Conspiracy in Death (6 page)

"I wasn't asking for gossip," Eve said, rather primly, then caved. "What else?"

"His former wives hate his guts. The last one tried to perform a little impromptu surgery on him with a nail file when she discovered him playing doctor with the model. The AMA's Morals Board wagged their finger at him over it, and did little else."

"Those are the ones I'll look at first," she decided. "What was done to Snooks took arrogance and power as well as skill."

"You're going to run into a lot of walls on this one, Eve. They'll close ranks on you."

"I've got murder one, with body mutilation and organ theft backing it." She dragged her hands through her hair. "When the heat's turned up high enough, people roll over. If one of these slicers knows something, I'll get it out of them."

"If you want a more personal look, we can attend the Drake Center's fundraiser fashion show and dinner dance at the end of the week."

She winced. She'd rather have gone bare-knuckled with a Zeus addict. "Fashion show." She suppressed a shudder. "Whoopee. Yeah, we'll do that, but I should put in for distress pay."

"Leonardo's one of the designers," he told her. "Mavis will be there."

The thought of her free-wheeling, uniquely stylish friend at a stuffy medical fundraiser perked Eve up. "Wait until they get a load of her."

If it hadn't been for the Bowers situation, the following day Eve would have opted to work in her home office on a computer that didn't give her grief. But as a matter of pride, she wanted to be visible at Cop Central when the buzz started.

She spent the morning in court giving testimony on a case she'd closed some months before and arrived at Central just after one. Her first move was to hunt up Peabody. Rather than go straight to her office and put out a call on her communicator, Eve walked through the detective's bullpen.

"Hey, Dallas." Baxter, one of the detectives who most enjoyed razzing, her, sent her a wink and a grin. "Hope you kick her ass."

It was, Eve knew, a show of support. Though it cheered her, she shrugged and kept moving. A few other comments were tossed out from desks and cubicles, all running on the same theme. The first order of business when a finger was pointed at one of their own was to break the finger.

"Dallas." Ian McNab, an up-and-coming detective assigned to the Electronic Detective Division, loitered outside Peabody's cubicle. He was pretty as a picture with his long golden hair braided back, six silver dangles in his left ear, and a cheerful smile on his face. Eve had worked with him on a couple of cases and knew under the pretty-boy exterior and chatterbox mouth hid a quick brain and steady instincts.

"Things slow in EDD, McNab?"

"Never." He flashed his grin. "I just did a search and run for one of your boys here, thought I'd harass Peabody before I headed back to where real cops work."

"Would you get this pimple off my butt, Lieutenant?" Peabody complained, and she did indeed look harassed.

"I haven't touched her butt. Yet." McNab smiled. Irritating Peabody was one of his favorite pastimes. "Thought maybe you could use a little E-work on this problem you've got."

Well able to read between the lines, Eve lifted a brow. He was offering to bypass channels and dig into Bowers. "I'm handling it, thanks. I need Peabody, McNab. Shoo."

"Your call." He glanced back into the cubicle, leered. "Catch you later, She-Body." Even as she hissed at him, he swaggered away, whistling.

"Jerk," was all Peabody could say as she got to her feet. "My reports are filed, Lieutenant. The ME's findings came in an hour ago and are waiting for you."

"Shoot everything pertaining to the current homicide down to Dr. Mira. Her office is squeezing me in on a quick consult. Add this," she said, passing Peabody a disc. "It's a list of the top surgeons in the city. Clean up as much of the paperwork as you can in the next couple of hours. We're going back to the scene."

"Yes, sir. Are you okay?"

"I haven't got time to worry about idiots." Eve turned and headed for her office.

And there she found a message from the idiots in maintenance telling her there was nothing wrong with her equipment. She was reduced to scowling as she engaged her tele-link to contact Feeney in EDD.

His comfortably rumpled face filled her screen and helped her ignore the whiny buzz on audio.

"Dallas, what is this pile of shit? Who the hell is Bowers? And why are you letting her live?"

She had to smile. There was no one more reliable than Feeney. "I don't have time to waste on her. I've got a dead sidewalk sleeper missing his heart."

"Missing his heart?" Feeney's ragged, rust-colored eyebrows shot up. "Why didn't I hear that?"

"Must be slipping," she said easily. "And it's more fun to gossip about cops squaring off against each other than one more dead sleeper. But this one's interesting. Let me give you the rundown."

She told him, in that quick, formal shorthand cops use like a second language. Feeney nodded, pursed his lips, shook his head, grunted. "Life just gets sicker," he said when she'd finished. "What do you need?"

"Can you do a quick like-crimes check for me?"

"City, national, international, interplanetary?"

She tried a winning smile. "All? As much as you can by end of shift?"

His habitually morose face only drooped a bit more. "You never ask for the little things, kid. Yeah, we'll get on it."

"Appreciate it. I'd hit IRCCA myself," she continued, referring to one of Feeney's loves, the International Resource Center on Criminal Activity, "but my equipment's acting up again."

"Wouldn't if you'd treat it with some respect."

"Easy for you to say when EDD gets all the prime stuff. I'm going to be in the field later. If you get any hits, get in touch."

"If there's anything to hit, I'll have it. Later," he said and disconnected.

She took the time to study Morris's final report, found no surprises or new data. So Snooks could go home to Wisconsin, she thought, with the daughter he hadn't seen in thirty years. Was it sadder, she wondered, that he'd chosen to live the last part of his life without anyone, cut off from family, cut off from his past?

Though it hadn't been a matter of choice, she'd done the same. But that break, that amputation from what had been, had made her who she was. Had it done the same for him, in the most pathetic of ways?

Shaking it off, she coaxed her machine -- by ramming it twice with her fist -- to spill out the list of dealers and chemi-heads from the area surrounding the crime scene. And a single name made her smile, thin and sharp.

Good old Ledo, she mused, and sat back in her chair. She had thought the long-time dealer of smoke and Jazz had been a guest of the state. Apparently, he'd been kicked three months before.

It wouldn't be hard to track Ledo down, she decided, and to coax him -- in the same manner she'd used with her equipment if necessary -- to chat.

But Mira came first. Gathering up what she would need for both interviews, Eve started out of her office. She tagged Peabody en route and ordered her aide to meet her in the garage at the vehicle in one hour.

Mira's office might have been a clearinghouse for emotional and mental problems. It might have been a center for the dissemination, examination, and analysis of the criminal mind, but it was always soothing, elegant, and classy.

Eve had never worked out how it could be both. Or how the doctor herself could work day after day with the worst that society spat out and still maintain her calm, unruffled poise.

Eve considered her the only genuine and complete lady she knew.

She was a trim woman with sable-colored hair waving back from a quietly lovely face. She favored slim, softly colored suits and such classic ornamentations as a single strand of pearls.

She wore one today, with discreet pearl drops at her ears, to accessorize a collarless suit in pale pine green. As usual, she gestured Eve to one of her scoop-shaped chairs and ordered tea from her AutoChef.

"How are you, Eve?"

"Okay." Eve always had to remember to change gears when meeting with Mira. The atmosphere, the woman, the attitude didn't allow her to dive straight into business. The little things mattered to Mira. And, over time, Mira had come to matter to Eve. She accepted the tea she would pretend to drink. "Ah, how was your vacation?"

Mira smiled, pleased Eve remembered she'd been away for a few days, and had thought to ask. "It was marvelous. Nothing revitalizes body and soul quite so much as a week at a spa. I was rubbed, scrubbed, polished, and pampered." She laughed and sipped her tea. "You'd have hated every minute of it."

Mira crossed her legs, balancing her delicate cup and saucer one-handed with a casual grace Eve decided some women were simply born with. The feminine floral china always made her feel clumsy.

"Eve, I've heard about this difficulty you're having with one of the uniforms. I'm sorry for it."

"It doesn't amount to anything," Eve said, then breathed a sigh. This was, after all, Mira. "It pissed me off. She's a sloppy cop with an attitude, and now she's put a blotch on my record."

"I know how much that record means to you." Mira leaned forward, touched her hand to Eve's. "You should know that the higher you rise and the more your reputation shines, the more a certain type of person will want to tarnish it. This won't. I can't say much, as it's privileged, but I will tell you that this particular officer has a reputation for frivolous complaints and is not taken seriously in most cases."

Eve's gaze sharpened. "You've tested her?"

Inclining her head, Mira lifted a brow. "I can't comment on that." But she made certain Eve knew the answer was affirmative. "I simply want, as a friend and a colleague, to offer you my complete support. Now..." She sat back again, sipped her tea again. "On to your case."

Eve brooded for a minute before reminding herself that her personal business couldn't interfere with the job. "The killer has to be trained, and highly skilled, in laser surgery and organ removal."

"Yes, I read Dr. Morris's conclusions and agree. This doesn't, however, mean you're looking for a member of the medical community." She held up a finger before Eve could protest. "He could be retired or he could have, as many, many surgeons do, burnt out. Quite obviously he's lost his way, or he would never have violated the most sacred of oaths and taken a life. Whether or not he's licensed and practicing, I can't tell you."

"But you agree that if not now, at one time he was."

"Yes. Undoubtedly, based on your findings at scene and Morris's postmortem, you're looking for someone with specific skills that require years of training and practice."

Considering, Eve angled her head. "And what would you say about the type of person who could coldly and skillfully murder an essentially dying man for an essentially worthless organ, then save the next patient under his care on the table in the operating room?"

"I would say it's a possible type of megalomania. The God complex many doctors possess. And very often need to possess," she added, "in order to have the courage, even the arrogance to cut into the human body."

"Those who do, enjoy it."

"Enjoy?" Mira made a humming sound. "Perhaps. I know you don't care for doctors, but most have a vocation, a great need to heal. In any highly skilled profession there are those who are... brusque," she said. "Those who forget humility." She smiled a little. "It isn't your humility that makes you an excellent cop but your innate belief in your own talent for the job."

"Okay." Accepting that, Eve sat back, nodded.

"However, it's also your compassion that keeps you from forgetting why the job matters. Others in your field and in mine lose that."

"With cops who do, the job becomes routine, with maybe a little power tweaked in," Eve commented. "With doctors, you'd have to add money."

"Money's a motivator," Mira agreed. "But it takes years for a doctor to pay back the financial investment in his education and training. There are other, more immediate compensations. Saving lives is a powerful thing, Eve, having the talent, the skill to do so is for some a kind of burst of light. How can they be like others when they've put their hands into a human body and healed it?"

She paused, sipped contemplatively at her tea. "And for some among that personality type," she continued in her soft, soothing voice, "there can and often is the defense of emotional distance. This is not a human under my scalpel, but a patient, a case."

"Cops do the same."

Mira looked straight into Eve's eyes. "Not all cops. And the ones who don't, who can't, might suffer, but they make much more of a difference. In this investigation, I think we can agree straight off on some basic points. You are not looking for someone with a personal grudge against the victim. He is not driven by rage or violence. He is controlled, purposeful, organized, and detached."

"Wouldn't any surgeon have to be?" Eve asked.

"Yes. He performed an operation, successfully, for his purpose. He cares about his work, demonstrated by the time and effort he took in the operation. Organ removal and transplant is well out of my field, but I am aware that when the donor's life is not a concern, such a procedure doesn't require this kind of meticulous care. The careful incision, the sealing of the wound. He's proud of what he is, very likely past the point of arrogance. He is not afraid of consequences, in my opinion, because he doesn't believe there will be any. He is above that."

"He doesn't fear being caught?"

"No, he doesn't. Or he feels protected in the event his actions are discovered. I would conclude that he is successful -- whether he is now actively practicing or not -- secure, devoted to his task, and very likely enjoys some prominence in his circle."

Mira sipped her tea again, frowned. "I should say they. Your report stated there were two involved. I would think it would be standard practice to bring an anesthesiologist or trained assistant to handle that end of the procedure, or a second surgeon with some knowledge of anesthesia to assist."

"They didn't have to worry about the patient surviving, Eve pointed out. "But I'd think he wouldn't settle for anyone but the best. And it would have to be someone he trusted."