Eve filled him in while he worked, and Peabody found something—anything—else to focus on.
“Fascinating. What joy does someone gain by hoarding the precious only for themselves?” He shook his head.
“Considering the OTC meds, round about eight, is it likely he’d have woken, gone down sometime after twelve-thirty, heading toward one?”
“With the infection at this stage, it’s very likely he’d have slept poorly, even with the meds, and after four hours or so, very likely been restless.”
With his microgoggles in place, he opened Barrister’s mouth, shined a light. “His throat’s inflamed. Again, it’s not serious, but would be very uncomfortable.”
“So he gets up.” Eve began to pace. “Goes down. Maybe going to get more tea, take more meds. But he didn’t. He goes into the office. Did hehear something, see something? Maybe just glanced in, saw the vault open. Possible.”
“No defensive wounds,” Morris told her. “Nothing to indicate a struggle.”
“Bashed from behind. Never saw it coming. A couple minutes, maybe three minutes later, because she’s looking for him, because she hears something fall, his wife walks in and finds him. Just him. Killer’s gone, that fast.”
She frowned. “The window’s closed. He closed the window behind him. But not the vault.”
“The window’s the escape route,” Peabody pointed out. “Takes a second to close it, and then nobody’s going over to look out and see you running away.”
“And it would take longer to close the vault, close the panel. Yeah.”
She slid her hands into her pockets. “His daughters are coming in from college. They may want to see him. I’m going to do a follow-up with the family later today.”
“I’ll have him ready for their goodbyes by noon. If they want to visit later than one, Cicero will be on duty. I’m scheduled to meet Garnet and her daughter about that time. We’re going to the street fair.”
Garnet DeWinter, Eve thought, scientist, bone expert, and fashion plate.
“That’ll be fun. McNab and I were going but, you know, dead guy. But Mavis, Leonardo, and Bella are. You should tag them, maybe meet up.”
“I’ll do that.”
“We’ll get out of your way.” Eve took a last look at the body. “If he hadn’t had a cold, he’d probably be alive.”
As they walked out, Eve ran through the timing again in her head. “It’s all so damn close. If the wife checks on him after he wakes up, but before he goes down, she’s likely the one who goes for tea or whatever.Or gets him more meds. Need to check if they’ve got an AutoChef in the bedroom, because why not program tea there if that’s what he wanted?”
“The cook kept loose valerian tea leaves in the pantry. He didn’t want any at dinner, but she suggested he have some before bed. Since they keep it for a kind of sleep aid, and nobody actually likes it, it’s not programmed. She always makes it at the time, a cup when needed, and adds fresh lemon because he prefers that when he’s not feeling well.”
“That covers that. I want you to contact the MTs who worked on him, get the position of the body when they arrived—in relation to the vault, the door, the desk, the window. How much they had to move it to examine and pronounce.”
“Okay.”
“It won’t be much. The uniforms were right behind them.”
Outside, Eve got behind the wheel. “We’ll work at Central. I’ve done a deeper run on the victim, and I’ll copy you. We need one on the wife, sister, daughters, staff, and the dead father.
“Probably at some point the dead father’s four ex-wives.”
She pushed back into traffic, already thickening, and headed downtown.
“We’re going to split the list of stolen items in the vault. Since it’s Saturday, we might not reach anyone with real authority. But I’m betting when we say, ‘Hey, we found your priceless painting of an unripe pear,’ they perk up and get us somebody.”
“How about telling somebody at the Tate, ‘Hey, we found out where your bunch of emeralds and diamonds were, but oops, they’re gone again’?”
“Yeah, that’ll be a knee-slapper.”
She had to be careful, had to be guarded in what she told Peabody and how. And she hated it.
“Roarke’s reaching out to some contacts. So far there’s no talk aboutany of this. The theft, the murder, or the fact that Barrister had a load of stolen art and jewelry in a vault in New York.”
