Leverage in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel (In Death #47)(45)

“Lieutenant Dallas,” Eve began as she held up her badge for scanning, “Detective Peabody, NYPSD. We’re expected.”

One moment please.

The thin red line of the scanner swept over Eve’s badge, turned green.

Your credentials are verified, Lieutenant. The family is being notified of your arrival. Please wait.

It took under a minute for a woman in black to open the door on the right. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, please come in.”

She stepped back, a woman of about fifty with a smooth bob of dark hair. Dark eyes, red rimmed from weeping, held steady.

“May I take your coats?”

“We’re good.”

“If you’ll follow me.” She led the way, in sensible shoes, over floors of burnished gold, across a thick rug patterned in faded reds and blues. Centered on it stood a large round table, and centered on that a towering red vase of white flowers rose toward the lofty ceiling.

The woman turned to a deep arch off the wide foyer and into a room large enough to hold three conversation areas. She chose one near the fireplace where flames simmered inside a frame of black-and-gray-threaded white marble.

“If you’d care to sit, the family will join you shortly.”

“How long have your worked for the Pearsons, Ms. . . .”

“Mrs. Stuben. Thirty-three years. If you’ll excuse me, I need to check on the coffee and tea service.”

She started out, reaching the archway as a man stepped to it. Fully a foot taller, he put his hands on her shoulders, folded himself down to kiss the top of her head. He whispered something to her that had her lifting a hand to squeeze his before hurrying away.

He entered on wide strides. The black sweater and trousers added to the look of a walking stovepipe. His face, as gawky as the rest of him, carried the drawn, exhausted look of a man who hadn’t slept.

“Lieutenant, Detective. I’m Drew Pearson. The rest of the family will be just a few minutes. Please sit.”

“We’re sorry for you loss, Mr. Pearson, and know this is a difficult time for you and your family.”

“We’re shattered. People say that—like they’re glass, I used to think. Now I know what it means.”

He sat, a kind of folding again, in a chair done in an elegant blue with a print of scattered roses.

“More than anything, we need to know who, and why. We have to get through today, tomorrow, and the rest, but how do we do that without knowing who or why? My father . . . It won’t change that, but how do we get through unless we know?”

“The NYPSD will use all of its resources to find out. You were in London.”

“Yes. I’m based there. Or was.”

“But the negotiations, the presentation yesterday and the actual deal took place in New York.”

“Yes. I did a lot of shuttling back and forth the last several months, but we also worked by ’link and holo.”

“You were in favor of the merger.”

“I brought the idea to the table, and put out the initial feelers. And I’ve been asking myself for the last twenty-four horrible hours if bringing this to my father, helping to make the deal a reality, cost him his life.”

“No. The people who made the bomb and forced Paul Rogan to detonate it cost your father and eleven others their lives.”

“Are you absolutely sure Paul didn’t—wasn’t involved?”

“Yes. You knew him?”

“Very well. I couldn’t believe . . . then didn’t want to believe.” He pinched the bridge of his nose before gripping his hands tight together in his lap. “Cecily and Melly—his wife and daughter—are they all right?”

“They will be.”

“We haven’t—just haven’t been able to reach out to them. My mother—”

He broke off, rose as three women in black came into the room arms or hands linked, so they presented a solid wall.

“Mom.” He walked to the women, took the woman in the center by the hand, then slid an arm around her and led her over. “This is Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody. My mother, Rozilyn Pearson.”

“Mrs. Pearson, thank you for seeing us. We’re very sorry for your loss.”

Her eyes, glazed from tranqs and red from weeping, slipped over Eve, brushed over Peabody before she sat. “My husband’s dead,” she said in a voice as dull as the day.

The other two women moved in, sat on either side of her. The one on the right took her hand. The daughter, Eve thought. They shared the same delicate bone structure, the same deep brown eyes. Though the daughter’s were shadowed, they weren’t glazed but hard with anger.

“My sister, Liana, my wife, Sybil.” Drew looked at his sister. “Brad?”

“As soon as he can. My husband,” Liana told Eve and Peabody. “He’s upstairs with our son, and Drew and Sybil’s children. Noah’s only six, and Drew’s children are so young. Noah and my father were especially close. He’s upset.”

“We’ll try not to take much of your time,” Eve began.

Stuben wheeled in a large tray holding the coffee and tea service.

Sybil rose quickly. “Let me help you, Bessie. You’ll have some tea, Rozilyn.” The educated British accent suited her roses-and-cream looks, the long fall of chestnut hair she’d pulled back in a tail. “Lieutenant?”