The In Death Collection, Books 21-25

by J. D. Robb

  She stepped back to the doorway to see it in her head. Reo was sitting up now, her head in her hands. Peabody stood by, smirking.

  “The sweep, Detective.”

  “Yes, sir. Simply making certain the civilian is all right.”

  “I’m okay, I’m okay. Just a little shaken up.” She waved a hand in Peabody’s direction. “Go ahead. I’ve never seen a body before,” she said to Eve. “Images, photographs. But I’ve never walked in on a real one. It just took me by surprise.”

  “Go downstairs, wait for Crime Scene.”

  “I will, in a minute. I heard you say he’d only been dead a couple hours.” Her eyes were still a little glassy, but they met Eve’s straight on. “I couldn’t get the warrant any faster. I did damn handsprings to get it at all. I couldn’t move it faster.”

  “I’m not blaming you.”

  Reo leaned her head back against the wall. “Maybe not. But it’s hard to convince myself not to. We sure as hell found something, didn’t we? Did you expect this?”

  “No. And it’s hard to convince myself I shouldn’t have. Go downstairs, Reo. I’ve got work here.”

  Reo got to her feet. “I can contact the next of kin.”

  “Do that. Don’t tell her he’s dead. Just tell her we need her back in the city, now. Do another handspring and get her into a police shuttle, and back here within the hour. Keep it under media radar, Reo. This is going to be one hell of a mess soon enough.”

  Eve lifted the thermal pot, sniffed. Coffee. She marked it, the cup, the plate of fruit and cheese for the lab.

  Leaving the body, Eve crossed to the desk and began to check incoming and outgoing transmissions, recent data input or deleted. She bagged all discs, marked the unit itself for EDD transfer.

  “House is empty,” Peabody reported. “Domestic droids—three in full—were all deactivated. All doors and windows were fully secured. No sign of tampering. McNab told me that the current security disc—which, in order from the previous, would have run since nine hundred hours this morning—is missing two hours.”

  Eve glanced back, frowned. “Two hours.”

  “Affirmative. There’s no record through the system of entry or exit of the premises during that time. The disc stops at eighteen-thirty, and picks up again at twenty hundred and forty-two hours. It clearly shows us approaching, being verified, and admitted at twenty-one sixteen.”

  Minutes, Eve thought. Missed her by minutes. She gestured toward the desk ’link. “He had that on privacy mode. Set it at seventeen hundred. No transmissions in the holding area. Let’s check the other ’links.”

  They headed down while the sweepers headed up.

  “Icove’s wife is being picked up now. She’ll be here in about twenty minutes,” Reo told them. “ME’s on his way now. I got you Morris.”

  “Then you got me good. I need to check with my e-man. You can hold here, or go.”

  “Go?” Reo let out a short laugh. “Screw that. I’ve never been in on a homicide from the get. They’re going to want to pull this out from under me when you close it down. I need ammo, to stay at the table. I’m here.”

  “Fine. Where’s the security room?” she asked Peabody.

  “Utility and security space, off the kitchen. Rear of the house.”

  “Start checking the ’links for transmissions. Bag any discs for review. Let’s tag all the units. Wife’s, kids’, domestics’.” She looked back at Reo. “Did you speak with the wife, personally?”

  “Yes. At the connection the household droid gave me. Hamptons.”

  “Okay.” Eve nodded, walked off to find McNab.

  He may have looked like a victim of Fashion Trends R Us, but McNab could romance electronics. He sat, a skinny tube of neon, flipping through screens on a console and muttering commands into a handheld.

  “What are you doing? What’s the deal?”

  He spared Eve the briefest glance, and shoved his long, loose golden hair out of his face. “You really want to know?”

  “Bottom line it. In English.”

  “Checking the system for jams, glitches, bypasses. You got a top-line here. Multisource, full scan, motion, voice, and visual detection. Entry through code and voice print. All I got on me is my PPC, but it’s prime. I’m not finding any holes.”

  “So how’d they get through?”

  “That’s the question.” He swiveled on the stool, away from the security console, scratched the side of his jaw. “We’ll take a closer look in-house, but it’s looking like they came through on green.”

  “Meaning someone let them in, or they cleared security.”

  “I took a look at the door unit, and there’s no sign of tampering. Mostly it’s going to show. Mostly. We’ll take a closer at that, too, and other entries, but if you want my own site, yeah. Bad guy waltzed through. Either cleared through or was aided by an inside source. Maybe the dead guy let him in.”

  “Then went upstairs, locked his office door, and stretched out on the couch and waited for a knife in the heart?”

  He puffed out his cheeks, blew out air. Patting his pockets, he came up with a silver ring, then threaded his hair through it forming a tail. “Okay, maybe not. Anyway, whoever it was took the discs for the time frame he’d show on camera. Slid them right out. No sign of search or fumbling around in here. And I had to use my master to open the door. Locked up behind himself, nice and neat.”

  Eve studied the security room. It was about the size of her office at Central, and a hell of a lot slicker. A series of screens relayed images of various rooms and entryways. McNab had left them live, and she could see sweepers in their protective suits working the scene, Reo on the main level talking on her ’link, Peabody doing the tags on a data and communication center in the kitchen.

  She stood another moment, watching the screens. “Okay,” she said, then watched Morris come through the front door. He had a brief consult with Reo, who then directed him up the stairs.

  “Okay,” she said again, and left McNab to his e-work.

  The domestic droid was standing in the kitchen on wait mode. Eve engaged it.

  “Did Dr. Icove have any visitors after his wife left the house today.”

  “No, Lieutenant.”

  “Did Dr. Icove leave the house at any time after he returned from work today?”

  “No, Lieutenant.”

  One thing about droids, Eve thought, they kept to the point. “Who set the evening security? Who ordered the lockdown for the night?”

  “Dr. Icove locked down personally at seventeen-thirty, just prior to deactivating me for the night.”

  “And the other droids?”

  “Both deactivated before me. I was the last. Set on sleep mode at seventeen thirty-five, with do-not-disturb command.”

  “What did he have for dinner?”

  “I was not asked to serve an evening meal. I served soup—chicken and rice—at thirteen-fifteen. However, Dr. Icove only consumed a small portion of the serving, along with a cup of ginseng tea and three wheat crackers.”

  “Did he eat alone?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  “What time did his wife leave?”

  “Mrs. Icove and the children left the house at twelve-thirty. Mrs. Icove gave instructions for me to serve Dr. Icove soup and tea. She expressed concern that he wasn’t eating properly and would make himself ill.”

  “Did they have a conversation?”

  “Conversations between family members and guests are private.”

  “This is a murder investigation. Your privacy functions are overridden. Did they have a conversation?”

  The droid looked as uncomfortable as a droid could manage. “Mrs. Icove expressed the desire that Dr. Icove accompany them, or that he allow her to send the children with the nanny droid so that she could remain with him. Dr. Icove insisted that she go with the children, and told her he’d join them in a day or so. He communicated his desire to be private.”

  “Nothing else.”

  �
��They embraced. He embraced the children. He wished them a good trip. I prepared and served him the meal Mrs. Icove had ordered for him. Shortly thereafter, he left for the Center, informing me he would return by five, which he did.”

  “Alone.”

  “Yes, he returned alone, at which time he began deactivation of the domestics and lockdown.”

  “Did you serve fruit and cheese this evening?”

  “No, Lieutenant.”

  “All right. That’s all for now.”

  Upstairs, Morris was finishing his on-site. He wore a clear gown over a shimmery deep purple shirt and narrow black pants. His hair was pulled back in three stacked tails, perfectly aligned.

  “Did you dude up just for me?” Eve asked him.

  “Late date, with serious heat potential.” He straightened. “But I’ll get him started for you. What you got here is like father, like son. Same method, same weapon type, same cause of demise.”

  “Got it lying there.”

  “Yep.” Morris leaned over the body. “Killer at this angle, and round about this distance. Up close and personal.”

  “Need a tox screen.”

  “Yeah.” He straightened again, glanced at the tray. “None of that looks touched. Waste. That’s some good-looking fruit.”

  “Domestic droid reports he ate a little chicken and rice soup, a couple of crackers, and tea about thirteen hundred. He shut the droids down just after seventeen hundred. None of them served this tray of stuff.”

  “So he got it himself. Or the killer brought it to him.”

  “Maybe it’s tranq’d, maybe not. Either way, the guy just lies there and takes a knife in the heart.”

  “Knew his killer.”

  “Knew, and trusted. Comfortable enough to stretch out. Maybe he let the killer in himself, and was lured up here. But I don’t see it.” She shook her head. “Why bother bringing the vic upstairs, putting food on a tray? Why not just stick him downstairs, save the trouble? Maybe you want a conversation first, but hell, you can have that downstairs, too. Door’s locked. Inside lock.”

  “Ah, a locked-door mystery. And you our Poirot—minus the mustache and accent.”

  She knew who Poirot was because she’d dug into some Agatha Christies after viewing Witness for the Prosecution—and the murder that had gone along with it.

  “Not so mysterious,” Eve corrected. “Killer knows the codes. Just does the job, sets the codes from inside, shuts the door, and walks away. Takes the security discs for the time elapsed. Even resets the security.”

  “Knew his way around the place.”

  “Her. I’m betting her. And she had to. You get him in, I need a close check for any other wounds, any pricks, pressure marks, anything. But I don’t think you’ll find them. Or the tranq. Like father, like son,” she repeated. “Yeah, just like.”

  9

  EVE TOOK TIME TO CONTACT ROARKE.

  “Got into Icove’s place, found him dead. Gonna be late.”

  “There’s a pithy report, Lieutenant. Dead how?”

  “Same as his father.” She walked outside as she spoke, the better to keep an eye out for the new widow. “Wife and kids went to their weekend place earlier today. He was home alone, house locked up tight, domestics deactivated. And he’s taking a little lie-down on his office sofa. With a scalpel in his heart. Room’s locked, and there’s a tray of healthy snacks on the table.”

  “Interesting,” Roarke replied.

  “Yeah. More interesting that EDD, at this point, hasn’t found any holes or tampering in security, and the disc for the murder time is missing. Security was fully activated on our arrival, and in full DND mode as the domestic reports the doctor himself set it this evening. The killer entered approximately ninety minutes thereafter. This is slick business.”

  “Are you back to considering a professional?”

  “All the earmarks, none of the vibes. Anyway. See you later.”

  “Anything I can do from here?”

  “Find me the money,” she said and ended transmission as she watched a sedan draw up behind one of the black-and-whites.

  She walked down to meet Avril Icove herself.

  Avril was dressed in dove gray, pants and sweater, with a dark red coat thrown stylishly over her shoulders. Soft, heeled boots matched the coat.

  She leaped out of the car before her driver could make his way around to open her door. “What’s happened? What’s wrong? Will!”

  Eve blocked her path, and with a hand on the woman’s arm, felt the vibration of her body. “Mrs. Icove, I need you to come with me.”

  “What is it? What is it?” There was a jump in her voice, and her eyes stayed trained on the door of her home. “Was there an accident?”

  “We’re going to go inside and sit down.”

  “They called, they called and said I needed to come home right away. No one would tell me why. I tried to call Will, but he doesn’t answer. Is he here?”

  There were plenty of gawkers gathered behind the police barricades. Eve merely nudged them aside and steered Avril toward the house. “You left this afternoon.”

  “Yes, yes, with the children. Will wanted me and the children away from . . . everything. And he wanted some time alone. I didn’t like to leave him. Where is he? Is he hurt?”

  Eve got her inside, drew her away from the steps and into the living area. “Sit down, Mrs. Icove.”

  “I need to speak with Will.”

  Eve kept her gaze level. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Icove. Your husband’s dead. He was killed.”

  Avril’s mouth moved, but no sound came out as she lowered to a chair. Her hands fluttered once, then locked together in her lap. “Will.” Tears shimmered, turning her eyes to liquid amethyst. “An accident.”

  “He was murdered.”

  “How can that be? But how can that be?” The tears slid down her cheeks now, slowly. “We were only . . . he was going to join us tomorrow. He only wanted some quiet.”

  Eve sat. “Mrs. Icove, I’d like to record this, for my report. Do you object?”

  “No. No.”

  Eve switched on her recorder, fed the salient data into the record. “Mrs. Icove, I’m going to need to verify your whereabouts from five-thirty this afternoon to nine this evening.”

  “What?”

  “For the record, Mrs. Icove. Can you verify your whereabouts during that time frame?”

  “I took the children. I took the children to our house. The Hamptons.” She reached up absently, brushed the coat from her shoulders. It looked like a pool of blood against the quiet colors of the room. “We left . . . we left just after noon.”

  “How did you travel?”

  “Shuttle. Our personal shuttle. I took them for a walk on the beach. We’d hoped to have a picnic, but it was chilly. We had a swim in the indoor pool, and some lunch. Lissy, our little girl, she loves the water. We went into town and had ice cream, and saw our neighbors up there. They came over. Don and Hester. They came over for drinks.”

  “What time was that?”

  Her eyes had gone empty during the recital. She blinked now, like a woman coming out of a dream. “Excuse me?”

  “What time did your neighbors come over?”

  “At six, I think. At around six or a little before, and they stayed, they stayed for dinner. I wanted the company. Will likes to be alone when he’s stressed or upset, but I like company. We had dinner, about seven, and the kids went to bed at nine. We played cards. Three-handed bridge. Don and Hester and myself. Then they called—the woman, I can’t remember her name. She called and said I needed to come home. Hester stayed with the children for me. My children.”

  “What was your husband stressed about?”

  “His father. His father was murdered. Oh God.” Her arms crossed over her belly. “Oh God.”

  “Did your husband feel endangered? Threatened? Do you know if anyone made threats?”

  “No. No. He was grieving. His father. Of course, he was grieving and upset.” Avril cupped
her elbows, rubbed her hands there as if chilled. “And he felt . . . I’m sorry, but he felt you weren’t doing a very good job. He was angry because he felt you were somehow trying to compromise his father’s reputation.”

  “How was I doing that?”

  “I can’t say. I don’t know. He was upset and wanted time alone.”

  “What do you know about his work?”

  “His work? He’s a surgeon, a very skilled and important surgeon. The facilities at the Center are among the finest in the world.”

  “Did he discuss his work with you? Most specifically his private project and research?”

  “A man with such a high-powered and demanding profession doesn’t like to bring that work home night after night. He needs a sanctuary.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  “What do you know about projects your husband and father-in-law kept off the books, so to speak?”

  There were still tears but they were just glimmering now, blurring the eyes, the voice. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I’m interested in a long-term private project, one your husband and your father-in-law have been pursuing, actively. One that would require extensive facilities—in or outside the center. One that involves treatment of young women.”

  Two tears spilled over, and for a moment, just an instant, those lavender eyes were clear. Something was in them, something sharp and cool. Then it was gone, wavering behind another shimmer of tears.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about it. I wasn’t involved in Will’s work. Are you saying you think his work is somehow responsible for his death?”

  Eve changed tacks. “Who has the security code for this house?”

  “Ah . . . Will and myself, of course. His father—his father did. The domestics.”