Origin in Death (In Death #21)(10)

She approached reception, spoke to the person on duty, signed in, then walked a short distance down the corridor to the ladies' room.

Where there were no cameras, Eve thought. Where she either retrieved the weapon where it had been planted for her, or removed it from her bag or person where it had been disguised well enough to beat security.

Planted, most likely, Eve decided. Got somebody on the inside. Maybe the one who wanted him dead.

Nearly three minutes passed, then Dolores stepped out, went directly to the waiting area. She sat, crossed her legs, and flipped through the selection of book and magazine discs on the menu.

Before she could pick one, Pia came through the double doors to lead her back to Icove's office.

Eve watched the doors close, watched the assistant sit at her own desk. She zipped through, while the stamp flashed the passage of time until noon, when the assistant removed a purse from her desk drawer, slipped on a jacket, and left for lunch.

Six minutes later, Dolores came out as casually as she'd gone in. Her face showed no excitement, no satisfaction, no guilt, no fear.

She passed the reception area without a word, descended, crossed to exit security, passed through, and walked out of the building. And into the wind, Eve thought.

If she wasn't a pro, she should be.

No one else went in or out of Icove's office until the assistant returned from lunch.

With a second cup of coffee, she read through the extensive data on Wilfred B. Icove.

Guy was a fricking saint," she said to Peabody. The rain had slowed to an irritating drizzle, gray as fog. "Came from little, did much. His parents were doctors, running clinics in depressed areas and countries. His mother was severely burned attempting to save children from a building under attack. She lived but was disfigured.

"So he goes into reconstructive surgery," Peabody finished.

"Inspired, one assumes. He ran a portable clinic himself during the Urban Wars. Traveled to Europe to help with their urban strife. Was there when the wife got hit while volunteering. Son was a kid but already on his way to becoming a doctor, and would later on graduate from Harvard Medical at the age of twenty-one."

"Fast track."

"Betcha. Senior worked with his parents, but wasn't with them when his mother was hurt, thereby escaping death or injury. He was also in another part of London working when the wife got hit."

"Either really lucky or really unlucky."

"Yeah. He'd already moved into reconstructive surgery by the time he was widowed, his mother's case pushing him into making it his mission. Mom was, reputedly, a wowzer. I pulled out a file photo, and she looked pretty hot to me. There's also file photos of what she looked like after the explosion, and we could say grim. They were able to keep her alive, and do considerable work on her, but they weren't able to put her back the way she was."

"Humpty Dumpty."

"What?"

"All the king's horses?" Peabody saw Eve's blank look. "Never mind."

"She self-terminated three years later. Icove dedicates himself to reconstructive, and continuing his parents' good works, volunteers his services during the Urbans. Lost his wife and raised his son, devoted his life to medicine, founded clinics, created foundations, took on what were assumed to be hopeless cases-often waiving his fee-taught, lectured, sponsored, performed miracles and fed the hungry from a bottomless basket of bread and fish."

"You made that last part up, right?"

"Doesn't feel like it. No doctor's going to practice for sixty years, more or less, without dealing with malpractice suits, but his are well below the average, less than you'd expect, especially considering his field of practice.

"I think you have sculpting prejudice, Dallas."

"I'm not prejudiced about it. I just think it's dumbass. Regardless, it's the kind of field that draws suits, and his record for them is dead low. I can't find a single stain on his record, no political ties that might prompt a hit, no history of gambling, whoring, illegals, diddling patients. Nothing."

"Some people are really just good."

"Anybody this good has a halo and wings." She tapped the generated files. "There's something in there. Everybody's got a deep and dark somewhere."

"You wear your cynicism well, sir."

"Interestingly, he was the legal guardian of the girl who grew up to become his daughter-in-law. Her mother, also a doctor, was killed during an uprising in Africa. Her father, an artist, ditched his little family shortly after Avril Hannson Icove was born. And was, subsequently, killed by a jealous husband in Paris."

"Lot of tragedy for one family."

"Isn't it just." She pulled up in front of the Upper West Side town-house where Dr. Icove, the surviving one, lived with his family. "Makes you think."

"Sometimes tragedy haunts families. It's like a karma thing."

"Do Free-Agers believe in karma?"

"Sure." Peabody stepped out on the curb. "We just call it cosmic balancing." She walked up a short flight of steps to what she assumed was the original door, or a hell of a reproduction. "Some place," she said, running her fingers over the wood as the security system asked their purpose.

"Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody." Eve held her badge up to be scanned. "NYPSD, to speak with Dr. Icove."