"So why go downstairs, order a snack, haul it up. You want a snack, use the office AutoChef."
"Lee-Lee Ten," Peabody reminded her. "Maybe it's like that. Maybe he likes to putter in the kitchen when he's got something on his mind."
"He's no kitchen putterer. She might be, Avril, but not him. Not Dr. Will."
"He could've been downstairs, decided to go up. Ordered it to take up with him. Gets up there, decides, I'm not hungry right now, stretches out, falls asleep. Wife's handsome yet sleazy lover slips into the house, goes up, goes in, shoves the scalpel into his heart, takes the disc, resets security, and walks away."
Eve made a noncommittal sound. "We'll talk to friends and neighbors and associates, check her personal finances again, go through her routines."
"But you don't like my handsome-yet-sleazy-lover angle."
"I don't discount the handsome yet sleazy lover. But if so, they moved damn fast to have it this smooth. I'm betting this was planned as carefully, and as much in advance, as the old doc's. Same people, same motive behind both."
"Maybe Dolores is her handsome yet sleazy lover."
"Maybe. In any case, we look at Avril, and find the link."
Eve pushed open her door. "Take the vehicle. Come back at seven hundred. We'll put in a couple hours here before we go into Central."
Peabody checked her wrist unit. "Wow! Looks like I may get five hours' sleep."
"You want sleep? Sell shoes."
Eve wasn't surprised to find Summerset, still fully dressed, in the foyer. "Icove's son's now as dead as he is." She peeled off her coat, tossed it over the newel post. "You really want to help, turn up the soft glow of memory light and look back hard. He was into something."
"Must everyone you see carry stains?"
She glanced back as she walked upstairs. "Yeah. If you want to fine out who killed him more than you want to canonize him, you'll look for them, too."
She kept going up, and straight into her office. Roarke came through the adjoining door.
"If I came home and a cop met me at the door," she began, "and told me you'd been murdered, what do you figure I'd do?"
"Fall into a pit of despair from which you would drown for the rest of your sad, empty life."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get serious."
"I rather liked that one." He leaned on the doorjamb. "First, I imagine you would kick the unfortunate messenger-and anyone else stupid enough to get in your path-out of your way. To see for yourself. I would hope you'd weep an ocean of hot and bitter tears over my body Then you'd find out everything that could be found out and hunt my killer down like a rabid dog to the ends of the earth."
"Okay." She sat on the edge of her desk and studied him. "What if I didn't love you anymore?"
"Then my life would no longer be worth living, and I'd have probably self-terminated or simply died of a broken, battered heart."
She had to grin at him, then sobered and shook her head. "She didn’t love him. The widow. She put on a dignified show, but she didn't have all the lines, and she didn't- What's it when actors . . ." She threw out her arms, put a horrified expression on her face, slapped her arm-crossways over her chest.
"Miming? Please don't do that again. It's rather frightening."
"Not miming. People should be allowed-no, they should be required to chase mimes down the street with bats. Emote, that's the word. Avril didn't emote believably. See there was a tone when she talked about him, and another when she talked about her kids. She loves the kids. She didn't love their father, or not anymore. Not through and through. Peabody figures she had some side action."
"Seems reasonable. You don't?"
"When do I have time for side action when you're nailing me every chance you get?"
He reached out, gave her hair a quick tug. "Quick tonight, aren't you?"
"Must be the buzz, because I've got one going on this. Maybe she had a side dish. And maybe she's that smart and that quick and calculating. Duplicating her father-in-law's murder to muddy the waters. But I'm thinking it is what it looks like. Connected murders by or on behalf of the same parties. And she's in it."
"Why? Money, sex, fear, power, rage, jealousy, revenge. Aren't those the headliners?"