Purity in Death

"Yeah, he's cleared for duty. Kid didn't deserve to take this spin through the wringer."

"As long as he came out the other side. I've got work, Webster."

He started for the door. "If there are cops in this, I want them."

"Get in line," she answered, then made her first call.

While she waited for a response, she drafted out her report, referring back to her own record to be sure she didn't leave out even the smallest detail.

She refined it, logged it, and transmitted the appropriate copies. When she got clearance, she contacted Trueheart.

"I need a uniform," she said briskly. "Grunt and drone work. Report to Detective Baxter, my home office."

"Sir, I'm assigned to dispatch duty until further notice."

"This is your further notice. I've cleared it. My home office, Officer, ASAP."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"See if you thank me after you put in a few hours with Baxter."

She broke transmission then went out to scoop up Peabody.

"Peabody, you're with me."

"Sir." It was all Peabody said until they were in Eve's vehicle. "I didn't want to mention anything inside the building, just in case. Baxter passed some info to me for you. About Detective Sergeant Dwier."

"What he get?"

"He struck up some conversations at the memorial. Place was full of cops, and some of them were from the One-Six. He worked it around to Dwier, and it turned out one of the guys there is in his squad. Seems that Dwier went through a rough patch a few years back. Divorce. Wife moved to Atlanta with his kid, so he doesn't get to see his boy as much as he'd like. He was pretty flattened by it according to this source. But not long after, he met somebody-met her through the job. He's been seeing her regularly, and the last year or so, it seems to be heating up. She works in Child Services."

"Some days, it falls right in your lap."

It was time to visit Clarissa Price.

She'd barely cleared the garage when she got the call.

Absolute Purity had been achieved.

The new homicide delayed her so that she arrived at Child Services minutes before the doors shut for the day. She bullied her way past the receptionist and strode straight into Clarissa Price's office.

There was blood on Eve's trousers. It barely showed against the black, but she could still smell it.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, I can't make time for you." Neat and pretty, Price sat at her desk. Deliberately, she shielded the data on her screen, glanced at her wrist unit. "I have to finish this report, then I have a late appointment."

"You'll make time."

Price's lips firmed, and she folded her hands. "Lieutenant, you've already broken faith by intruding on the Dukes family this morning, and setting a cycle in motion that will bring more grief, and almost certainly litigation, which may involve this facility and me. The very last thing I'm inclined to do is make time for you, or to tolerate you bursting into my office at the end of a very trying day."

"Breaking faith? Is that what you call it?" Eve planted her palms on the desk, leaned in. "And what do you call what Purity's doing? Keeping the faith? I've just come from another of their executions, Ms. Price. The name Nick Greene ring a bell with you? Maybe you heard about him in the course of one of your trying days. Dealt in illegals, porn vids, sex brokering, party favors that aren't in what you'd call the mainstream. A client wanted it, Nick provided. Some of those clients' taste ran to minors. Most of us wouldn't call Nick Greene a real swell guy, but I can guarantee he had a couple of trying days himself just lately."

"If that's your way of telling me someone else has died, that's no business of this office. And if this person has ever come up in the course of the duties performed by Child Services, until I'm served with the proper papers, I can neither confirm nor deny."

"Sooner or later, I'm going to roll over whoever's blocking the warrants. That's a promise. Here's another name that might ring a bell with you. Ha

Eve pulled three fresh still photos out of her evidence bag, tossed them on the desk. "She was a lovely girl, according to her ID photo, according to witnesses who'd seen her. Can't tell by these, can you? Nobody looks lovely after they've been stabbed fifty, sixty times."

Her face sickly white, Price shoved at the photos. "I don't know her. You've got no right-"

"Tough looking at the results, isn't it? Not so fucking pure when you look it in the face. I just waded through her blood. That's tough, too. There's a lot of blood in a teenaged girl, Clarissa. A lot of blood to splash and splatter while she tries to run away from a guy with a knife whose brain's trying to burst out of his skull. A lot of blood to pour and pool when she falls because she can't get away from him."

"She… Greene did this to her?"

"No. Purity did this to her." Eve shoved the photos closer to Price. "Take a good look at what they did to her. Their research obviously didn't clue in that she'd shacked with Greene the last week or two. It didn't identify a teenaged runaway who was flopping at his place. Sleeping in his bed while the infection started to cook in his brain. Maybe in hers, too. Autopsy will check for that."

"I don't believe you. I want you to leave."

"Nothing's pure, Price, don't you get it? Nothing comes in or goes out of the world without a blemish. No system's foolproof. Only when this one fails, i

"Was it your idea?" Eve asked. "Or were you recruited? Who's in charge of Purity?"

"I don't have to talk to you." Price was white around the lips now, and her voice far from steady. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Dukes helped create the virus. Who else? Did Dwier pull you into it, or did you pull him?"

Price shoved back from her desk, pushed to her feet. Eve could see her hands were trembling. "Get out."

"I'm bringing this down, and you'll go under with it. You and Dwier. Who the hell do you think you are? Standing in judgment, executing by remote control. Then brushing off the bystanders' deaths as victims of the blight on society. You're the fucking blight, Clarissa. All of you self-righteous, self-appointed guardians."

Eve snatched up Ha

"I'm-I'm calling a lawyer." But tears were swimming in her eyes, gathering in the corners, ready to spill. "This is harassment."

"You call this harassment?" There was no humor in Eve's smile. It sliced like a thin-bladed axe. "Don't get me started. You've got twenty-four hours to turn yourself in. You come in, you turn evidence, and I'll push for an on planet rehabilitation facility. I come after you in twenty-four hours and one minute, you go into a concrete cage off planet You'll never see real daylight again."

Eve looked at the time. "Five-twelve tomorrow. Not a minute more."