Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(115)

“You think he hid something in here?”

“I think he didn’t just sit in here meditating for a couple hours when he could have gone to his quarters or to his office, or just stayed the hell away for a while longer. According to the all-knowing, all-seeing Quilla, he still spends a lot of time in here.”

Eve rolled her shoulders. “Let’s take it apart.”

22

They took pictures out of frames, pulled covers off cushions, emptied pots of their plants and dirt.

“She said they were still setting up, still installing, still painting.” Eve gave the walls a narrow look. “Maybe he had the same idea as his brother, hid something behind the walls.”

“We’ll need a bigger scanner.”

Odds were low, Eve thought, but . . . “Let’s get one down here. He’s shocked, guilty, living a lie now. Comes in here to think, to pray, meditate, whatever. He’s taken his brother away, put him away, can’t look his sister in the eye. He’s head of the family,” she continued, wandering the room. “He’s done what he believes, or convinced himself to believe, is the right thing. He’s got to shoulder this alone. But that’s not what they do, right?”

“Scanner and a couple of sweepers on the way,” Peabody told her. “What?”

“The shouldering-it-alone thing. That’s not it. It’s the whole trusting the higher power, right?”

“Well . . .”

“There’s no religious stuff in here though. No crosses, Buddhas, pentacles, stars.”

“They’re nondenominational. But they have symbols, the elements.”

“What symbols, what elements?”

“The plants—growing things, earth. The candles for fire. The mural there of clouds, that says air to me. And the—”

“Fountain. The fountain’s water. He found his brother about to drown Lonna. Water.”

The thin, clear sheet of water slid down a two-foot section of the wall over what she assumed was a faux stone veneer. It fell soft and musical into a narrow trench designed to resemble copper gone green with verdigris where it pooled over little white pebbles.

“It’s a pretty one,” Peabody commented. “We always had fountains back home—solar ones—in the gardens. And my dad built this really gorgeous little stone fountain in the solarium. I guess that was our quiet room. It was full of plants and stone benches, floor cushions. Not so different than this, except for the glass walls. We used to—you don’t care.”

“How do you turn this thing off?”

“We were solar run, almost completely, but something like this probably has a master shutoff in their utility space. It probably has a safety switch somewhere though, in case it goes haywire and starts spewing water everywhere.”

Peabody looked up, frowning at the top bar. “It’s a nice design—see, that delivery up there looks like the ceiling molding, blends in, so it gives the illusion the water’s just flowing right out of the wall. But you’d want the safety switch where you could reach it.”

She hunkered down, then began to crawl on all fours around the trough. “I just don’t see . . . wait, here we go. You can barely see this panel.” She opened it, turned the little switch inside.

The run of water slowed, dripped, stopped.

“Huh. Good eye.”

“Peabodys are handy.” And the handy Peabody sat back on her heels. “What this does, is recycles. The water comes down into the pool, then it runs back up through the pipe system behind the wall.”

“It doesn’t drain?”

“You’d drain it if there’s a problem.”

“Twelve dead, missing suspects equals a problem.”

“Right.” Peabody returned to all fours, turned another switch, and with a gurgle, the water level began to drop.

“Peabodys are handy.” Eve knelt down, shoved up her sleeve, and began to push through the layer of pebbles. “We need a bucket or something.”

“I’ll get a bucket or something.”

Eve continued to dig through the draining water, the smooth white stones. Probably nothing here, she thought. He probably just sat in here feeling sorry for himself and asking the universe why his brother turned out to be a homicidal whack job.

But then her fingers hooked on something. When she tugged it free, she held up a dripping pendant on a silver chain.

Half a pendant, she corrected, like half a puzzle piece inscribed with NASH on one side, BROTHERS on the other.

“Look here, Peabody,” she said when she heard the door open. “A clue.”

“Wow, you made a big f**king mess in here.”

“Quilla.” Damn it. “You can’t be in here.”

“I just want to see. How come you made such a big f**king mess? Was that in the fountain? Why would somebody put their unity necklace in the fountain? It’s all wet.”

“Fountains will do that. Unity necklace?”

“Sure. Some of the kids get them with their BFFs. You know, we’re two halves of the same whole, or we fit each other just right, some crap like that. It’s total lametown.”

But even as she said it, Quilla eyed the pendant as if she wanted one.

“Maybe. Do you wear your own name, or the BFF’s?”