The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [16]
“I’m sorry I was so long.” Avril hurried into the room. “The children needed me. Oh, you’re having coffee after all. Good.” She sat beside her husband, took his hand in hers.
“Mrs. Icove, you spent a lot of time in your father-in-law’s company, for many years.”
“Yes. He was my guardian, and a father to me.” She pressed her lips together. “He was an extraordinary man.”
“Can you think of anyone who would want to kill him?”
“How could I? Who would kill a man so devoted to life?”
“Did he seem worried about anything recently? Concerned? Upset?”
Avril shook her head, looked over at her husband. “We had dinner together here two nights ago. He was in great spirits.”
“Mrs. Icove, do you recognize this woman?” Eve took the print out from her file bag, offered it.
“She . . .” Avril’s hand trembled, had Eve poised on alert. “She killed him? This is the woman who killed Wilfred.” Tears swam into her eyes. “She’s beautiful, young. She doesn’t look like someone who could . . . I’m sorry.”
She handed the photo back, wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “I wish I could help. I hope when you find her you ask her why. I hope—”
She stopped again, pressed a hand to her lips, made a visible effort to steady herself. “I hope you ask her why she did this thing. We deserve to know. The world deserves to know.”
Wilfred Icove’s apartment was on the sixty-fifth floor, three blocks from his son’s home and a brisk five from the center he had built.
They were admitted by the building concierge, who identified herself as Donatella.
“I couldn’t believe it when I heard it, simply couldn’t.” She was a toned and polished forty, at Eve’s gauge, in a sharp black suit. “Dr. Icove was the best of men, considerate, friendly. I’ve worked here ten years, the last three as concierge. I’ve never heard a single bad word said about him.”
“Somebody did more than say it. Did he have a lot of visitors?”
The woman hesitated. “It’s not gossip, I suppose, under the circumstances. He socialized, yes. His family, naturally, visited here regularly. Individually and in a group. He might have small dinner parties for friends or associates here, though more often, he used his son’s home for that. He did enjoy the company of women.”
Eve nodded to Peabody, who pulled out the photo.
“How about this one?” Peabody asked, and the concierge took it, studied it carefully.
“No, sorry. This would be the type, if you understand. He enjoyed beauty, and youth. It was his profession, in a way. Beautifying people, helping them keep their youth. I mean to say, he did amazing work with accident victims. Amazing.”
“Do you log in guests?” Eve asked her.
“No, I’m sorry. We clear visitors, of course, with a tenant. But we don’t require sign-ins. Except for deliveries.”
“He get many?”
“No more than his share.”
“We could use a copy of the log, for the last sixty days, and the security discs for the last two weeks.”
Donatella winced. “I could get them for you more quickly, and with less complication, if you’d make a formal request from building management. I can contact them for you now. It’s Management New York.”
A dim bell rang in Eve’s head. “Who owns the building?”
“Actually, it’s owned by Roarke Enterprises, and—”
“Never mind,” she said when Peabody snorted softly behind her. “I’ll take care of it. Who cleans the place?”
“Dr. Icove didn’t keep domestics, droids or humans. He used the building maid service—droid model. Daily. He preferred droid in domestic areas.”
“Okay. We’ll need to look around. You’ve been given clearance for that from the next of kin.”
“Yes. I’ll just leave you to it.”
“It’s a really nice building,” Peabody said when the door closed behind the concierge. “You know, maybe you can get Roarke to make like a chart or something so you’d know before you asked what he owns.”
“Yeah, that would work, seeing as he’s buying shit up every ten minutes, or selling it at an obscene profit. And no snorting in front of witnesses.”
“Sorry.”
The space, Eve thought, was what they called open living. Living,