was born and raised.”
“Not a coincidence,” Eve stated.
“I’d say not. Spiritualist, offering readings, consultations, séances, and past-life regressions; 2022 to 2028.”
“His longest stint.”
“It seems. Pulling related data, I have an article or two. He claimed to be a connection of Carroll himself, through one of Carroll’s sisters. And was called to Daresbury by Carroll’s spirit, whom he also claimed to channel. He worked with his sister, not surprisingly called Alice.”
“There’s no sister mentioned in any of the other data on the other names.”
“Wouldn’t be,” Roarke confirmed, “as she died in Daresbury in 2028. Suicide.”
“Bang.” Eve’s eyes narrowed. “Mira will make buckets of shrink juice with that.”
“And more so as it was discovered Alice Ravenwood had been an addict with a taste for meth and LSD. She suffered from acute depression and, after lacing a pot of tea with sedatives, served it to herself and her brother. She died; he nearly did. He left Daresbury soon after. There’s nothing on him, under that name, past that.”
“I want to see the police report. Maybe he dosed the sister. Either way, it gave him his springboard for all the rest. Crazy bastard skins the clients, then picks one to re-create the— Fucking A, I’ve got him. Carroll Bright. Claims to be a ‘Doctor of Paranormal Studies.’ I’ve got a goddamn address.”