by J. D. Robb
“You’ll have a conversation with this Cilla Roe, I take it.”
“Oh yeah, we’ll have a conversation. She was, according to Ponti, home waiting for him at the time of the drop. Poison’s generally a woman’s weapon.”
“Sexist.”
“Statistics,” she countered. “Yeah, we’ll have a conversation.”
“Tomorrow. You’ve done what you can for tonight, and so have I. Let’s put the cat to bed.”
Eve glanced back at her sleep chair, where Galahad sprawled. As if sensing the end of the workday, he opened his bicolored eyes. Yawned hugely, stretched every tubby inch.
Then he leaped down, trotted out of the room.
“He’ll be on the bed before we get there. What a life.”
“Let’s follow suit.” Roarke slid an arm around her.
* * *
When she woke, the cat had deserted the bed for Roarke’s lap in the sitting area. With the usual morning gibberish muted on-screen, Roarke played with one of his tablets.
She grunted at him, followed morning routine. Coffee, always coffee. Shower. Brain engaged.
Clothes. Sometimes she actually missed the days when she just put on a damn uniform.
But not very much.
Afraid black might still be out, she went for brown trousers and a navy shirt, grabbed a jacket and boots.
When she came out, Galahad had been banished across the room. Roarke had plates covered on the table, and continued to work on his tablet. She caught a glimpse of the screen, and what was clearly a bar backed with a brick wall and a number of shelves. Backless stools in front of the bar, booths, a few high tops, a good-size screen, lights with dark green shades.
It came off simple, uncluttered, and somehow warm.
“Is that Nowhere?”
“It could be.”
She sat next to him, took a closer look. While she watched, he tapped something and added toe-kick lights to the bar, changed the floor to match the shades.
“How did you do that?”
“Which that?”
“All of it.”
“There are programs, darling. I’ve designed a few myself.” He leaned over to kiss her. “What do you think?”
“It looks like a bar. A decent bar.” She lifted the cover from her plate, spotted waffles. “Score!”
She immediately smothered them in butter and syrup.
He couldn’t hold back the wince. “Well now, that should keep you going.”
“Good,” she said over the first bite. “Because I need to have that conversation with Cilla Roe. They could have planned this out together. Revenge is always a good one. And I want to go back to the scene, take a good look at the eyeline from the windows. Maybe one of them, if it’s one of them, kept an eye on the place to make sure the plan worked.”
Happily, she shoveled in more waffle, then stabbed a plump raspberry.
“If not one or both of them, maybe the anonymous mad scientist wanted to document the results of the experiment. It’s worth a look. I want to check on Abner’s memorial. Wouldn’t part of the experiment be the collateral damage? The killer may want to be there. Someone who knew him wouldn’t be out of place.”
Fascinated, Roarke tapped a finger on the side of her head. “Your brain’s been busy in sleep.”
“I guess.” She glanced at the tablet he’d set aside. “Yours, too.”
“But mine’s a great deal more fun.”
“Murder cops make their own fun.” She ate more waffle.
When she finished, she rose to strap on her weapon harness, then reached for the rest of her belt and pocket business.
Roarke lifted an eyebrow as she reached for a handful of credits and cash. “Is that all the money you have?”
She shrugged. “It’s enough.”
“It’s barely enough to buy a cart dog and a bag of crisps.” He stood, pulled a clip out of his pocket, peeled off some bills.
“I don’t want your money.”
He eyed her, saw the flickers of temper; ignored them. “And that would be something you make clear at every opportunity. Regardless, you’re not leaving the house with less in your pocket than a careless teenager might have.”
“It’s my pocket.”
Just as irked, he simply stuffed the bills in that pocket. “And now it holds sufficient to see a professional through a workday. Don’t be more of an arse about it than necessary.”
She might have yanked the bills out, tossed them back at him. But that would make her feel like an arse.
Ass, damn it.
Instead she marched over, pulled open a drawer, and dug out a memo cube. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, owes Moneybags Roarke … How much is it?”
Unsure now if he was amused or annoyed, he angled his head. “Five hundred. That’s USD for the record.”
“Five hundred dollars. American.” She tossed the cube on a table. Then shrugged the jacket over her harness. “I’ve gotta go.”
“See that you take care of my irritable cop.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She headed out. “And the cat’s got syrup all over his face.”
She kept going, but heard Roarke’s “Bloody hell,” and smirked her way down. She swung on the leather jacket waiting on the newel post and kept going.
Outside it surprised her to see those yellow trumpet things had opened and waved, yellow as the butter on her waffles, in the light breeze.
How did they do that, just pop open when you weren’t looking?
She hopped in the car, noted other things were popping out, too. White things, pink things, purple things. How did they know it was safe? How did they know the temps wouldn’t drop and kill them all dead?
Maybe they didn’t care.
Since annoyance had her leaving early, she opted to drive to the crime scene first. And drummed her fingers on the wheel as she navigated.
She’d meant to hit a machine for more cash. She’d forgotten, that’s all. That didn’t make her careless. It made her busy.
Plus, the way he’d just shoved the damn money in her damn pocket was just so … Roarke. And now she had too much money in her pocket, and had to stop and get more in case she spent some to pay him back, so she’d have more too much in her pocket.
It made her tired.
So she put it out of her mind, contacted the hospital to get Cilla Roe’s schedule. When she learned the surgical nurse had the morning off, she texted Peabody the address with orders to meet her there.
And pulled up near the Abner-Rufty townhouse.
She’d yet to order the scene cleared, so crime scene tape still slashed across the door. Since the sweepers had filed their report, she’d handle that today.
But for now she studied the angles, moved down the sidewalk, strode back up again.
Wasn’t going to play, she decided.
She moved to the entrance, cut the tape, mastered in.
The smell of death and sweepers’ dust hadn’t cleared, either. Ignoring both, she checked the windows, considered, moved to the back and the kitchen area.
And studying the congealed blood, the vomit, the assorted bodily fluids defiling the kitchen floor, she thought of Rufty coming home to this.
Avoiding the worst, she circled, checked the windows, the angles, the eyelines.
Didn’t play. Just didn’t.
She didn’t reseal the door when she left, but decided she’d wait to officially clear it. Abner’s family needed to hire a crime scene cleaner before any of them went back in there.
She waded through traffic to Roe’s building. A solid fifteen-minute walk to the hospital, she calculated as she hunted for parking.
She had a brisk five-minute walk of her own when she finally found a slot. And spotted Peabody as her partner emerged from a subway station.
Eve’s eyes narrowed. Peabody had left her hair down, sort of curly, and mixed in the dark, little tips and streaks of red glowed.
“What did you do to your hair?”
“I got Trinia’d.”
Peabody’s happy face glowed like the streaks and tips. “She was over at Mavis’s last night, and I just went for it. It’s fun.”
“You’re a cop. You’re a murder cop.”
“I’m loving it,” she said, completely unabashed. “And McNab got all mmm after, so—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Eve slapped a hand on her twitching eye. “Jesus Christ on an airboard, I don’t want to hear it. Pull your shiny-faced self together. We’re going up to interview a possible murder suspect.”
“Oh, I can interview a possible murder suspect even with mag hair.” As they mastered in the entrance doors, Peabody gave her mag hair a little finger flick.
“Don’t do that. Don’t go tossing it around.”
“It’s so soft!” Even as Eve ignored the elevator and started up the stairs, Peabody’s glow didn’t dim. “Trina put some genius product on it, gave me a sample to take home, too. My hair’s thick, but a little coarse, and now—”
Eve stopped, gave Peabody the stony eye. “Another word about it, and I swear to the god of all cops I’ll knock you out and shave your head bald with my penknife.”
“Harsh.”
“Don’t test me.”
Peabody cleared her throat and gamely took the second flight of stairs. Somebody, she thought, had gotten out on the cranky side of the bed. “So Ponti’s new wife…”
“Did a research paper on poisons, aced her way through chemistry.”
“Well, that’s interesting.”
“I’ll add it to the book once we talk to her. Ponti’s alibi holds—he was at the hospital. She wasn’t, but supposedly was waiting for him.”
They started up the third flight, so Peabody began her inner mantra of Loose pants, loose pants. “Probably not in tune with the mad scientist theory, or only part. But yeah, she could’ve been pissed since Abner dissed her husband. They could have worked it out together.”
“I went by the murder scene. No way the killer or an accomplice could or would have hung around to see Abner die. First, you’d have to know just where he’d open the egg in the house to position yourself, and how would you? And even then, there’s just not a good eyeline unless he was right in the front window.”
“Yeah, I guess that was a long shot.”
“I’m going to clear the scene so the family can get back in. Before I do, you could contact the son—I think that’s the way to go—and give him the name of some of the mop-up crews.”
“Sure, I’ll take care of that.”
When they reached the fourth floor, with doors opening and closing below, elevators humming as people rode down to start their day, Eve crossed over to the Ponti-Roe apartment.
Decent security, she thought, like the building was decent. She remembered Ponti’s comments about Abner—rich, private practice—the fact he’d borrowed a beach house from a friend.
Envy often provided the springboard to violence.
She pressed the buzzer. After thirty seconds, pressed it again and held it longer.
“All right, all right!” someone shouted from inside. “Who is it?”
“NYPSD.”
“What? Let me see a badge—you can just hold it up to the peep.”
After Eve accommodated, she heard locks bang open.
Cilla Roe had short, russet-colored hair currently sticking up in every possible direction. She had a sleep crease in her right cheek and shadows under bleary brown eyes.
She wore a pair of striped pajama pants and a faded T-shirt. Her bare feet sported pale blue polish on the toes.
“What’s this about?”
“Dr. Kent Abner.”
“My husband’s already at work. He had an early shift. And didn’t you talk to him already?”
“We’re here to talk to you.”
“Me?” She rubbed her tired eyes. “I didn’t even know Dr. Abner.”
“But you were aware of his conflict with your husband.”
“That?” Now the tired eyes rolled. “Does that really come up to the level of conflict?”
“Would you like to have this conversation in the doorway, Ms. Roe?”
On a little hiss, Roe stepped back, gestured them in. “If I’m going to have a damn conversation on four hours’ sleep, I need coffee. You?”
“We’re good.”
Roe walked across the small living area and into a tiny galley kitchen. After hitting a button on the AutoChef, she waited, then pulled out an oversize mug of coffee.
“Let’s sit down and get this done. I really want to go back to bed.”
She took the single chair, leaving the short sofa for Eve and Peabody.
“Okay, yes, I know about the incident with Milo and Dr. Abner. I’m going to say Milo has about as much tact and diplomacy as I’ve had sleep in the last twenty-four. Which is little. He’s a good emergency doctor, keeps his head and will work like a maniac to try to save a patient. But he doesn’t have a good filter, and says what pops into his head. I like knowing he says what he thinks—but I’m not a patient.”
She drank some coffee, sighed in a way Eve understood. “He told me you checked where he was on the night before Dr. Abner was killed—something about a package, a shipment, the time. I’m sure you’ve confirmed he was still on duty. He ran late with his shift. I was waiting for him because we were going to the beach for a couple days of very welcome R & R.”
“Was anyone here with you while you waited?”
“With me? No, we were going out of town as soon as he got home.”
“Did you see or speak to anyone between nine and eleven P.M.?”
“Why would…” Very slowly, Roe lowered her cup. “Oh my God, do you think I— Why would I kill a man I’d never met? Why would I kill anyone? Milo was tactless—I told him so myself when he told me what happened. He got slapped back for it. You don’t kill someone over that.”
“You know quite a bit about poison,” Eve continued.
“I’m a nurse.”
“Before you were, you showed an interest. You did a paper on poisons and nerve agents in high school.”
Roe leaned back in the chair. “How do you know that? You’ve—you’ve looked into me, back to—to high school? It was a good subject for a paper, and I had an interest. I’ve always had an interest in chemistry, in fact, had thought to go into biochemical research before I fell in love with nursing, and surgery. I—I work to save lives. I’d never take one.”
“So you didn’t speak to or see anyone from nine to eleven that night?”
“No, I … When Milo texted he’d be late, I laid down right there on the couch, took a nap. Do I need a lawyer?”
“That would be up to you. You work in a hospital where Dr. Abner had privileges. You never met him?”
“No. A lot of doctors have privileges at Unger. I haven’t met every damn one of them. He wasn’t a surgeon. I work in the surgical wing. I’m not saying I never saw him, I don’t know. He may have checked on a patient on the surgical level. I may even have assisted a pediatric surgeon who worked with him. But I didn’t know him.”
“He got your husband written up,” Peabody pointed out.
“It’s not the first time Milo’s been reprimanded, and—trust me—it won’t be the last. Listen, I work with doctors every day. A hell of a lot of them are arrogant and tactless. Most of them learn to filter it with patients—not all, but most. Milo either will or won’t. I don’t care. What do you think? The two of us plotted together to kill Dr. Abner over a reprimand? That’s crazy. We’re healers.”
“Medicals kill, too, Ms. Roe.” Eve rose. “We appreciate the time.”
“That’s it? You’re just going to turn me inside out, then leave?”
“Unless you have more to tell us, that’s all for now.”
She sat where she was, staring after them, as they walked out.
“Felt believable,” Peabody commented.
“Yeah. She also stayed steady as a rock. Yeah, we gave her a good jolt, but her hands? Rock steady. Could be she
’s just a damn good nurse and doesn’t lose it. Or cold-blooded.”
“Felt like the first to me.”
“Felt like it,” Eve agreed. “Next thing? I don’t think she could’ve cooked up the agent in that apartment. Thin walls, too small, not enough ventilation. Which means if she’s in it, they had to use a lab. You’d have to swipe into the lab sections of the hospital. So let’s check, see if either of them spent any time there. Why don’t you go ahead and contact the vic’s son while we head toward the hospital. And find out if they’ve set a time and date for a memorial.”
They spent a solid hour at the hospital, untangling the red tape, then verifying the IDs of those who swiped into the multiple lab areas inside or attached to the hospital.
And came up blank on Ponti and Roe.
“They could’ve had somebody swipe them in,” Peabody suggested, but Eve shook her head.
“Adding another accomplice? No. This is a dead end. Time to suck that up and move on.”
* * *
While they drove to Central, Elise Duran accepted a package from Allied Shipping. She had a busy morning, nearly put it aside for later, since she wasn’t expecting anything.
But curiosity had her taking it into her well-organized home office to open.
Because she rarely watched screen, she had music on to keep her company and hummed along, even ticked her hips to the steady beat while she went through her mental list.
As a creature of schedules and order, she had a list on her tablet as well, and had crossed most of that off. This morning that included the breakfast dishes—she always sent her men off with a good breakfast—giving her kitchen a good scrub and polish, fussing with the dining room table, the spring flowers she’d arranged the evening before, the stack of pretty plates and napkins.
She still needed to put the refreshments together for her book club. She just loved hosting the book club, sitting and chatting with her group of like-minded literary friends. That included her mother and, to Elise’s mind, nobody knew more about books than Catherine Fitzwalter.
After all, her mom had owned and run First Page Books for fifty-three years. Elise had grown up surrounded by books—something she considered an enormous perk. She worked there three days a week, and of course helped run the in-store book club.