"Regarding the incident involving Officer Trueheart, sir. I've gathered additional data, which indicates the terminated assailant may have suffered from a preexisting that caused his death. ME Morris is still running tests but has stated that due to this condition the subject would have died within the hour."

"Morris shot me a brief prelim on that. You have loyal associates, Dallas."

"Sir. Trueheart has completed Testing by now. Results should be in by morning. I'd like to postpone any IAB involvement until the investigation into yesterday's incident shows clearly if any such involvement is warranted or necessary."

Whitney turned to her now, his wide, dark face closed. "Lieutenant, do you have any reason to believe that a standard IAB investigation and interview will cast any shadow on the actions taken by this officer?"

"No, Commander."

"Then let it ride. Let it ride," he repeated before she could speak. "Let the boy stand for himself. Let him clear himself. He'll be the better for it. Having you in his corner is one thing. Having you stand as a shield is another entirely."

"I'm not trying to…" She trailed off, realizing she was doing just that. "Permission to speak frankly, Commander."

"As long as it's brief."

"I feel some responsibility as I brought Trueheart in from his former detail. A few months ago he was seriously injured on one of my ops. He follows orders to the letter and he has a lot of spine. But his instincts are still developing, and his skin's still thin. I just don't want to see him take any more hits over this than he deserves."

"If he can't stand up to it, better he finds out now. You know that, Dallas."

"If there's a preexisting, mandatory thirty day can be waived. You know that, Commander, as you know the emotional and mental distress even a by-the-book suspension can bring on. He responded to a call for help. He put himself on the line, without hesitation."

"He failed to call for backup."

"Yes, sir, he did. Did you ever fail to call for backup?"

Whitney's eyebrows lifted. "If I did, I deserved to get kicked for it."

"I'll kick him."

"I'll consider the waiver, Lieutenant, once all data and results are in and studied."

"Thank you, sir."

Huddled in his cube, Halloway ran another series of scans on the Cogburn unit. And groused.

Play a little Crusader on your break, and you get all the shit details dumped on you. Who the hell cared about the data stored on the drive of a dead kiddie dealer's unit? What was Feeney going to do? Tattle on the pint-sized clients to their mommies?

Four hours, he thought, and popped a blocker for the vicious headache trumpeting inside his skull. Four frigging hours dicking with useless data on a useless second-rate unit all because bigshot Dallas comes begging to bigshot Feeney.

He sat back, rubbed his blurry eyes.

He couldn't get past the shield on this Purity transmission. Cogburn hadn't generated the message. That much he'd verified. It had come from outside, but so the fuck what?

Absolute Purity. Probably some sort of baby lotion.

His head was killing him. And God, it was hot in here. Damn climate control must've gone out again. Nobody did their jobs anymore. Nobody but him.

He shoved away from the desk, pushed out of his cube, desperate for water, for air.

He elbowed other cops out of his way, earned himself some inventive suggestions on self-gratification.

At the water cooler, he glugged down cup after cup as he tracked the movements of his associates.

Look at them. Like a bunch of ants in a nest. Somebody ought to do the world a favor and squash some ants.

"Hey, Halloway." McNab bounced in fresh from a field assignment. "How's it going? Heard you caught a shit detail."

"Fuck you, asshole."

Temper rolled over McNab's face, but then he noted Halloway's pallor, and the beads of sweat. "You look a little wasted. Maybe you should take a break."

Halloway downed more water. "Somebody's gonna get wasted. Get off my case before I show the rest of these dickweeds what a pansy Feeney's pet really is."

"You got a problem with me?" If so, it was a new one. To that point McNab and Halloway had flowed along smoothly. "We can take it down to the gym and work it out. See who's the pansy of EDD."

Feeney swept in, stopped by the cooler when he felt the hot wall of tension. "McNab, I want that report ten minutes ago. Halloway, you got all this time to stand around the cooler I can find more for you to do. Move it."

"Later," Halloway muttered under his breath, and stalked back to his cube with his head raging.

CHAPTER FOUR

With Peabody in tow, Eve stopped by the hospital for a followup interview with Suzanne Cohen. The woman was weepy and despondent, having discovered her affection for Ralph ran considerably deeper now that he was dead.

But she had nothing appreciable to add to the mix. Her version of the incident on the stoop followed Reenie's, as did her basic take on LouieK.

He was quiet, except for his music, and kept mostly to himself.

"Isn't that always the way?" Eve noted. "Every time you've got some guy going on a spree that ends in blood, people say he was quiet and kept to himself. Just once, I'd like to hear how he was a maniac who ate live snakes."

"There was that guy last year who bit off the heads of pigeons before he jumped off the roof of his apartment building."

"Yeah, but he only splattered himself, and we didn't catch that one. No point in trying to cheer me up with pigeon eaters." Despondent herself, Eve pulled out her beeping communicator. " Dallas."

"Thought you'd want an update," Morris began. "I'm still running tests, and results in are largely inconclusive."

"Boy, that sure perks me up."

"Patience, Dallas, patience." His face was glowing the way some people glowed when they claimed to have found Jesus, Eve thought.

"What we've got here is worthy of a write-up in medical journals across the land. This guy's brain is fascinating. Like it was under attack from the inside. But there's no tumor, no mass, no sign of disease as such."

"But there's damage. Brain damage."

"I'll say. Like someone set microscopic charges inside it. Biff, bam, boom. You know how I likened it to an overinflated balloon?"

"Yeah."

"Picture this balloon, in an enclosed space, in this case, the skull. Balloon swells, bigger, bigger. Space stays the same. It keeps pushing, expanding, but it's got no place to go. Pressure builds, builds, builds. Capillaries burst. Ping, ping, ping. Nose bleeds, ear bleeds until… Pop!"

"That's a really pretty image."

"Poor sucker had to be suffering from major headaches. The Mount Vesuvius of headaches. I've sent tissue to the lab for further analysis, and I'm calling in a neurologist."

"Would this damage have caused his sudden violent behavior?"

"I can't tell you that, not conclusively. But the pain may have pushed him over the edge. Pain's nature's warning system. Ouch, something wrong with me. Enough pain though, can drive you crazy. And, an invasive body such as a tumor in the brain can cause aberrant behavior. This brain was, unquestionably, invaded."

"By what?"

"The best I can tell you is it looks like some sort of neurological virus. Pinning that down isn't going to be quick work."

"Okay, get me what you can when you can." She clicked off. "Looks like it's moving out of the area of police problem and into medical problem. We'll close it up. Subject, suffering from as yet undiagnosed neurological disorder, assaults and kills neighbor, attacks another. Police response results in death of assailant. Trueheart's just got to hold on through the IAB bullshit."