Leverage in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel (In Death #47)(30)

“You need to keep me updated. There are memorials I won’t be able to attend. I need to know what’s happening.”

“We’ll keep you informed.” Eve glanced at Anson. “Why don’t we step out?”

“Let me get you some fresh water,” Peabody offered.

“Thanks. I don’t suppose you could talk Jeannie into some coffee? I’d settle for tea, even the herbal crap, but something that’s not flat water?”

“Let me see what I can do.”

Eve stepped out with Anson. He angled himself out of view of Karson’s bed, pressed his fingers to his eyes. “Anything I can do to help. I thought she was dead. I couldn’t do anything. My friend, one of my closest friends is dead. I watched it happen, and I couldn’t do anything.”

“How long have you been Karson’s admin?”

“Three and a half years. I was her admin’s assistant, and when Marcia retired, I took the position.”

“You knew about the merger from the outset?”

“Yes.”

“How did you feel about it?”

“Willi—Ms. Karson’s got the smartest business brain I know. And she cares, genuinely cares about not just the company but the people who work for her. It’s what makes Econo such a good fit with Quantum. Mr. Pearson had the same qualities, at least from my point of view.”

“Anybody think differently?”

“There were a few doubters, some dissents, but as the deal took shape, that faded off. I don’t understand any of this. I don’t know anyone who would have done this. And anyone, absolutely anyone who works for, who knows Willi, would know she’d push through it. No way she’d let the deal fall apart.

“I don’t like leaving her alone for too long.”

“Just another minute. As her admin, you’d see her correspondence, set up her appointments. Did anything strike you as threatening, even subtly?”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“On a personal level? Someone who might want to harm her?”

“She has an ex, a jerk, but there’s no way. Honestly, just no way. They’re not friendly, but I’d know if he’d ever been violent. He’s more of an opportunistic asshole.”

“Name.”

“Crap, crap. Okay. Jordan Banks. Trust-fund type, swanks around, pretends to work in the art world, but mostly swanks.”

“Don’t like him much?”

“At all, but he wouldn’t do this.”

“How about you—do you have a more personal relationship with Ms. Karson?”

“Sure I—Oh, it’s not like that. I mean to say, I love her—but not like that. I have a girl, a sort of fiancée. Well, I haven’t asked her yet, but I’m going to. Going through this wakes you up. But I love Willi—just not romantically. That would be . . . just off. I work for her, and she’s, well, older.”

Eve saw Peabody go back into Karson’s room with a go-cup, wound things up.

“If you think of anything else—”

“I hope I do. My brain feels upside down right now, so I hope I do. My best friend, Lieutenant, blown apart right in front of me. We went to the Knick’s game last night, and now he’s . . . I can’t get it out of my head.”

Eve let him go, joined up with Peabody.

“It sure seemed like righteously pissed to me,” Peabody commented.

“Yeah, it rings, for both of them. She has an ex. Jordan Banks. The admin doesn’t like him—doesn’t see him in this, but doesn’t like him. Let’s run him. And we’ll see if the guard nurse can give us more names and locations in this place for the other injured.”

“She stopped scowling when I asked for coffee or tea for Karson. It was herbal tea, but she stopped scowling.”

“Then you take point,” Eve said.





7

They made the rounds at the hospital, but pulled no new information.

“We’ll need statements from the rest of the wits, injured and not,” Eve said as they started back down to their vehicle. “But it’s unlikely any break’s going to come from there.”

“I can’t see anybody in that room being complicit, at least not knowingly.”

“We work on unknowingly. Connections, however negligible, to someone who fits the profile. A little careless chatter might have sparked something.”

“People brag,” Peabody agreed. “Wow, we got a big deal in the works. Or they complain. I’m whipped with all this extra work.”

“Or a spouse or lover complains to a friend because of the overtime. Add in companies of this size, some are bound to be terminated—or opt to leave. We look there. And since there’s no indicator Rogan had a sidepiece for sexing out info, we’ll take a look at Karson’s ex.”

As they got in the car, Peabody pulled up the data she’d already run on her PPC.

“Jordan Lionel Banks, age forty-six, Caucasian, one marriage at age thirty-three, one divorce at age thirty-four.”

“Hardly really counts,” Eve commented.

“Ten months from ‘I do’ to ‘Get out.’ No offspring. Ex-wife, Letitia Alison Argyle, an heiress to the Argyle Communications empire, based primarily in Great Britain. Remarried, three years in. She’s thirty-five, so some younger than Banks. Currently expecting her second child. Anyway.”