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A silver handle protruded from the breast of the jacket, just under a triangle of red that accented the pocket.

The small amount of blood told Eve it had been a very accurate heart shot.

PEABODY.

"I'll go get the field kits, and call it in." "Who found him?" Eve asked Icove.

"Pia. His assistant." He looked, Eve thought, like a man who'd just taken an airjack in the gut. "She ... she contacted me immediately, and I rushed up. I ..."

"Did she touch the body? Did you?"

"I don't know. I mean to say, I don't know if she did. I... I did. I wanted to ... I had to see if there was anything I could do."

"Dr. Icove, I'm going to ask you to sit down over there. I'm very sorry about your father. Right now, I need information. I need to know who was the last person who was in this room with him. I want to know when he had his last appointment."

"Yes, yes. Pia can look it up on his schedule."

"I don't have to." Pia had conquered the tears, but her voice was rusty from them. "It was Dolores Nocho-Alverez. She had an eleven-thirty. I ... I brought her in myself."

"How long was she here?"

"I'm not sure. I went to lunch at noon, as always. She needed the eleven-thirty, and Dr. Icove told me to go ahead to lunch, as usual, and he'd show her out himself."

"She'd have to go out through security."

"Yes." Pia got to her feet. "I can find out when she left. I'll check the logs now. Oh, Dr. Will, I'm so sorry."

"I know. I know."

"Do you know this patient, Dr. Icove?"

"No." He rubbed his fingers over his eyes. "I don't. My father didn't take many patients. He's semiretired. He'd consult when a case inter­ested him, and sometimes assist. He remains chairman of the board of this facility, and is active on several others. But he rarely did surgery, not for the last four years."

"Who wanted to hurt him?"

"No one." Icove turned to Eve. His eyes were swimming, and his voice uneven, but he held on. "Absolutely no one. My father was beloved. His patients, through over five decades, loved him, were grateful to him. The medical and scientific communities respected and honored him. He changed people's lives, Lieutenant. He not only saved them, he improved them."

"Sometimes people have unreal expectations. A person comes to him, wants something impossible, doesn't get it, blames him."

"No. We're very careful with whom we take into this facility. And, to be frank, there was little my father would consider unrealistic in ex­pectations. And he proved, time and again, he could do what others considered impossible."

"Personal problems. Your mother?"

"My mother died when I was a boy. During the Urban Wars. He never remarried. He has had relationships, of course. But he's been, by and large, married to his art, his science, his vision."

"Are you an only child?"

He smiled a little. "Yes. My wife and I gave him two grandchildren. We're a very close family. I don't know how I'm going to tell Avril and the kids. Who would do this to him? Who would kill a man who's de­voted his life to helping others?"

"That's what I'm going to find out."

Pia came back in, a few strides ahead of Peabody. "We have her go­ing through exit security at twelve-nineteen."

"Are there images?"

&n

bsp; "Yes, I've already asked security to send up the discs-I hope that was the right thing," she said to Icove.


Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery