J. Robb - Conspiracy in Death

"Is that your belief?"

"For me, life itself is enough, as long as suffering can be relieved."

Eve nodded, picked up her own coffee, though it had gone cold. "Most wouldn't say that Snooks, for example, was enjoying any quality of life. He was sick, he was dying, he was indigent. Ending all that for him might have been considered a mercy by some."

Louise went pale, but her eyes remained steady. "No doctor with ethics, with morals, with a belief in his oaths and his duty, would terminate a patient without consent. First do no harm. This, without question, is a promise my uncle lives by."

Eve nodded. "We'll see. I want you to take a look at the data I've accessed, then translate it for me in terms someone who didn't graduate from Harvard Medical can understand."

Louise's brows winged up. "You checked up on me."

"Did you think I wouldn't?"

"No." Once again, Louise's face relaxed into a smile. "I was certain you would. It's nice to be right."

"Then let's get started." Eve called up the data, gestured to the chair behind the monitor, then looked over as Peabody came huffing through the door. "You're late."

"Subway – " Peabody held up a hand as she struggled to catch her breath. "Running behind. Weather sucks. Sorry." She took off her snow-covered coat. "Coffee. Please. Sir."

Eve merely jerked a thumb in the direction of the AutoChef, then answered the beep of her 'link. "Dallas."

"Don't you ever check your messages?" Nadine demanded. "I've been trying to reach you since last night."

"I was out, now I'm in. What?"

"I'm officially requesting a one-on-one regarding the murders of Samuel Petrinsky and Erin Spindler. My information has you as primary on the first and replacement primary on the second."

It was a game they both knew. Tele-link logs could be checked. "The department has not yet issued a statement on either of those cases. Both are ongoing investigations."

"Which, according to my research and sources, appear to be linked. You can say nothing and I'll go on air with what I've got, or you can do some damage control by agreeing to an interview before I break the story. Up to you, Dallas."

She could have wiggled more, often would have. But she thought that was enough for the record. "I'm working at home today."

"Fine, I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"No, no cameras in my house." On that she was firm. "I'll meet you in my office at Central in an hour."

"Make it half that. I have a deadline."

"An hour, Nadine. Take it or leave it." And with that, she cut transmission. "Peabody, you work with Dr. Dimatto. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Traffic's ugly, Lieutenant," Peabody told her, pitifully grateful she wasn't being dragged out in it again. "The road crews haven't started clearing yet."

"Just one more adventure," Eve muttered and strode out.

She thought she'd get out clean, but the foyer monitor blinked on as she reached for her jacket. "Going somewhere, Lieutenant?"

"Jesus, Roarke, why not just knock me over the head with a blunt instrument. Keeping tabs on me?"

"As often as possible. Wear your coat if you're going out. That jacket isn't warm enough for this weather."

"I'm just going into Central for a couple of hours."

"Wear the coat," he repeated, "and the gloves in the pocket. I'm sending one of the four-wheels around."

She opened her mouth, but he'd already vanished. "Nag, nag, nag," she muttered, then nearly jolted when he swam back on-screen.

"I love you, too," he said easily, and she heard his chuckle as the image faded again.

Eyes narrowed, she fingered the jacket, considered taking a stand. But she remembered just how warm and soft the coat was. It wasn't like she was going to a murder scene, so it seemed petty not to give in, just this once. She wrapped cashmere over her ancient trousers and stepped outside into the blowing snow just as a gleaming silver vehicle rolled smoothly to the base of the steps.

It was, she thought, a honey of a ride. Powerful and sturdy as a jet-tank. She climbed up and in, amused and touched to find the heat already blowing. Roarke never missed a trick. To entertain herself, she programmed it for manual, gripped the gearshift, and shot down the drive.

It rolled over several inches of snow as if she were driving on freshly scrubbed asphalt.

Traffic was snarled and nasty. More than one vehicle was tipped sideways on the street and abandoned. She counted three fender benders in the first four blocks. She steered around them easily, automatically calling the locations of the wrecks in to Dispatch on her communicator.

Even the glide-cart vendors, who would brave almost any weather to make a buck, were taking the day off. Street corners were deserted, the sky overhead too curtained with snow for her to see or hear any air traffic.

It was, she thought, like driving through one of those old glass globes where nothing moved but the snow when it was shaken free.

Clean, she thought. It wouldn't last, but just now, the city was clean, pristine, surreal. And quiet enough to make her shudder.

She felt something very close to relief after she'd parked in the garage and walked into the noise and confusion of Cop Central.

With more than a half hour to spare before the interview, she locked the door to her office – in case Nadine rushed the mark – and contacted her commander at home.

"I apologize for interrupting your free day, Commander."

"It's yours as well, if I'm not mistaken." He glanced over his shoulder. "Get your boots on, I'll be out in just a few minutes. Grandkids," he told Eve with a quick and rare smile. "We're about to have a snow war."

"I won't keep you from it, but I thought I should inform you I've agreed to a one-on-one with Nadine Furst. She contacted me this morning at home. She's dug up some data on the Petrinsky and the Spindler cases. I thought it best to draft an official statement, answer some basic questions, than to let her go on air with speculation."

"Cooperate, but keep it as short as possible." The smile that had softened his face when he'd spoken of his grandchildren was gone, leaving it hard and blank. "We can expect other media to demand statements after she goes on air with it. What's the current status?"

"I'm working with a medical consultant on some data now. I have potential links to two other homicides, one in Chicago, one in Paris. I've contacted the primaries in each, and am waiting for data transfer. McNab is still running like crimes. My investigation points to a possible connection with several large medical facilities and at least two, if not more, medical personnel attached to them."

"Give her as little as possible. Send me a fully updated report today, at home. We'll discuss this on Monday morning."

"Yes, sir."

Well, Eve thought as she leaned back from the 'link, one base covered. Now she would dance the dance with Nadine and see what reaction it caused.

She got up to unlock the door, then sat and killed the waiting time by starting the report for Whitney. When she heard the click of heels coming briskly down the hall, Eve saved the document, filed it, and blanked her screen.

"God! Could it get any worse out there?" Nadine smoothed a hand over her camera-ready hair. "Only the insane go out in this, which makes us lunatics, Dallas."

"Cops laugh at blizzards. Nothing stops the law."

"Well, that explains why we passed two wrecked black and whites on the way from the station. I got an update from our meteorologist before I left. He says it's the storm of the century."

"How many of those have we had this century now?"

Nadine laughed and began to unbutton her coat. "True enough, but he says we can expect this storm to continue right through tomorrow, with accumulations even in the city of more than two feet. This one's going to stop New York cold."