by J. D. Robb
«An unidentified woman, using false ID, slipped through the elaborate security at the WBI Center, strolled into his office, stabbed him in the heart, strolled out again. Got it.»
«I'm not confirming that. We are very interested in identifying, locating, and questioning this individual. Give me a damn brownie.»
When Nadine lifted the lid, Eve snatched two. Before a protest could be voiced, she passed one to Peabody. «Further,» she said with a mouthful of chocolate so rich she all but heard her tonsils hum, «we are pursuing the theory that the victim knew his attacker.»
«Knew her? That's fresh.»
The brownie was worth fresh. «We have not yet identified the attacker as male or female. However, the death blow was inflicted at close range, and there is no evidence of struggle, duress, no defensive wounds. There is no indication of robbery or other assault. There is a strong likelihood that the victim knew his attacker. Certainly, evidence doesn't indicate he felt threatened.»
«Motive?»
«Working on it.» They'd made their way down to garage level. «Off the record.»
«I hate that.» Nadine hissed. «Off the record.»
«I think the doctor was into something slippery on the side.»
«Sex?»
«Possibly. If the trail we're following leads to that, it's going to be hot. The reporter who breaks it might get singed.»
«I'll dig out my heat shields.»
«Save me time. Dig info instead. I want all the data your researchers have on Icove, then I want more. Anything that has to do with medical or social areas of interest that are off-center.»
Nadine pursed her lips. «In which direction?»
«Any. You get me something that helps me, when this is ready to go public, I'll give you the whole ball, a full media cycle ahead of the pack.»
Nadine's eyes, a feline green, were vivid with interest. «You think he was dirty.»
«I think anybody who looks that clean's got grime washed down the drain.»
When they were in Eve's vehicle, the bakery box tucked in the back, Peabody produced finger wipes out of her bag. «You don't believe someone can live a blameless life?» she asked. «Be intrinsically good, even selfless.»
«Not if they're made of blood and bone. Nobody's spotless, nobody.»
«My father's never hurt anyone. Just a for-instance.»
«Your father doesn't pretend to be a saint, or have a PR firm spinning his halos. Got himself arrested a couple times, right?»
«Well, just minor charges. Protesting. Free-Agers mostly feel honor-bound to protest, and they don't believe in permits. But that's not—
«It's a mark,» Eve interrupted. «A little one, sure, but a mark. He doesn't try to erase it. A slate this squeaky clean? Somebody washed it.»
The slate remained pristine as they worked their way through staff it the center. From his administrative assistant to lab techs, from doctors to orderlies. It was, Eve thought, more shrine than slate.
Eve tried the admin again, from a different angle.
«It seems, looking over Dr. Icove's schedule, his personal calendar, it had a lot of free time. How did he use it?»
«He spent a lot of time visiting patients, here and at other facilities where he was affiliated.» Pia wore black, head to toe, and had a tissue balled in her hand. «Dr. Icove believed, strongly believed, in the personal touch.»
«From his surgical and consulting schedule, it didn't appear he had a great many active patients.»
«Oh, he also visited patients who weren't his own. That is, he convicted every patient or client who came into one of his facilities to belong to him. He spent several hours every week doing what you'd call informal visits. Keeping his finger on the pulse, he liked to say. He also spent considerable time reading the medical journals, keeping current. And writing papers for them. And he was doing another book. He'd published five. He kept busy, even though he was semi-retired.»
«How often, per week, did you see him?»
«It varied. If he wasn't traveling, at least two, sometimes three days a week. He'd also check in holographically.»
«You ever travel with him?»
«Occasionally, when he needed me.»
«Did you ever… meet his needs in personal areas?»
It took her a moment to translate, and Eve knew there'd been no sexual relationship here. «No! No, of course not. Dr. Icove would never have… Never.»
«But he had companions. He enjoyed the company of women.»
«Well, yes. But there was no one specific, or serious. I'd have known.» Pia sighed. «I wish there had been. He was such a lovely man. But he still loved his wife. He told me once there were some gifts, some relationships that could never be replaced or replicated. His work sustained him. His work, and his family.»
«How about personal projects? Experimental projects he was working on that he wasn't ready to make public. Where did he keep his personal lab, his personal charts?»
Pia shook her head. «Experimental projects? No, Dr. Icove used the research facilities here. He considered them the best in the world. Anything he or the researchers worked on would have been logged. Dr. Icove was meticulous about recording data.»
«I bet,» Eve replied. «His last appointment. How did they greet each other?»
«He was at his desk when I brought her in. He stood up. I'm not sure
«Did they shake hands?»
«Um. No. No, I don't think… I remember he stood up, and smiled. She said something first, even before I made the introductions. I remember that now.»
Pia continued. «Yes, I remember, she said something like it was good to meet him, and that she appreciated him taking his valuable time for her. Something along those lines. I think he said he was very pleased to see her. I think that's what he said. He gestured to the refreshments in the sitting area, maybe started to go around his desk, but she shook her head. She said thank you, but she didn't care for anything. Then Dr. Icove told me they'd be fine. 'We'll be fine, Pia, you go ahead to lunch at your usual time. Enjoy yourself.
«It's the last thing he said to me.» Now she began to cry. «'Enjoy yourself.'»
With Peabody, Eve closed herself into Icove's office. Crime Scene had been through, leaving their faint scent behind. She'd already run the probabilities and the reconstruction programs, but she wanted to see it on-site, with people.
«Be Icove. At his desk,» she ordered Peabody.
As Peabody obliged, Eve crossed back to the door, turned. «What are you doing? With your face?»
«I'm trying for an avuncular smile. Like a kind doctor.»
«Cut it out. It's creepy. Admin and Dolores enter. Icove stands. The women walk over. No handshake, because she's probably sealed, and he'd feel it. How does she get out of it?»
«Ah.» Standing in Icove's place, Peabody considered. «Shy? Eyes downcast, maybe hands, both hands, on the handle of her bag. Nervous. Or—«
«Or she looks him right in the eye, because they know each other already. And her face, the look, signals him that they're going to skip the handshakes and how-are-yous. Think about what he said, according to his admin. He was happy to see her—Dolores. Not happy to meet her, or meet with her, but see her.»
«Unspoken 'again'?»
«That's what I'm hearing. Refreshments offered, refused. Admin leaves, shuts the door. They sit.»
Eve took the seat across from the desk. «She has to bide her time, wait for the admin to go to lunch. They talk. Maybe he suggests they move to the sitting area for tea, but she wants him at his desk, turns it down.»
«Why at the desk?» Peabody asked. «It would've been easier for her to get close if they were on the sofa there.»
«Symbolic. Behind the desk is in charge, is the power. She wants him dead on his seat of power. Taking it back from him. There you are, she might think, behind your beautiful desk in your big office high above the city, reigning over the center you built in your own name. Wearing your expensive suit.
And you don't know you're dead.»
«Cold,» Peabody added.
«The woman who walked out of here had plenty of chill. Time passes, she gets up.»
As Eve rose, so did Peabody. «He'd stand,» Peabody stated. «He's old school. A woman stands, he stands. Like he did when she first came in.»
«Good point. So she says: 'Sit, please.' Maybe gestures him down. She has to keep talking, but nothing confrontational. No, she has to keep him at ease. She has to come around the desk to him.»
Eve mimicked the move she saw in her head. Walking to the desk, unhurried, eyes calm. She saw the way Peabody instinctively swiveled in the desk chair to face her more truly.
«Then she has to…« Eve leaned over until her face and Peabody's were nearly on a level. And with the pen she'd palmed gave her partner a light jab at the heart.
«Jeez!» Peabody jerked back. «No poking. I thought, for a really weird minute, you were going to kiss me or something. Then you… Oh.»
«Yeah. The angle of the wound. She standing, he's sitting, but with her height factored in, his seated height calculated, she leaned over him. She came from this angle, he turned in the chair—automatically—just like you did. Got the weapon palmed. He never saw it. He's watching her face.
«She shoves it in him, and it's done. He knew her, Peabody. One of his placements, I give you odds. Maybe he even helped her get the fake ID, maybe that's part of the service. She could still be a pro, but it feels less and less like a work for hire.»
«The son didn't know her. I'd give you odds on that.»
«Didn't recognize is different from didn't know.»
Frowning now, Eve circled the room. «Why doesn't he have any data here? Here, where he works two or three days a week. Why doesn't he have any of those coded files in his office, in his power seat?»
«If it's a sideline, maybe he wanted to keep it on the side.»
«Yeah.» But Eve studied the desk, the file drawers in it had been locked. She had those files now, but that didn't mean they were complete.
The door opened. Will Icove strode in. «What are you doing here?» he demanded.
«Our job. This is a crime scene. What are you doing here?»
«This is my father's office. I don't know what you're looking for here, or why you seem more interested in smearing my father's good name than apprehending his killer, but—«
«Apprehending his killer is the goal,» Eve countered. «To do that we have to look at and for things that may not please you. Was the woman who called herself Dolores Nocho-Alverez your father's patient?»
«You've looked through his records. Have you found her?»
«I don't believe we've seen all of his records.» Eve opened Peabody's file case, removed the photo of Dolores. «Take another look.»
«I've never seen her before.» But he didn't look at the still Eve held out. «I don't know why she killed my father, or why you seem bent on blaming him for his own death.»
«You're wrong. I blame the person who put the knife in him for his death.» Eve replaced the picture. «It's the why I question, and if he and his killer had a history, that speaks to the why. What was he working on: What had he been working on, privately, for so long?»
«My father's work was revolutionary. And it's documented. Whoever this woman was she was unbalanced, obviously unbalanced. If you find her, which I've come to doubt you will, she'll be found to be mentally defective. In the meantime, my family and I are in mourning. My wife and children have gone to our home in the Hamptons, and I'll join them tomorrow. We need privacy, a time to retreat and finalize plans for my father's memorial.»
He paused, seemed to struggle with his emotions. «I don't know anything about your sort of work. I'm told you're very competent. Trusting that, I'm going to wait until we come back to the city. If at that time, there's been no progress, and you've continued to investigate my father rather than his death, I intend to use whatever influence I have to have this matter transferred to another investigator.»
«That's your privilege.»
He nodded, moved back to the door. With his hand on the knob, he drew a breath. «He was a great man,» he said, and left the room.
«He's nervous,» Peabody observed. «Grieving—I don't think he's faking that—but nervous, too. We've pushed on a sensitive spot.»
«Sent the wife and kiddies away,» Eve mused. «Good time to clean out anything incriminating. We're not going to get that search order in time to stop him, not if he moves right away.»
«He wipes data, EDD will dig it out.»
«Spoken like an e-groupie.» But Eve nodded. «We'll push for the warrant.»
She was still waiting for it at end of shift, and as a last resort hauled Nadine's bakery box into the cell-like office of an assistant prosecuting attorney.
APAs, Eve noted, didn't fare much better than cops when it came to work environment.
Cher Reo had a rep for being hungry. Eve earmarked her because if the brownies didn't turn the tide, the prospect of having part in a scandal that would generate days of screen time should.
Despite the sunny sweep of silky hair, the baby-doll blue eyes and curvy pink lips, Cher was known to be a piranha. She was wearing a stone-gray skirt—demurely to her knees—and a simple white shirt. The matching jacket was draped neatly over the back of her chair.
Her desk was covered with files, discs, notes. She drank coffee out of a super-sized to-go cup.
Eve waltzed in, dropped the candy-pink box on the desk. And watched Cher's nostrils flare.
«What?» She had a little Southern in her voice, like a dusting of sugar. Eve had yet to decide if it was genuine.
«Brownies.»
Cher leaned a little closer to the box, sniffed. Shut her eyes. «I'm on a diet.»
«Triple chocolate.»
«Whore.» Lifting the box a fraction, Cher peeked, groaned. «Filthy whore. What do I have to do for them?»
«I'm still waiting for the warrant on Icove Jr.'s residence.»
«You'll be lucky if you get it at all. You're poking pointy sticks in the eye of a saint, Dallas.» Cher sat back, swiveled. Eve saw she had airskids on her feet. And dignified gray heels tucked into the corner of the room. «My boss doesn't want to give you the go to jam it in. He's going to want more.»
Eve leaned a hip on the edge of the desk. «Convince him otherwise. The surviving son knows something, Reo. While your boss is playing politics instead of throwing his weight with mine—and Mira's—to a judge, data may very well be lost. Does the PA's office want to hinder the investigation into the murder of a man of Icove's stature?»
«Nope. And it sure doesn't want to toss shit into his grave either.»
«Push for the warrant, Reo. If I get what I'm after, it's going to be big. And I'll remember who helped me get it.»
«If you turn up nothing? Nobody's going to forget who helped you screw this up either.»
«I'll turn up something.» She pushed off the desk. «If you can't trust me, Reo, trust the brownies.»
Reo blew out a breath. «It'll take a while. Even saying I can convince my boss—and that's going to take some doing—we've got to convince a judge to sign off.»
«Then why don't you get started?»
This time when she got home, Summerset was where she expected him to be. Lurking in the foyer like some prune-faced gargoyle. She decided to let him take the first shot. She preferred retaliation, because it usually gave her the last word.
She stripped off her coat while they eyed each other. And decided it made even more of a statement draped over the newel post than her usual jacket did.
«Lieutenant. I need a moment of your time.»
Her brow knit. He wasn't supposed to say that, and in a polite, inoffensive tone. «What for?»
«It regards Wilfred Icove.»
«What about him?»
Summerset, a brittle stick of a man in a stiff black suit, kept his dark eyes on hers. His face, usually grim in Eve's mind, seemed even more
strained than usual. «I'd like to offer any assistance I can in the matter of your investigation.»
«Well, that'll be the day,» she began, then narrowed her eyes. «You knew him. How's that?»
«I knew him, slightly. I served as a medic—somewhat unofficially—during the Urban Wars.»
She glanced up as Roarke came down the steps. «Did you already know this?»
«Just shortly ago. Why don't we go sit down?» Before she could protest, Roarke took her arm, led her into the parlor. «Summerset tells me he met Icove in London, and worked with him at one of the clinics there during the wars.»
«For him is more accurate,» Summerset corrected. «He came to London to help establish more clinics, and the mobile medical units that eventually transformed into Unilab. He had been a part of the team that had established them here in New York, where the out-breaks started before they bled into Europe. Some forty years ago now,» he added. «Before either of you were born. Before my daughter was born.»
«How long was he in London?» Eve asked.
«Two months. Perhaps three.» Summerset spread his bony hands. «It blurs. He saved countless lives during that period, worked tirelessly. Risked his own life more than once. He implemented some of his innovations in reconstructive surgery on that battlefield. That's what the cities were then. Battlefields. You've seen images from that period, but it was nothing compared to being there, living through it. Victims who would have lost limbs, or gone through their lives scarred, were spared that due to his work.»
«Would you say he experimented?»
«He innovated. He created. The media reports that this might have been a professional assassination. I have contacts still, in certain circles.»
«If you want to use them, fine. Poke around. Carefully. How well did you know him, personally?»
«Not well. People who come together in war often bond quickly, even intimately. But when they have nothing else in common that bond fades. And he was… aloof.»
«Superior.»
Disapproval covered Summerset's face, but he nodded. «That term wouldn't be inaccurate. We worked together, ate and drank together, but he maintained distance from those who worked under him.»