by J. D. Robb
«Give me a personality rundown, deleting the sainthood level.»
«It's difficult to say with any accuracy. It was war. Personalities cope, or shine, or shatter during war.»
«You had an opinion of him, as a man.»
«He was brilliant.» Summerset glanced over, with some surprise, as Roarke offered him a short glass of whiskey. «Thank you.»
«Brilliant's on record,» Eve said. «I'm not looking for brilliant.»
«You want flaws.» Summerset sipped the whiskey. «I don't consider them flaws when a young, brilliant doctor is impatient and frustrated with the circumstances, with the equipment and the poor facilities where we worked. He demanded a great deal, and because he gave a great deal, accomplished a great deal, he usually got it.»
«You said aloof. Just to other doctors, medics, volunteers, or to patients, too?»
«Initially, he made a point of learning the names of every patient he tended, and I would say he suffered at each loss. And losses were .. horrendous. He then implemented a system assigning numbers rather than names.»
«Numbers,» Eve murmured.
«Essential objectivity, I believe he called it. They were bodies that needed tending, or reconstruction. Bodies that needed to be kept breathing, or terminated. He was hard, but circumstances demanded it. Those who couldn't step back from the horror were useless to those who suffered from that horror.»
«His wife was killed during that period.»
«I was working in another part of the city at that time. As I remember, he left London immediately upon being notified of her death, and went to his son, who was being kept safe in the country.»
«No contact since.»
«No. I can't imagine he would have remembered me. I've followed his work, and was pleased that so much of what he'd hoped to do came to be.»
«He talked about that? What he hoped to do.»
«To me? No.» What might have been a smile passed over Summerset's face. «But I heard him speak to other doctors. He wanted to heal, to help, to improve the quality of life.»
«He was a perfectionist.»
«There's no perfection during war.»
«That must have frustrated him.»
«It frustrated us all. People were dying all around us. No matter how many we saved, there were more we couldn't reach, couldn't help. A man might be shot down in the street because he had decent shoes. Another might have his throat cut because he had none at all. Frustration is a small word.»
Eve chased through her mind. «So his kid's tucked away in the countryside, and his wife's working beside him.»
«Not beside, no. She volunteered in a hospital that had been set up to treat injured children, and to house those lost or orphaned.»
«He fool around?»
«Excuse me?»
«It's war, he's away from his family. His life's on the line. Did he sleep with anybody?»
«I don't see the purpose in so crude a question, but no, not that I was aware of. He was devoted to his family and his work.»
«Okay. I'll get back to you.» She got to her feet. «Roarke?»
She moved out of the room, heard Roarke murmur something before he followed her. She waited until they were upstairs before she spoke. «You didn't tell him anything about the data we found.»
«No. And it's an uncomfortable position.»
«Well, you're going to have to be uncomfortable for a while. I don't know if his murder had its roots back as far as the Urban Wars, but it's something I want to think about. Unless his killer was able to shed a good decade surgically or through enhancements, she wasn't born during that time either. But…«
«She had a mother, a father. And they would have been.»
«Yeah. Another possibility. War orphans. Could've started experimenting, treating, placing.» She paced the bedroom. «It isn't tidy, is it, just to leave kids scavenging around on the streets, during a war, after the madness of war? Some of them won't survive, and you're in the business of survival. You're interested in improving that quality of life. But also appearance. See a lot of carnage during a war. Maybe it twisted him up.»
She checked her wrist unit. «Where the hell's my warrant?»
She dropped down on the sofa, studied Roarke thoughtfully. «How'd you feel back then, when Summerset took you in off the streets?»
«I got fed, got to sleep in a bed. And nobody was beating the bloody hell out of me on a daily basis.» The man who'd seen to that, Roarke thought, had given him a great deal more than clean sheets and food for his belly. «I was half dead anyway when he took me in. By the time I was able to think clearly, get out of bed, I was over my shock at my luck. Considered that he might be a mark, which he disabused me of the first time I tried to pick his pocket. And I learned to be grateful, for the first time in my life.»
«So when he told you what to do, when he educated you, housed you, set rules, you went along.»
«He didn't put shackles on me. I'd've slipped the locks and run. But yes.»
«Yeah.» She leaned her head back, stared at the ceiling. «And then he becomes family. Father, mother, teacher, doctor, priest. The ball of it.»
«In essence. Ah, speaking of family. Several members of mine will be coming over from Clare. Now that I've done the thing, I don't know quite what to expect.»
She looked back at him. «Well, that makes a pair of us.»
8
TICK-TOCK, Eve thought, and scowled at the 'link she'd set on the dining room table. There was a cheery fire in the hearth and some sort of fancy pig meat on her plate.
«Don't you know a watched 'link never beeps.» She shifted her gaze to Roarke as he stabbed some meat from her plate onto his fork and held it out to her. «Be a good girl and eat your dinner.»
«I know how to feed myself.» But because it was there, she took the offering. Damn good pig. «He'll have wiped documents by now.»
«Anything you can do about that?»
«No.»
«Then you might as well enjoy your dinner.»
There were some sort of fancy potatoes to go with the fancy pig. She gave them a try. «They've got to have money hidden somewhere. You interested in finding it?»
Roarke sipped his wine, cocked his head. «Lieutenant, I'm always interested in finding money.»
«Whether or not this warrant comes through, I'm going to want the money trail. Funding for whatever this project is, fees or profit generated from it.»
«All right. Plans are to have the meal in here.»
She frowned at him. «We are having the meal in here.» She stabbed some pork, held it up. «See?»
«Thanksgiving, Eve.» And he could admit he was a bit wound up about it as he was so completely unsure of his steps.
He knew how to handle people, parties, meetings, his very complicated wife. He knew how to run an interplanetary empire, and still carve out time to dabble in murder cases. But how the hell was he going to handle family?
«Oh, right. Turkey, sure.» Eve looked vaguely around the room with its huge table, stunning art, glints of silver, and warm, glowing wood. «Well, this would be the place for it. So this assignment? It would be official. No slippery stuff.»
«Well, you take the fun out of it, don't you?»
«I can get authorization for a full-level financial search. Icove's murder, the several working theories. Blackmail, whacked-out former patient, the possibility it was a professional and/or terrorist hit.»
«None of which you subscribe to.»
«I don't eliminate them,» Eve said. «But they're bottom of my list. I've also got the secured and encoded discs to add weight to the authorization. I can argue that whatever this project was, it led to the murder. Push all that together, and I can get authorization without offending any sensibilities. Not saying Icove was dirty, but that something to do with his work—and income from same—led to his murder.»
«Clever of you.»
«I'm a clever gal. Until I have more, I don't make noises a
bout possible human hybridization or sex slavery or companion training. Get me the money, so I can.»
«Good as done, then.»
He tried to relax into his dinner and not worry about the logistics of this event he'd started. The transportation was no problem. He'd already seen to that. And housing them, well, the place was big enough to tuck them in even if the whole lot of them hopped the shuttle.
But what the hell was he going to do with them once they got here? It wasn't like entertaining business associates or even friends. He had relations, for God's sake. How was he supposed to get used to having them, dealing with them, when he'd lived nearly the whole of his life without them?
Now they were going to be under his roof, and he hadn't a clue what they would expect.
«Should we have something separate for the children, do you think?»
«What?» Eve frowned at him as she poked at the food on her plate. «Oh, that. Hell, I don't know. You're supposed to know how to do this stuff.»
His face was a mirror of his frustration. «And how am I supposed to know how to do something I've never done before?» He scowled into his wine. «It's unnerving, that's what it is.»
«You could contact them, say something's come up. Cancel.»
«I'm not a bloody coward,» he muttered in a way that made her think he'd considered doing just that. «And it would be rude as well.»
«I can be rude.» Shifting work to one side, she gave it some thought. «I like being rude.»
«That's because you're so good at it.»
«True. You could tell them that due to my obsessive involvement in a juicy murder case, Thanksgiving's been cancelled. No turkey for you. See, then it's all on me. Me bloody wife's driving me starkers,» she said in an exaggerated Irish accent while she waved the water glass around. The lieutenant, she's working all the day and half the night as well, and not giving me five minutes of her precious time. What's a man to do, then? Bugger it.»
He sat silent a moment, just staring at her. «I don't sound a bit like that, nor does anyone of my acquaintance.»
«You haven't heard yourself when you're drunk, which you would be out of frustration with my selfish behavior.» She shrugged, drank some water. «Problem solved.»
«Not nearly, but thanks for the strange and generous offer. Well. Back to murder, which as it happens is a simpler matter for both of us to deal with.»
«Got that right.»
«Why do you suppose a man of Icove's stature would dabble, if your theory's correct, in gray medicine?»
«Because he could, that's one. And because he was hoping to build a—what do you call it?—better mousetrap. The human body's flawed, right. It breaks down, needs regular repair and maintenance. It's fragile. He grew up seeing its fragility with his parents' work. Then, with his mother's accident and subsequent suicide. His wife's death, and the whole ugly nightmare of the Urbans. So how much of a rush would it be to try to make it perfect, to make it stronger, more durable, smarter? You've already done considerable work toward that goal, and gotten accolades for it. Gotten way rich for it. Why not take it up a level?»
«With only women?»
«I don't know.» She shook her head. «Maybe he had a thing for women. His mother, his wife. Maybe he focused on women because his women had proven too fragile.
«And rich or not, he's got to have income to sustain the work. Probably, that's more your area than mine. It's still easier to sell a female than a male. There are still more female LCs than male. Sexual predators are most usually male. You guys equate sex with power or virility, even life. Punishment, if you're twisted. Women, mostly, equate it with emotion first. Or see it as a commodity or bargaining tool.»
«Or weapon.»
«Yeah, that, too. It's how the machine ticks. See…« She ate without thinking about it now that the pieces of the case were shifting around in her mind. «You've got this big-deal doc—big brain, big name, big bucks. Big ego. You get that.»
Roarke smiled. «Naturally.»
«He's already got a lot under his belt. Lots of good, public work, lots of important slaps on the back. And a hell of a good lifestyle. But there's always more. More to do, more to want to do. More to just want. That Frankenstein guy, he must've been pretty smart.»
He loved watching her wind her way through a case, he thought. The way her brain picked at details and knitted them together. «Well, creating life out of dead body parts.»
«Okay, disgusting, but smart. Lots of medical, scientific, technological advances come through little bits of craziness, a lot of ego.»
«Or happy accidents,» Roarke pointed out.
She nodded toward the candles burning on the table. «Bet the first guy who made fire figured he was a god, and the other cavemen bowed down to him.»
«Or bashed him in the head with a rock and stole his burning stick.» She had to laugh. «Yeah. Well, yeah, but you get me. So you make fire, then, hey, let's see what we can do with this. Wow, no more raw mastodon! Make mine medium-well. Oh shit, I set Joe on fire!»
Now Roarke's laugh rolled out, and made her grin. «Oops, sorry, Joe,» she continued. «So now you have to figure out how to treat a burn. And how to deal with somebody who likes to set Joe on fire, and maybe torch the village. Next thing you know, you've got hospitals and cops and climate control and—« She forked up more meat. «Roast pig on demand.»
«A fascinating capsule view of civilization.»
«I think I got off my point somewhere around the mastodon. Anyway, what I'm saying is, you do something big—universal big, life-and-death big, and get known for it. What's next?»
«Bigger.»
When her 'link beeped, she snatched it up. «Dallas.»
«You'd better be right.» Reo's Southern-comfort voice was all busies. «Because our asses are sharing the same sling.»
«Just shoot me the paper.»
«No, I'm bringing the warrant personally. I'll meet you at Icove Jr.'s evidence in twenty minutes. Oh, and Dallas, if that sling rips, I'm tossing you out and using you to break my fall.»
«Fair enough.» She clicked off, glanced at Roarke. «Well, here we go,» she said, and beeped Peabody.
She beat Reo and Peabody, and used her waiting time to study Icove's home. There was a light on, third-floor window. Home office, bedroom? Another, giving a backwash of pale light, second floor. Probably a hall light left burning for convenience.
The main level was dark but for dim security lights, and the steady red blink at the entrance door indicating lockdown.
It meant the doctor was in, which would make the entry easier and the search itself messier. She'd just leave the diplomacy of that to Reo.
It was after nine now, full dark, with a cool, kicky breeze. A neighboring house had some sort of folk-arty decoration on its front door in the shape of a fat turkey.
It made her think about Thanksgiving and having numerous Irish strangers underfoot.
Roarke's family, she reminded herself. She'd have to figure out how to get on with them—or get around them. She'd liked Sinead, his aunt, the only one of the group she'd met. But that didn't mean she knew what to do with her, or the rest of them, when they were just hanging around.
Family relations were way out of her orbit.
He hadn't said for how long, and she could admit now she'd been afraid to ask. Maybe it was just for the day. Just an overnight thing.
What if it was longer? What if it was a week?
Maybe she'd get lucky, catch some vicious, violent homicide that would keep her out of the house for most of their stay.
And that, she thought with a sigh, was just sick.
Roarke was nervous about this deal, she reminded herself. And he had ice for blood most of the time. So that meant it was important to him. Really important. Which meant she had to be supportive and wifely.
God. It wouldn't actually be her fault if a vicious, violent homicide landed in her lap, would it? She couldn't control these things.
She
caught sight of Peabody coming up from the west corner. And of the skinny form in neon-green skin-pants and purple duster strolling beside her.
«Mag coat,» McNab said. «Do they make it in brights?»
«I wouldn't know. Did I tell you to bring your boy toy?»
«Figured we could use an e-man.»
McNab smiled, his green eyes twinkling in his pretty face. «Not that I mind when she toys with me. Hey, Mavis says hi. We saw her as we were heading out. Getting large,» he added, rounding his arms over his belly to indicate the extent of Mavis's pregnancy. «What size is the coat?»
«Lieutenant size. You assist on the search,» Eve added. «No on-site e-duty unless so ordered. Since you're here, you can oversee any transfer should we deem appropriate, of any units, data, and communication to Central.»
«Got it.»
«Aw, look at the turkey.» Peabody grinned over at the neighbor's holiday door art. «We used to do stuff like that when I was a kid. Not that we ate turkey on Thanksgiving, that being considered a commercial and/or political symbol of oppression and commercialization to us Free-Agers.»
Where the hell was Reo, Eve wondered, and dug her hands into her pockets. «We're having a Thanksgiving thing, if you guys are interested.»
«Really?» Surprise and sentiment covered Peabody's face. «Aw, that's so nice. I'd really like to, but we're going out to spend a couple days with my family. As long as we're not on active. It's the first sort of family deal as a couple.»
McNab showed his teeth in a smile, and Eve saw the nerves in it. What was it about family that scared the brave and true?
«We're saving up to spend a couple days in Scotland with McNab's clan right after Christmas.» And now Peabody got that same sick smile on her face. «Get it all done in one year if we can swing the fare.»
«No big.» But Eve was disappointed. It was going to cut into her I-actually-know-these-people portion of the party.
She put the problem aside when she saw the city car swing to the curb. Reo, in her lady suit and matching heels, stepped out.
Reo handed a paper warrant to Eve. «Let's go find something. Detective Peabody, right?» Reo's gaze skimmed over to McNab flirtatiously. «And?»