Golden in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Yes, Thomas Thane. I remember. He was … three?”

  “That’s right,” Sarah confirmed. “And when Kent managed to get through the fear, he told us about his father getting mad because he broke something. And it wasn’t the first time.”

  “There would be a police report?”

  “Yes,” Seldine said. “Dr. Kent talked to the police. I know he spoke to the mother about taking the boy to a shelter, or getting counseling. But they didn’t come back. I don’t know what happened.”

  “We’ll find out. Is this the only time Dr. Abner reported on an abused patient?”

  “Only two others since I’ve worked for him. So three that I know of in twenty years.”

  “We’ll need names, dates, any information. We will be taking Dr. Abner’s electronics, and—”

  “Oh, but the patient data.”

  Seldine looked at Rendi. “It is Dr. Kent. It is for him.”

  “I understand, but there are laws and privacy issues. We—”

  “We have a warrant,” Eve interrupted. “You can separate out private and confidential patient records, but we take the rest.”

  “I can do this,” Seldine assured her. “It will be done by midday if you would give me that time.”

  “That’s fine. We’ll need to look at his office now. If there’s any confidential patient information in there, you need to separate it now.”

  “I will do this. If you would help?” she asked Rendi.

  “Sure.” She rose. “I—I want you to know that I want you to find who did this. But I have a duty to our patients. Kent always put the patients first.”

  “Understood. Peabody, contact EDD, let them know they’ll need to come in here at, say, thirteen hundred.” She looked around the table at those who remained in the room. “You can contact me through Cop Central at any time if you think of anything else. Another person Dr. Abner had words with or trouble with, another time there was something out of the ordinary.”

  “You get this son of a bitch,” the male nurse said. “You get him. I swear when he goes on trial, I’m going to be there every damn day until they put him away. Kent and Martin are two of the best people I know. Things like this shouldn’t happen to them. It shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

  Eve left them in the conference room, walked back down to Abner’s office.

  She found Seldine in tears, and Rendi trying to comfort her.

  “I am sorry.” Seldine swiped at her face. “We … I found in his calendar … He had planned a party for me, next month. Twenty years, you see. He had—he had already ordered a cake. I loved him. He was a father to me.”

  “Please, can I take her out? I closed off the patient records. Can I take her upstairs for now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please.” Seldine fought for composure. “If I can help in any other way, please tell me. And please, would you please tell Martin we are all here for him when he is ready? We send him love and comfort. Would you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been very kind. Please be vigilant in your duty.”

  When they went out, Eve looked at Peabody. “The odds of finding anything in here are slim to none. But let’s be fucking vigilant in our duty.”

  When they left, Eve drew in the noise, the chaos, the clashing colors of New York like breath, and found herself grateful she’d parked blocks away.

  “Morgue next, then the lab. Meanwhile let’s pin down this Dr. Ponti or Ponto from Unger, and get the sheet on the abuse reports.”

  “On that.” Peabody pulled out her PPC. “You know how just a couple weeks ago we’re looking for who killed a rapist asshole fucker?”

  “I recall.”

  “I think we’ve got what you could call his opposite in Kent Abner. And as hard as it was to push through a rapist asshole fucker’s murder, this is harder.”

  “They’re all hard. They’re supposed to be. We’re going to stop in this bakery just up here.”

  “Oh, come on, man. Apple turnover. Loose pants.”

  “Louise said Abner would sometimes bring pastries or flowers into the clinic. Let’s check and see if there’s anything there. We’re going to need to hit the clinic, too, talk to the staff, go through his records.”

  “Yeah. Dr. Milo Ponti—resident at Unger, in ER. Early forties, married two years, no offspring. Wife’s a surgical nurse at Unger. Went to Columbia Medical, lives Lower West. No criminal.”

  “We’ll make him another stop. Bakery.”

  “We could split a turnover. If you split one, you’re basically not even having one. Because it’s half. When you cut calories in half, it’s a good thing. In fact…” Peabody warmed to the theme. “It’s an admirable thing.”

  “What if I don’t want a turnover?”

  “It’s half, so it’s not a turnover. It’s practically a minus-over. Besides, who doesn’t want all that yum, or half the yum?”

  “Why is it a turnover anyway? Why isn’t it just a hand pie?”

  “You turn over the pastry,” Peabody said as she opened the door to the bakery, “to keep the apple goodness inside. Oh, smell that.”

  Eve did, and decided she could choke down half a hand pie.

  The first thing she noticed after the scents of glory was the black armband on the sleeve of the white tunic the counter girl wore.

  Word had spread.

  They hit the bakery, the gym, a local market. Peabody, showing great restraint, waited until they got back in the car before unwrapping her half of the turnover.

  “You know,” she said as she took the first tiny bite (make it last), “I hope when I die—say, a hundred years from now, in my sleep, after having wild, steaming sex with McNab—people who worked with me, or knew me, think half as much of me as the people who worked with or knew Abner think of him.”

  “At least one person didn’t share those feelings.”

  Eve polished off her half in three careless bites as she drove toward the morgue.

  “None of the people we talked to along his route, none of the people the uniforms talked to in the canvass remember seeing anyone around the residence who didn’t belong in the neighborhood—or at least no one who seemed off or made repeated visits.”

  “And nobody recognized the ID shots you showed them of Ponti or the parents Abner reported.”

  “They’re still our best bets at the moment.”

  “We’ve got a doctor, and I lean there right now because it seems like a doctor would know more about poisons, and might be able to access something like this.”

  “Whatever this is,” Eve muttered, “but that’s a point.”

  “We have a city maintenance worker who figured he would knock his wife and kid around when he felt like it.” Another tiny bite for Peabody. “Somebody in a uniform—people don’t look twice.”

  “Another point. And we’ve got a junior executive who from his ID shot would blend right into the neighborhood. That one didn’t do time—good lawyers—but he had to go through six months’ mandatory counseling, the mother of the kid sued for full custody and limited, supervised visitations, and got it. That could piss you off.”

  Peabody took another tiny bite of turnover. “Five years ago, though, a long time to stew about it. And the last one’s longer ago yet, fifteen years.”

  “And he spent two of those years in a cage. We talk to all of them.”

  But for now, she wanted to hear what Morris could tell her, and what the dead had told Morris.

  Peabody managed to finish her turnover before they started down the white tunnel. Eve caught the scent of something stronger, deeper than the usual mix of industrial cleaner, disinfectant, and death.

  And found the doors to Morris’s theater locked with a RESTRICTED sign posted.

  She pressed the buzzer, felt a hard knock of relief when she saw Morris through the porthole glass, heard the locks release.

  “Your timing’s impeccable,” he told them. “I’ve just now cleared the room and the body.�
�

  His voice came tinny through the breathing apparatus on his full hazmat suit, but he gestured them in.

  “Give me a minute to lose the gear.”

  “How long have you been at it?”

  “We needed to close the body off—protocol—before we opened him. And keep him in a controlled area during the autopsy. I was able to start on him last evening.”

  Morris removed the headgear, placed it in a tub. “There were several tests to run—protocol again—before I could take a look inside.”

  As he stripped off the rest, Eve noted rather than one of his excellent suits, he wore a T-shirt, sweatpants. He’d drawn his long, dark hair back in a tail.

  “You’ve been here all night.”

  “Controlled area,” he repeated. “I keep clothes on hand for such events. Protocol also requires a two-hour break for sleep. A slab’s comfortable enough with a gel mattress.”

  He smiled at them, but his eyes looked tired.

  “I’ll be glad for a shower, some decent coffee, some breakfast.”

  “Peabody.”

  “On it.”

  “Oh, don’t bother with that,” Morris began, but Peabody was already out the door. “Well, I appreciate it.”

  “I’ve had plenty of all-nighters, but didn’t grab a nap on a slab.”

  “It is my home away from home, after all.”

  Now Eve walked to the body—closed now with Morris’s long, precise stitches. “What can you tell me?”

  “The lab will tell you more, but the good doctor suffered a painful death—quick and painful—via a toxin I’m unable to confidently identify. There’s no evidence he ingested it, or that it entered his bloodstream through injection or through touch. He inhaled it—it was airborne. And that, of course, added time to the control protocol.”

  Morris gestured to a counter where sealed, labeled containers held various internal pieces of Kent Abner.

  “I believe you have a nerve agent. His nervous system was destroyed, as were his lungs, his kidneys, his liver, his intestines. He suffered a massive stroke, internal burns as well as the burns on both thumbs. His esophagus was scorched from the inside.

  “He might have had seconds, ten, fifteen, of awareness, and as he was a medical doctor may have realized he’d been exposed to a toxin. But he wouldn’t have had time to do anything but die. Minutes of agony—three or four, I’d say, given his height and weight. Perhaps five, as his muscle tone indicated superior fitness, but his internal organs were so compromised I can’t tell you if they were healthy prior to the exposure.”

  “I’d say they were, from the evidence we have. He worked out regularly, was a runner. You said you can’t confidently ID the poison. You’ve got a guess, an opinion.”

  “We want an expert on toxins and biologicals here, Dallas.”

  “And we have them. I’d like your take first.”

  He sighed. “I would have said sarin—which is extremely worrying. But my equipment and my observations don’t give that a hundred percent. He was exposed in a closed home—doors, windows.”

  “It was hours before he was found.”

  “Even with that, there should have been trace—enough to set off the special team’s alarms. And on the body itself. You, though sealed, handled the body, as did his unsealed spouse. But neither of you showed any sign of contamination.

  “A sarin derivative, maybe. Though there’s a possibility of sulfur trioxide. His eyes, his skin, the burns there.” Morris shook his head. “The best I can conclude is a combination of agents and poisons, somehow released in vapor form, causing death within minutes, and clearing within hours—or less.”

  “Somebody would have to know what they were doing, how to handle deadly toxins.” Eve walked around the body. “To know how to keep it contained, to set it up to release when and how they wanted. Somebody who works with hazardous materials, handles poisons. A medical who knows how they work, a researcher, a chemist, lab rat, military.”

  “It’s doubtful your average Joe or Jane would know how to access or create something like this, and know how to disburse it without exposing themselves—or others. A package through a delivery service, for God’s sake. If it had leaked … I believe this was a small amount, and still, I would say it would have killed any living thing within twenty or thirty feet. And not yet knowing how long it would take to clear the air? Hundreds could have been exposed.”

  “He didn’t want hundreds,” Eve murmured. “Just Kent Abner.”

  Peabody came in carrying a surgical tray. On it coffee steamed beside a plate of bacon, eggs, hash browns.

  “Food, too?”

  “You said breakfast.”

  “This is … That’s real bacon. Those are actual eggs. Food fit for gods.”

  “God of the dead.” Pleased to help out, Peabody beamed at him. “Where do you want it?”

  “Oh, just on the counter there.”

  When she spotted the jars, blanched, Morris actually chuckled. “I’ll take it, and I can’t thank you both enough. I’ll be checking with the lab. I very much want to know what we’re dealing with.”

  “We’re heading there now. I’ll make sure they send you a report.”

  Nodding, he took a stool at the counter, laid the tray down. “Find this one quickly, my treasures. He may not be one and done.”

  As they walked out, Eve saw him spread the napkin Peabody had provided on his lap, and prepare to have some breakfast with the dead.

  Home away from home, she thought.

  5

  After Eve filled in Peabody on Morris’s opinion, her partner remained silent for several moments.

  “I did okay in chemistry,” Peabody began. “I wasn’t like a whiz or anything, but I know what sarin is, and Jesus, Dallas.”

  “He didn’t think straight sarin, which doesn’t make sense. If you have it, why wouldn’t you use it straight? Look up the other one he said. The sulfur trioxide.”

  “Sarin’s banned—I know that, too. It can’t be a snap to … Okay, sulfur trioxide’s pretty damn bad, too. It can be colorless, can be liquid or solid—like crystalline. The fumes are toxic—he said fumes for Abner.”

  “Fumes, vapor—airborne.”

  “It’s bad stuff, too. I’m sorry, but I don’t understand a lot of the technical stuff, the chemistry stuff, but without medical intervention asap—and even with, if it’s direct exposure—you’re going to die pretty quick. You’ve maybe got a little more time than with sarin.”

  “It’s not terrorism,” Eve said as they started into the lab. “Not in the traditional sense. At least not yet. If Abner was a test case … And that doesn’t make sense. If you’re testing it out, why go for a single person, someone alone in a house? Why not go for an office, a store, a public place? Get some impact. This was about Abner.”

  She spotted Berenski at his counter, his egg-shaped head bobbing as he used those spider fingers to stuff a doughnut in his mouth.

  Son of a bitch!

  She stalked over, resisted knocking him off his stool. “Sorry to interrupt all your hard work.”

  He swiveled around. “Kiss my ass. I’ve been here all night, got a couple hours down in my office. And I’m not the only one pulling all night on this.”

  She saw it clearly now that he faced her. The bloodshot eyes, the dark circles under them. And the strain.

  Dickhead, he might be, but at the moment, he was all in on the job.

  “Peabody, how about getting Berenski some coffee to go with the doughnut?”

  “Yours?” He perked up. “The real? Make it two large. We think we’ve got it. I want to call Siler out. He’s catching a couple z’s, but he should talk this through. He’s the expert on this around here.”

  Eve held up two fingers, then turned back to Berenski. “You start.”

  “We’ll start with the egg.”

  “What egg?”

  He swiveled again, brought up an image on-screen. Split-screened it. “You see there’s the container—t
he egg. We put it together from the pieces on the floor of the crime scene. The other’s what we’ve determined it looked like before it broke. You got a golden egg. Looks like cheap plastic, right? A piece of crap.”

  “Okay.”

  “And it is, except the inside of the piece of crap’s been coated with a sealant, lead based.”

  “To beat a standard scan.”

  “Sure. And there’s a seal—thin, airtight—around the edges. This here held the agent.”

  “Sealed in, airtight.”

  “Took awhile even with the comps to put it all together. Then we needed to identify the seal, the inside sealant. And see, it’s got the hook-and-eye lock on it, the back hinge? Simple—probably came that way. But the seal, that was added on. You unhook it, and you’d need to give it a little tug. Nothing muscular, right, but a good tug to break the seal. And when you did?

  “That’s the end of that.”

  “Morris said airborne.”

  “Yeah, it hit the air when the seal broke, and the air—the oxygen triggered the agent. Inside the seal, it’s inert, get it?”

  “So why wasn’t whoever put it in there, then sealed it up, on Morris’s slab?”

  “Wait for Siler. Who was the DB?”

  “A pediatrician.”

  “Shit. That doesn’t make sense, and I lose twenty. I figured military. Siler went with CIA. Hey, I didn’t lose twenty. Nobody put in on a kid doctor. Siler.” He crooked one of those long fingers at a small man—maybe five-six—working his way through the labyrinth of the lab.

  His white lab coat flapped around a pair of checked pants, a T-shirt that read SCIENCE RULES ALL. He had bright red hair that had never been found in nature springing out in every direction, a hooked nose, dark, sleepy eyes.

  “Dallas,” Berenski said by way of introduction. “Abdul Siler.”

  “Yo. CIA hit, right?”

  Eve said, “No.”

  “Damn. I could’ve used the twenty.”

  “You’re getting coffee that’s worth more,” Berenski told him. “Here comes Peabody with the black gold. Siler,” he added, and took the coffees from Peabody.