by J. D. Robb
“Oh God, is Dr. Rufty okay? I don’t think he was home. It looked like Dr. Abner was going out for a run. I sometimes see him running when I’m on my route, and see Dr. Rufty coming home if I have late-afternoon deliveries.”
“Dr. Rufty wasn’t home at the time.”
“I don’t know what to do. Is there something I should do? What should I do?” she asked Eve.
“If you think of anything, you can contact me or Detective Peabody.”
“You have to find out what happened. He was a really nice man. He looked so happy this morning. I remember that. He just looked happy, and said how it was going to be a beautiful day. You have to find out what happened.”
“We’re working on it.”
Out on the sidewalk, Eve considered the next steps. “The victim’s office is closed by this time. You head home, and on the way contact Abner’s office manager or whoever’s in charge.”
“Seldine Abbakar’s listed as office manager—I pulled up the website.”
“Good. Contact her, set up a meeting with the full office staff for the morning, as early as you can make it. Just text me the time, and I’ll meet you there. You can keep McNab on tap—we’re going to need to go through the electronics.”
“Medical records,” Peabody began.
“That’s why I’m going to start working on a warrant on the way home. Hell, they can cull out the patient records. If this is an angry patient, the office staff’s going to have an idea who. The spouse would have had an idea who.”
“Technically his patients are babies and kids up to the age of sixteen.”
“I’ve seen a lot of pissed-off babies,” Eve countered. “And don’t get me started on kids and teens. And they’d have a parent or parents. Anyway, set it up. I’ll get the board and book started at home, write it up.”
“I get the easy part.”
“This time. If you can’t get the interviews before eight, we meet at the morgue, seven A.M., go from there.”
“Always a fun way to start the day.”
“Get the interviews,” Eve repeated and, still ignoring the vehicles and drivers blasting and cursing, slid into her car.
She flipped down the On Duty light, zipped out in front of a guy who was already giving her the finger.
She programmed coffee on the in-dash, tagged APA Reo.
“Please no,” Reo answered. “I’m on my way home, stuck in stupid traffic. All I want is an alcoholic beverage and quiet.”
“You can have both after you get me a warrant. I’m just heading home myself—so too bad for us.”
Reo sighed, tossed her head so her fluffy blond hair shimmered and swayed. “I’m getting out of this cab and walking. Pull over,” she ordered the driver, and Eve went to blue holding mode while she assumed Reo paid the fare.
When she came back on-screen it bobbled as she strode along. “It’s the as-yet-unidentified-substance case, isn’t it?”
“They better have that as identified soon, and yeah. Victim was a doctor—baby doctor—and I’m interviewing his staff first thing in the morning. I need the electronics.”
“You’re not going to get medical records in a walk, or by morning.”
“Just get me the rest—they can hold off on the privacy stuff for now. I need to know if he had any record of someone threatening him, any correspondence that sends off an alarm. Or if anyone on staff had issues.”
“I can work that. I heard you were exposed. You don’t look exposed to a deadly toxin.”
“Whatever it was, it was as dead as Abner by the time we got there.”
“Well, that’s a bright side. I’ll get back to you on the warrant.”
“Appreciate it.”
“You still owe me a drink from the last one.”
“I’ll make good. Later.”
Eve clicked off, drank coffee, pushed her way uptown.
And as she pushed, it occurred to her that only a week before she’d been sitting on a terrace in Italy, drinking wine under the stars after a day of basking in the sun.
Eating pasta, sleeping late, having a lot of sex.
And no one had been murdered in the general vicinity—at least that she knew of.
Life since Roarke, with Roarke, never quite ranked as ordinary. Routine, maybe, for them—which probably wouldn’t meet most people’s routine level.
But it worked—really worked, she thought. And one of the reasons it worked, so well, was knowing she’d come home—and there was a glittering word—with this fresh weight on her shoulders, and he’d be there.
He’d look at her the way he looked at her that always, still, probably forever, brought a skip to her heartbeat. He’d make her eat something, even if she didn’t want to, which was both annoying and precious.
And he’d listen. No bitching about her being late, no guilt trips. He’d listen, offer to help and, with all of that, with all of him, bring her a peace of mind she’d never expected to have in her life.
So when she drove, at last, through the gates, she felt that quiet click. Coming home. Under the night sky, the house Roarke built stood and spread and towered with its fanciful turrets, its grand design. Dozens of windows, so much light to welcome her, glowed out against the dark.
When she pulled up, got out of the car, some of the weight shifted. Work to do, yes, but home.
Because she was late—really late—she didn’t expect the looming Summerset.
But there he stood, tall and bony in black, his cadaverous face set, his dark eyes arrowing their stare at her face.
She reached into her bag of insults, but he spoke before she could pull one out.
“He’s worried. He’ll pretend otherwise, but he heard about your exposure to a toxic material.”
“I told him I was fine. I’m fine.”
When Summerset only continued to stare, she had a bad feeling the former Urban War medic intended to do his own exam. Big no.
“Have they identified the substance?”
“I don’t know. I’m going up to check. I’m fine.” Irritable now, she dragged off her jacket, tossed it on the newel post.
“Make sure he knows.”
She started to snap she already had, but that seemed pointless. Instead she paused on her way up the stairs. “Do you think I’d come home if there was any chance, any, I carried something with me that could hurt him?”
“Absolutely not. Which is why, as it’s after nine, he worries.”
Damn it, damn it, of course he did. “I had to— Shit. Where is he?”
“Your office, of course. He knows you’re home. He set an alert.”
She jogged up. She’d followed the Marriage Rules, she thought. And still she felt as if she’d screwed up somehow.
He sat on the sofa in her office, the fire going low, the fat cat across his lap. He had a book in one hand, a glass of wine in the other.
And yes, he looked at her in that way—but she saw relief bloom over it.
“And there she is,” he began, with that wonderful whisper of Ireland in his voice.
“I’m sorry.”
Even as he put the book aside and rose, she walked to him, wrapped around him, held hard. “I’m sorry.”
“For being late?” Now she heard surprise as she burrowed into him. “Come now, Lieutenant, that’s part of the job, isn’t it?”
“For not making a hundred percent sure you knew I was okay. For not making sure you weren’t worried I wasn’t.”
“Ah.” He brushed his lips over the top of her head, drew her back. “That’s part of the job as well. My part. There will be worry, darling Eve. But now…” He skimmed his thumb over the shallow dent in her chin, leaned in to kiss her—long and warm. “You’re home. So sit a moment with the cat, as Galahad’s had some concerns of his own. I’ll get you some wine.”
No bitching, no guilt trips, just wine and welcome. And a fat cat. So she’d sit for a minute, because he didn’t just bring trips to Italy, real coffee, superior sex, and all manner of things int
o her life.
He brought this, the balance.
She gave the cat some strokes, a belly scratch when he stirred himself to roll over. And took the wine.
“They cleared me right at the scene.”
“So you told me.” Still those wildly, gloriously blue eyes studied her face before he lifted her hand, kissed it. “Have they identified the toxin?”
“I need to check, but not since I checked an hour ago. The body wasn’t discovered until after sixteen hundred when the spouse got home from work. They wouldn’t have started the process until … probably an hour ago. Protocols to follow, and all that.”
“You won’t have eaten.”
“We were pretty busy.”
“I imagine. Let’s have a meal now, and you can tell me about all this.”
“‘Let’s’? Haven’t you had dinner already?”
“I haven’t, no.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “There was worry.”
“Wait.” She tightened her grip on his hands. “I’m going to promise you that I won’t lie or downplay something that happens, if I’m in trouble or something’s really wrong. I’ll be straight with you.”
“All right then.”
She studied that amazing face of his. “And you’ll worry anyway.”
“Yes, of course. But that’s appreciated. Now, I made a bargain with myself—or fate—to your benefit. That when you came home to me, there would be pepperoni pizza.”
She brightened right up. “Really?”
“Such is the depth of my love I’m not insisting you eat a side of good vegetables.”
“If you asked me to, right now, I’d eat them. So, same goes.”
“You could have them on the pizza.”
She shot him a—sincere—horrified look. “You’d ruin a perfectly good pizza?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking.”
He rose, strolled into the kitchen, so she sat another moment indulging the cat before taking their glasses, the bottle of wine over to the table.
She looked out through the glass doors to the little balcony and beyond. And the scent of pizza hit her empty stomach like a fever dream.
“I know if there was only pizza, I’d get tired of it,” she decided. “But it would probably take a couple decades.”
She sat with him, grabbed a slice. “Pretty soon it’ll be warm enough to open those doors when we eat. It’ll be nice.”
Her ’link signaled. “Sorry. Reo?”
“Warrant’s coming through—restricted. No medical records at this time. Is that pizza? Damn it, now I want pizza.”
“Get your own. Thanks for the quick work.”
Eve put her ’link away.
“Your victim was a doctor, I hear,” Roarke said.
“Pediatrician. Married for nearly forty years. His husband found him. Private school headmaster. They’ve got kids, grandkids.”
She picked up her wine. “Messed up my crime scene. He tried to revive him. The victim had been dead since morning, and he didn’t die pretty, but the husband tried to bring him back before he called for help.”
“Would you blame him?”
“No.” She looked up, into that face carved by clever angels on a particularly generous day, into those magic blue eyes. “Maybe I would have a few years ago. Not now. They loved each other. You could see it, all over the house, see it in the survivor’s grief. You have to step back from it. It can still put a crack in your heart, but you’ve got to step back.”
“How was it delivered? The toxin.”
“Global Post and Packages, overnight A.M.”
“A package? That’s … bold. You have the delivery person?”
“She’s not in it. She’s clean, and she liked them. That came across. Their neighbors liked them. The canvass turned up nothing except some shock, some fear, some grief. Everything so far points to the victim being a nice man, a good neighbor, somebody who kept fit—he ran, lifted—and was apparently on his way out when the package came. So he took it inside, back in the kitchen, opened it.”
“There had to be a container. Even bold wouldn’t risk an uncontained toxic in a shipping box.”
She polished off her first slice. “It’s looking like two—a container in a container. A cheap fake wood box with interior padding was on the counter, so considering the rest of the house that was likely in the shipping box. And there were shards and pieces of some sort of small container. Looked like hard plastic—cheap, likely gold outside, white inside. Whatever killed him must have been in there. He opened that, whatever it was hit the air, or had something he ingested, something that went through his pores when he touched it. He had burns on his thumbs,” she remembered, then shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”
“You’ll see Morris, and your friends at the lab as well tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Since it was right there, she decided on a second slice. “We called in the hazmat team—no trace in the air by that time. In or on me or the spouse—we both handled the body. It was enough to kill Abner within minutes, and dissipated before anyone else came into the house.”
“Addressed—the package—to the victim, I take it?”
“Yeah. From a bogus place, bogus return address. Dropped off at an after-hours kiosk. Jammed the camera while he did that, so he’s got a jammer or he’s got enough skill to make one.”
“At a kiosk?” He let out a quick laugh. “Darling, a ten-year-old could manage that. I’d be more interested in how it got through the scans.”
“Yeah, they’re looking at that. A container within a container within a container.” She shrugged again. “And likely a small amount of whatever it is. Just enough to kill one person.”
She glanced over as Summerset came to the doorway. She frowned over another bite of pizza. “We didn’t call the morgue, did we?”
“You’ll excuse me.” Summerset kept his dignified nose in the air. “Dr. Dimatto and Mr. Monroe are downstairs. They’d very much like to speak with the lieutenant.”
“Ask them to come up,” Roarke said before Eve could get to her feet. “The lieutenant’s just having dinner. I’ll get some more glasses,” he added as Summerset melted away.
Dr. Dimatto, Eve thought. Dr. Abner.
Did Louise know the victim? Long odds, of course, given there were countless doctors in the city. But then again, Charles and Louise lived only a few blocks from the crime scene.
“They’re going to know each other.”
“Hmm?”
Roarke brought over two more wineglasses.
“Louise, the victim. That’s why they’re here. And how the hell do I handle this?”
She figured she’d find out when Louise—delicate blonde—and Charles—tall, dark, and handsome—came in.
The fiercely dedicated doctor and former licensed companion made a striking couple, and another one that seemed to work really well.
“I’m so sorry.” Louise led with an apology. “For just coming over this way, interrupting your dinner. I—”
“It’s pizza, nothing interrupts pizza. How did you know Kent Abner?” Eve asked.
“How did you know…” Louise closed her eyes. “He walked into my clinic the week I opened it. He volunteered twenty hours a month. Just like that. That’s the sort of man, the sort of doctor he was.”
Tears trembled, spilled. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m having a hard time with this. I needed to come. I just needed to talk to you.”
“Sit down.” Roarke pulled out his chair for her. “You sit, have some wine. Could you eat?”
“He likes feeding people,” Eve said, hoping to stem the worst of the tears.
“No, thanks, no on the food. I’ll have the wine.”
Roarke gestured to Charles, and the two of them brought over more chairs. They sat; Roarke poured the wine.
“I won’t fall apart. Or not much,” Louise qualified.
“Good. Now tell me what you know about Kent Abner, personally, professionally, and anything else.”
<
br /> Louise nodded, then, struggling a little, looked at Charles.
“I’ll start,” Charles said.
3
“We got to be friends,” Charles told them. “Good friends. I met them through Louise after Kent started volunteering at the clinic. They invited us over for drinks, and we all, well, hit it off.”
“I don’t remember seeing or meeting them at your wedding,” Eve pointed out.
“They were in Africa. Martin took a month’s sabbatical because Kent wanted to join a medical group there for a couple weeks. They had a working vacation, you could say, and it conflicted with the wedding. They actually had a little neighborhood party for us when we got back from our honeymoon.”
“They’re lovely people,” Louise added. “Lovely together. Both devoted to their work, but not to the exclusion of the rest. They liked to entertain, loved their family, liked the theater, the arts. Kent would nag Martin about exercise—saying it wasn’t just for the mind. And Martin would tease Kent because Kent knew nothing whatsoever—and didn’t care whatsoever—about any kind of sport. Those would be the level of disagreements I witnessed, ever, between them. They were sweet together, Dallas, the way you hope you’ll be sweet together after nearly four decades.”
Charles reached over, laid a hand over hers. “We asked ourselves, since we were good friends, if there was anything, anyone, any reason for what happened. There’s just nothing. Are you sure what happened wasn’t some sort of accident or mistake?”
“Yes.” And that, Eve thought, was that. “Since he worked at the clinic regularly, there would be records.”
Dr. Dimatto came out, front and center. “Patients’ records—”
Eve just waved that away. “Blah blah, and I can get to them if I need to. But for now, as the owner of the clinic, you can get to them. You can read through them. And you’d know if anything seemed off. Outside of patient records, there’d be correspondence, memos, interstaff dynamics.”
“You can interview everyone who works or volunteers at the clinic. I can tell you, without hesitation, no one who does would wish harm to Kent. He was valued, respected, and liked.”
“Okay. How about someone who liked him too much?”
“I don’t … Oh.” Brow furrowed, Louise sipped some wine. “I don’t see that. We have some parents who’d request him specifically, who’d wait, barring emergency, for his hours. But I never noticed that kind of vibe. Some jokes, sure. Like Hella—she’s one of the nurses who volunteers, and she’s still stinging from her second divorce. I heard her tell Kent it was just her bad luck he had to be gay and married, and why couldn’t she find a straight, single guy just like him.”