Golden in Death(17)

Those around the table looked up as they entered. Eve saw a lot of weepy and reddened eyes. And more than one person clinging to the person beside them.

The air was thick with grief.

“This is Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody. They have questions, and we honor Dr. Kent by answering them fully and honestly. Please sit, Lieutenant, Detective. You will have coffee?”

“Thanks. Black.”

“Cream, two sugars,” Peabody told her. And, following Eve’s lead, started it off. “We understand all of you have had a terrible shock, and we’re sorry for your loss. It’s always hard to be asked, but by getting everyone’s whereabouts at certain times, it helps us eliminate and move on to other questions.”

“I’ll start. I’m Melissa Rendi. Dr. Rendi, Dr. Abner’s associate.”

A mixed-race woman in her mid-thirties, she sat with a tissue clutched in her hand. “I came into the practice three years ago. Everyone else has been here longer, so I’ll start, if that’s okay.”

“It’s fine. Can you tell us where you were night before last at ten P.M.?”

“I— But I thought Kent was killed yesterday morning.”

“That’s correct,” Eve said. “We also need this information.”

“I was home, with my fiancée. Do you need her name?”

“Please.”

“Alicia Gorden. We had dinner in—we’d both had a long day—and we’re getting married next month, so we went over some of the RSVPs, and other wedding plans. We stayed in all evening.”

“How about yesterday, about nine-thirty in the morning?”

“Here. It was Kent’s day off. I had patients starting at eight.”

“This is correct,” Seldine said. “Dr. Lissa was in the office all morning, took her lunch break in the lounge at one, and had afternoon appointments beginning at two-fifteen. Is this helpful?”

“Very.” Peabody added a quiet smile.

They went around the table. Receptionists, nurses, the physician assistant, the two day-care workers, the cleaning crew.

Rendi was right, they’d all worked for Abner from seven years to twenty.

They ran through whereabouts, alibis, tears.

They’d check the alibis, Eve thought, but wasn’t hopeful anything would shake loose from them.

What she saw was a tight-knit office of people who got along well, and it all centered around Kent Abner, and his personality and professionalism.

“Did Dr. Abner have any problems or issues with anyone? A patient—the parents or guardian—someone who used to work here, another associate?”

“It’s crazy to think anybody hurt him on purpose.” The youngest of the staff at twenty-six, Olivia Tressle burst out with the objection. “It has to have been some horrible mistake, or just somebody crazy. A crazy person.”

“Olivia,” Seldine said gently. “This was not Lieutenant Dallas’s question.”

“I know, but … He was such a wonderful man. Such a good doctor. This is such a great place to work. It’s all … it’s all just wrong.”

“She’s right.” One of the nurses spoke up now, a male, early forties. “It’s just wrong. He was a really good man, and he had this way. The kids loved him. I tell you he had a way. Say a kid or baby would come in sick or fussy, he could find the key to smoothing it out. So the parents loved him. He even gave hours a month to a free clinic. During the holidays? Every kid who came in got a little gift—just a little gift, but it came out of his pocket, not the office. Every kid got a card on their birthday. He cared. It wasn’t just a job to him, wasn’t even just about healing. It was caring. When you find who did this … prison isn’t bad enough.”

They ran through all that until Rendi spoke again.

“I don’t know if he told anyone else, but he had words with a doctor—I think it was Ponti or Ponto—at the ER at Unger Memorial.”

“What about?”

“Kent went in because one of his patients had a fall, greenstick wrist fracture, and the parents contacted Kent because the kid was a little hysterical and wanted his Dr. Kent. Kent, being Kent, went in. And while he was there, this other doctor was, Kent told me, berating and humiliating a woman because her kid was dirty—or that’s what the guy said. He was reaming her for not cleaning the kid up before bringing him in. It’s a damn ER,” Rendi said with feeling, “and Kent said the woman was obviously homeless or the next thing to it, and doing her best. Besides, you don’t treat people that way.”

“What happened?”

“Kent said he pulled rank—he has privileges there—and told the stupid ER doc to take a walk. He dealt with the kid and his mother, told them about Louise Dimatto’s clinic—that’s where Kent gave time. Then he unloaded on the guy, and the guy got back in his face about how it wasn’t his business. How he should work a few doubles in the ER instead of his fancy private practice before he spouted off.”

“When was this?” Eve asked her.

“It was months ago, I think like, October—no, November. It was November, before Thanksgiving. I’m sure of that. Like, a week before Thanksgiving because we had the turkeys up, and the Halloween stuff down. I want to say it can wear on you, ER shifts. I did some of my residency in ER. I don’t mean to get this doctor in trouble, but it’s one of the rare times I’ve seen Kent really angry.”