Origin in Death (In Death 21)

Maybe, but he was young, built, and pretty. Better to send in a sea­soned cop-self-described killer profile or not. "Give him a pass on this. It should only take you a couple hours."

She tagged Feeney, offered to buy him what passed for lunch at Cen­tral's eatery.

They squeezed into a booth and both ordered fake pastrami on mar­ginally fresh rye. Eve disguised hers by drowning it in mustard the unfortunate color of infected urine.

"First Icove," Feeney began, slopping a soy fry through a puddle of anemic ketchup. "No transmissions in or out the night before the murder on his desk 'link, home office. Got copies of transmissions in and out on his office 'link, his pocket. Nothing to, from, or pertaining to the suspect."

He chewed, swallowed, tried the stringy substance masquerading as pastrami. "Took a look at Dr. Will's 'links. Wife tagged him from her personal from the Hamptons about fifteen hundred the day of."

"She didn't mention that."

"Quick check-in. Kids're fine, had ice cream, friends coming over for drinks later. Wanted to know if he'd eaten anything, if he was get­ting a

ny rest. Domestic stuff."

"I bet he told her he was going home, locking down."

"Yeah." Feeney drowned another fry. "Told her he was going to try to get some work done, then close it down. He was tired, had a head­ache, and he'd had another round with you. Nothing on there anybody could call wonky."

"But she knew his plans for the rest of the day. What else you get on Senior?"

"Patient records and charts are pretty extensive. I've got one of my boys with some med training weeding through those. But here's the thing." He washed down the sandwich with truly horrible fake coffee "Got a memo book, separate from the appointment calendar his admin turned over. Personal reminder stuff-grandkid's playdate, flowers for daughter-in-law, consult with one of the doctors on his staff, board meeting. He had the appointment with her in there. Just her first ini­tial, just D, the time, the date. Every other, if he was meeting another doctor, talking to a patient, he used first and last name, the time, the date, and a little buzzword pertaining to the purpose. Every single time, except for this one. And there's another thing."

"What?"

"Memo book holds a year. We're in November, so that's eleven months. For eleven months, except when he's out of town on business or pleasure, he's got Monday and Thursday evenings and Wednesday afternoons clear. Not one booking. No dates, no appointment, nothing."

"I saw that in his other book, but it didn't go back the full year. Yeah, that was a ping, all right. "Regular activity he doesn't note down

"Regular like you never miss your daily portion of fiber." Feeney wagged a soy chip. "Maybe you're into something, and you're orga­nized, you manage to keep a night open regular. But two nights and an afternoon, every week for eleven months? That's pretty damned focused."

"I'm going to need you to spread it out, go back further. Do the same on Icove Two. See if they took any of the same nights off. And I'm in­terested in any mention of Brookhollow Academy and/or College. Any mention of Jonah D. Wilson or Eva Hannson Samuels."

Feeney took out his own memo book to key in the names. "Going to tell me why?"

She filled him in while they worked their way through lunch.

"How bad could the pie be?" he wondered, and punched a selection into the table menu, along with requests for two more coffees.

"Okay, Dr. Will," he said. "Anybody tampered with locks or secu­rity, they had invisible hands. Nothing shows."

"They had to pass the voice print. Can you pull out the voice?"

"Can't." He shook his head. "System doesn't hold it. Security. Doesn't leave room for somebody to pull it out, record it, clone it. I gotta say who­ever came in was let in or was authorized, or is a freaking genius."

"She's smart, but not a genius. Smart enough not to make it look like a break-in. More confusing," she said when Feeney raised his brows. "The wife's solid in the Hamptons. According to her, to the do­mestics, nobody outside the household had the codes or was author­ized. So that leaves us with a ghost. We gotta look at the wife. Look again, but she's got several independent witnesses who put her miles away while her husband was getting his heart cut open. We're looking for an accomplice, for a connect between her and Dolores. And so far, there's zip.

"Except there's this project."

"And the school."

Eve nodded. "Yeah. I think I'm going to have to take a trip to New Hampshire. What do people do in New Hampshire?"

"Beats the hell out of me." Feeney frowned at the plate that slid out of the order slot. On it was a mushy triangle on the brown side of orange.

"Is that supposed to be pumpkin pie?" Eve asked. "It looks more like a slice of-"

"Don't say it." Gamely, Feeney grabbed his fork. "I'm eating it."