Purity in Death by J. D. Robb Page A

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 4
    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 Louie K.
    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