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.