Purity in Death

"No burn marks on his throat. If Trueheart had zapped him that way, there should have been marks. Why weren't there?"

"Could he have used another weapon, one with lethal power?"

She shook her head. "I don't know anyone less likely to carry a drop piece. If I'm wrong about him, where is it? It wasn't on him. It wasn't in either apartment. I had the recyclers checked. His call to me came in minutes after the termination. No time to think clearly enough to ditch one safely. Besides, when you go back through it, the whole thing doesn't make sense."

She sat again, leaned in. "Take this Louie K. The beat cop, the neighbors, even the woman he attacked all describe him as your basic lowlife wimp. Preyed on schoolkids. He's got a sheet, but nothing on it with violence. No assaults, no batteries. No weapons of any kind in his flop."

"The bat?"

"He played ball. So he's sitting there in his underwear doing his books. Tidy books, filthy apartment. But not logically filthy. Cupboards are organized, windows are washed, but there's food and dirty dishes, ripe laundry tossed around. It's like he got sick or went on a bender for a week."

She scooped her hand through her hair as she brought the picture of his cramped little apartment into her head. Pictured him in it. Sitting in the heat at his desk unit, by the open window. Sweating through his Jockey shorts.

"He's got the music up to ear-blasting, nothing new according to neighbors. Ralph from across the hall goes over and bangs on the door. Again, nothing new. But this time, instead of turning the music down, Louie K. picks up his bat and beats his sometime drinking buddy to death with it."

"Cracks his skull," she continued."Turns his face to jelly, beats down hard enough to crack a good, solid baseball bat. Neighbor outweighs Louie K. by better than a hundred pounds, but he doesn't get a chance to put a mark on him."

He knew she was seeing it now, pulling images into her brain of what had happened. Though she hadn't been there, she would see it. "It's tough to fight back if your brains are leaking out of your ears."

"Yeah, that's a disadvantage. But then, screaming all the while, Louie K. kicks in the neighbor's door and goes after the woman. Cop responds, and Louie goes for him."

"The heat can turn people."

"Yeah, it can. It brings out the mean. But the sucker was sitting there, doing his books. Making entries. Just like he did every evening about that time. It doesn't feel right."

Frowning, she leaned back on Roarke's desk. "You know of any illegal that goes by Purity?"

"No."

"Neither does anyone else. When I went into his apartment, his screen was on. It said Absolute Purity Achieved. What the hell is absolute purity, and how was it achieved?"

"If it's something new, why would a small-time playground dealer be in on the ground floor?"

"I've been asking myself that. The computer wouldn't identify, even with my authorization code. So I've sent it into EDD. Can't bring Feeney in," she mused. "Looks wrong to tag the head of Electronics Detective Division for a standard data search."

"You could've tagged me."

"Talk about looking wrong. Besides, you were working."

"So I was, and eating, which I imagine you weren't. Hungry?"

"Now that you mention it. What did you have?"

"Hmm. Chilled plum soup, crab salad, and an excellent grilled turbot."

"Huh." Eve pushed to her feet. "I could go for a burger."

"Somehow I knew that."

Later, Eve lay awake, staring at the ceiling as she reconstructed data, evidence, theory. None of itfeltright, she thought, but couldn't be sure how much of that was influenced by concern over a young, promising cop.

He had a good brain, and an idealism that was as bright and shiny as polished silver. Purity, she thought again. If she had to use one word to define it, it would be Trueheart.

He'd lost some of that purity today. Some, she knew, he'd never be able to get back. He would suffer for it, more than he should.

And she wasn't being a mommy, she thought, turning her head just enough to scowl at Roarke in the dark.

"Well then." He shifted toward her, sliding his hands unerringly over her breasts. "Since you've all this energy…"

"What're you talking about? I'm sleeping here."

"You're not, not with your mind racing around loud enough to wake the dead. Why don't I just give you a hand with all that energy?"

As he pulled her against him, she chuckled. "I've got news for you, ace. That's not your hand."

Thirty-six blocks away, Troy Trueheart lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. No one shared his bed to offer comfort or distraction. All he could see, printed on the dark, was the face of the man he'd killed.

He knew he should take a departmentally approved tranq. But he was afraid to sleep. He'd see it all again in his dreams.

Just as he could see it all as he lay awake.

The splatter of blood and bone and worse all over the walls of that dank hallway. Even here in his tidy apartment, he could smell it. The way the heat ripened the stench of blood, of gore. He could hear the screams, the woman's no more than a howl of terror and awful pain. And the man's. Louis K. Cogburn. The man's screams like a wild animal's mad from the hunt. The voices of other tenants shouting out from behind locked doors. Calls booming up into the windows from the street.

And his own heart raging in his chest.

Why hadn't he called for backup? The minute he'd heard the woman calling for help, he should have called for backup.

But he'd rushed inside, thinking only to protect and serve.

He'd shouted back-he had, at least he had shouted as he'd rushed up those stairs for someone to call 911. No one had. He realized that now. No one had or cops would have come long before Lieutenant Dallas.

How could people stand behind locked doors and do nothing while their neighbor was crying for help? He would never understand it.

He'd seen the man in the hallway far beyond anyone's help. He'd seen that, felt his stomach lurch, and the blood roar into his head in a buzzing white noise that was the sound of fear. Yes, he'd been afraid, very afraid. But it was his job to go through the door. The open door, he thought now, go through it and into the screams and the blood and the madness.

What then? What then?

Police! Drop your weapon! Drop the weapon now.

His stu

Darker blood, fresher blood leaked from his nose. Just remembered that, he thought. Did it matter?

He'd charged. A madman in Jockey shorts who'd moved like lightning. The bat had come down on his shoulder so fast, so hard. Stumbled back, nearly lost the stu

The man. Louis K. Cogburn. He'd whirled back toward the woman. She was down, dazed, weeping. Helpless. The bat swung up, high. A death blow.

But then he jittered. His eyes-oh God, his eyes-demon red, went wide, jumped inside his skull. His body jolted, jolted like a puppet dancing on string as he ran by. Out in the hall.

He danced, still dancing. Then he fell, sort of folded up and dropped, faceup to stare at the ceiling with those awful red eyes.

Dead. Dead. And I'm standing over him.

I killed a man today.

Trueheart buried his face in his pillow, trying to erase the images that wanted to play in his brain. And he wept for the dead.