Conspiracy in Death (In Death #8)(19)

She couldn't access his files with a homemade boomer, but he only smiled. "My life's an open book for you, darling." Since it was there, he caught her bottom lip between his teeth and tugged gently. "Would you like to see the video record of my last board meeting?"

She would have told him to bite her, but he already had. "Never mind." She turned around again and tried not to be overly pleased when his arms came cozily around her. Still, she leaned back against him and settled in. "Tia Wo, general surgeon with specialty in organ transplant and repair, private practice, affiliated with Drake, East Side Surgery, and the Nordick Clinic, Chicago."

Eve read the initial data thoughtfully. "Description and visual on-screen. She's six foot," Eve noted, "and hefty. Easy for a brewhead to mistake her for a man in the dark, especially if she was wearing a long coat. What do we know about Dr. Wo?"

Responding to her voice command, the computer began to list details while Eve studied the image of an unsmiling woman of fifty-eight with straight, dark hair; cool, blue eyes; and a sharply pointed chin.

Her education had been excellent, her training superior. And her nearly thirty years as an organ plucker had earned her a dazzling annual salary, which she supplemented by endorsing the products of NewLife Organ Replacement, Inc. A manufacturing firm that, Eve noted with barely a sigh, was owned and operated by Roarke Enterprises.

She'd been twice divorced, once from a man, once from a woman, and had held single status for the last six years. She had no children, no criminal record, and only three malpractice suits pending.

"Do you know her?" Eve asked.

"Hmm. Very slightly. Cold, ambitious, very focused. She's reputed to have the hands of a god and the mind of a machine. As you see, she was president of the American Medical Association five years ago. She is a powerful woman in her field."

"She looks like she'd enjoy cutting people open," Eve murmured.

"So I'd imagine. Why else do it?"

She jerked a shoulder and requested the rest of the names. She studied them in turn: data, faces.

"How many of these people do you know?"

"All of them," Roarke told her. "In a disconnected, social way for the most part. Fortunately, I've never required their professional services."

And his instincts, Eve thought, were as sharp as his health. "Who's the most powerful here?"

"Power, that would be Cagney, Wo, Waverly."

"Michael Waverly," she murmured, calling back his data. "Forty-eight, single, chief of surgery at Drake and current president of the AMA." She studied the elegant face, the intense green eyes, and the golden mane of hair.

"Who's the most arrogant?" she asked Roarke.

"I believe that's a requirement of all surgeons, but if I had to choose degrees, I'd go for Wo again, certainly Waverly, and toss in Hans Vanderhaven -- head of research at Drake, another organ plucker affiliated with the top three health centers in the country, with solid connections abroad. He's about sixty-five and on his forth marriage. Each successive wife goes down a decade in age. This one's a former body sculpting model and barely old enough to vote."

"I wasn't asking for gossip," Eve said, rather primly, then caved. "What else?"

"His former wives hate his guts. The last one tried to perform a little impromptu surgery on him with a nail file when she discovered him playing doctor with the model. The AMA's Morals Board wagged their finger at him over it, and did little else."

"Those are the ones I'll look at first," she decided. "What was done to Snooks took arrogance and power as well as skill."

"You're going to run into a lot of walls on this one, Eve. They'll close ranks on you."

"I've got murder one, with body mutilation and organ theft backing it." She dragged her hands through her hair. "When the heat's turned up high enough, people roll over. If one of these slicers knows something, I'll get it out of them."

"If you want a more personal look, we can attend the Drake Center's fundraiser fashion show and dinner dance at the end of the week."

She winced. She'd rather have gone bare-knuckled with a Zeus addict. "Fashion show." She suppressed a shudder. "Whoopee. Yeah, we'll do that, but I should put in for distress pay."

"Leonardo's one of the designers," he told her. "Mavis will be there."

The thought of her free-wheeling, uniquely stylish friend at a stuffy medical fundraiser perked Eve up. "Wait until they get a load of her."

If it hadn't been for the Bowers situation, the following day Eve would have opted to work in her home office on a computer that didn't give her grief. But as a matter of pride, she wanted to be visible at Cop Central when the buzz started.

She spent the morning in court giving testimony on a case she'd closed some months before and arrived at Central just after one. Her first move was to hunt up Peabody. Rather than go straight to her office and put out a call on her communicator, Eve walked through the detective's bullpen.

"Hey, Dallas." Baxter, one of the detectives who most enjoyed razzing, her, sent her a wink and a grin. "Hope you kick her ass."

It was, Eve knew, a show of support. Though it cheered her, she shrugged and kept moving. A few other comments were tossed out from desks and cubicles, all running on the same theme. The first order of business when a finger was pointed at one of their own was to break the finger.