The In Death Collection, Books 21-25

by J. D. Robb

  The doctor had kept a secret, and secrets were what haunted. Secrets were what hurt.

  She should know.

  He’d given them labels, she thought. Denying people a name dehumanized them.

  They’d given her no name when she’d been born. Had given her none for the first eight years of her life while they had used and abused her. Dehumanizing her. Preparing her. Training her through rape and beatings and fear to make a whore of her. She’d been an investment, not a child.

  And it was that not-quite-human thing that had broken, that had finally broken and killed what had tormented and imprisoned her.

  Not the same. Roarke was right, it wasn’t the same. There was no mention of rape in the notes. No physical abuse of any kind. On the contrary, care seemed to have been taken to keep them at the height of physical perfection.

  But there were other kinds of abuse, and some of it looked so benign on the surface.

  Somewhere in those notes was motive. Somewhere beyond them was more specific documentation. That’s where she’d find Dolores.

  “Eve.”

  She turned at Mira’s voice. Mira stood in the open doorway, hollow-eyed. “I came to apologize for brushing you off this morning.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Yes, it is. Mine. I’d like to come in. Close the door.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’d like to see what you wanted to show me this morning.”

  “I consulted another medical expert. It isn’t necessary for you to—”

  “Please.” Mira sat, folded her hands in her lap. “May I see?”

  Saying nothing, Eve got the papers, gave them to Mira.

  “Cryptic,” Mira said after a few moments of silence. “Incomplete. Wilfred was a meticulous man, in all areas of his life. Yet in their way these are meticulously cryptic.”

  “Why aren’t they named?”

  “To help him keep his distance, his objectivity. These are long-term treatments. I would say he didn’t want to risk emotional attachment. They’re being groomed.”

  “For?”

  “I can’t say. But they’re being groomed, educated, tested, given the opportunity to explore their personal strengths and skills, improve their weaknesses. Those in the lower percentile are terminated as patients after it’s deemed they’re unlikely to improve. He sets the bar high. He would.”

  “What would he need to pull this off?”

  “I’m not sure what this is. But he’d need medical and laboratory facilities, rooms or dormitories for the patients, food preparation areas, exercise areas, educational areas. He would want the best. He’d insist on it. If these girls were indeed his patients, he would want them comfortable, stimulated, well treated.”

  She looked up at Eve. “He would not abuse a child. He would not harm. I don’t say this as his friend, Eve. I say this as a criminal profiler. He was a fiercely dedicated doctor.”

  “Would he conduct experiments outside the law?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t hesitate on that.”

  “He would consider the science, the medicine, the benefits and the possibilities more important than law. Often, they are. And on some level, he would consider himself above the law. There was no violence or cruelty in him, but there was arrogance.”

  “If he was spearheading, or even involved in a project that was grooming—as you said—young girls into what some might consider perfect women, would his son have known?”

  “Without question. Their pride in each other—their affection for each other—was genuine and deep.”

  “The kind of facility you’ve described, long-term treatment as indicated by the data, the equipment, the security. All of that would cost big.”

  “I imagine it would.”

  Eve leaned forward. “Would he agree to meet with . . . let’s call her a graduate of his project? She was a label to him, a subject—and still he worked with her for several years, watched her progress. If she contacted him at some point after she was placed, would he meet her?”

  “His professional instinct would be to refuse, but both his ego and his curiosity would war with that. Medicine is risk, day after day. I think he would have risked this for the satisfaction of seeing one of his own. If indeed she was.”

  “Wasn’t she? Isn’t it more likely, given the method of the murder, that he knew her, and she him? She had to get close, had to want to. One stab wound, in the heart. No rage, but control. As he had control over her. A medical instrument as murder weapon, a clean cut. Objective, as he’d been objective.”

  “Yes.” Mira closed her eyes. “Oh God, what has he done?”

  7

  EVE SNAGGED PEABODY AT HER DESK IN THE bull pen. “We’re going to spin that wheel. Mira’s writing up a vic profile to add weight to what we’ve got. Then we’re pushing for a search warrant.”

  “I’ve got nothing that stands out on the financials,” Peabody told her.

  “Daughter-in-law, grandkids?”

  “Nothing out of line.”

  “There’s money somewhere. There always is. Guy has that many fingers in that many pies, he probably has some secret pies tucked away somewhere. For now, we’re going back to the Center, talking to people—admin down.”

  “Can I wear your new coat?”

  “Sure, Peabody.”

  Peabody’s face beamed like the sun. “Really?”

  “No.” With a roll of her eyes and a sweep of leather, Eve started out.

  Peabody sulked after her. “You didn’t have to get my hopes up.”

  “If I don’t get them up, how can I crush them? Where would I get my satisfaction?” She sidestepped for a pair of uniforms who were muscling a bruiser down the corridor. The bruiser sang obscenities at the top of his voice.

  “Well, he can carry a tune,” Eve remarked.

  “A very pleasant baritone. Can I try on the coat sometime when you’re not wearing it?”

  “Sure, Peabody.”

  “You’re getting my hopes up again, only to crush them, right?”

  “Keep learning that fast, you may make Detective Second Grade one day.” Eve sniffed the air as she hopped on a glide. “I smell chocolate. Do you have chocolate?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t give it to you,” Peabody muttered.

  Eve sniffed again, then followed the aroma trail with her eyes. She spotted Nadine Furst crammed on the upcoming glide. The Channel 75 on-air reporter had her streaky hair swept up in some sort of twisty roll, wore a canary-yellow trench coat over a dark blue suit. And carried a hot-pink bakery box.

  “If you’re taking that bribe to my department,” Eve called out, “there’d better be some left for me.”

  “Dallas?” Nadine squeezed through the jam of bodies. “Damn it. Wait. Wait at the bottom. Oh my God, the coat! Wait. I need five minutes.”

  “Heading out. Later.”

  “No, no, no.” As they passed, nearly shoulder to shoulder, Nadine managed to shake the box. “Brownies. Triple chocolate.”

  “Bitch.” Eve sighed. “Five minutes.”

  “Surprised you didn’t just rip it out of her hands, then thumb your nose at her,” Peabody commented.

  “Considered, rejected. Too many witnesses.” Besides, Eve thought, she might be able to use Nadine as much as she could use a triple chocolate brownie.

  Nadine’s shoes matched her coat, and both the heels and toes looked sharp enough to sever a jugular. Yet somehow she managed to stride along in them as if they were as comfy as Peabody’s airskids.

  “Show me the chocolate,” Eve said without preamble. Obliging, Nadine lifted the lid of the box. Eve gave a brief nod. “Good bribe. Walk and talk.”

  “The coat.” Nadine said it like a woman praying. “It’s extreme.”

  “Keeps the rain off.” Eve swiveled her shoulder when Nadine stroked a hand over the leather covering it.

  “Don’t pet it.”

  “It’s like smooth black cream. I’d give an astounding sexual per
formance for a coat like this.”

  “Thanks, but you’re not my type. Is my coat going to be the topic of discussion during your five minutes?”

  “I could talk about that coat for days, but no. Icove.”

  “The dead one or the live one?”

  “Dead. We’ve got bio data up the ying, and we’ll be using it. Wilfred Benjamin Icove, medical pioneer, healer, and humanitarian. Philanthropist and philosopher. Loving father, doting granddad. Scientist and scholar, yaddah, blah. His life’s going to be covered endlessly by every media outlet on and off planet. Tell me how he got dead.”

  “Stabbed through the heart. Give me a brownie.”

  “Forget it.” And Nadine hooked both arms around the box to prevent a snatch-and-run. “A voice-cracking on-air for his high school data screen’s got that much. Chocolate’s not cheap. We’ve got the beautiful and mysterious female suspect angle. Security guards, medical and administrative staff don’t have to be bribed to blab. What have you got on her?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on.” Nadine reopened the lid of the box, waved her hand over it as if to waft the scent into Eve’s face.

  Eve had to laugh. “It’s believed the female individual who allegedly was the last person to see Icove alive used false ID. The investigating officers and the EDD section of the department are working with all diligence to identify this individual so that she can be questioned in regards to Icove’s death.”

  “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 some 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, Peabody.”

  “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 at 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, he 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 considered 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 semiretired.”

  “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, wi
th 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.