“I don’t believe Marshall Cosner is currently at home.”
“No, and he won’t be back. Homicide,” Eve said, tapping her badge. “We’re here to notify Mr. Lowell Cosner his son is dead.”
“Oh my—my God.”
“Clear us up, and make sure we’re cleared to access Marshall Cosner’s level and apartment.”
“Yes, of course. If I could just verify your identification.” She took an ID scanner out of a drawer, ran it over Eve’s badge. “Mr. Lowell Cosner is Penthouse Level Two. Mr. Marshall Cosner is—was—3610, thirty-sixth floor. Is there anything more I can do?”
“What time did you come on the desk?”
“Eight.”
Too late to have seen Whitt. “I’ll need the name and contact of whoever was on the desk at five.”
“Of course.”
When she gave it without hesitation, Eve noted it down. “Thanks. We’ll also need the security feed from the front door, the lobby, the elevators, and Marshall Cosner’s floor. From, let’s say, four-thirty to six this evening.”
“I can arrange that.”
“Do. We’ll take it from here.”
She walked with Roarke to the elevator, waited until they were inside before speaking again. “He came to get rid of anything Cosner might have had in his place to tie him to this. Possibly to plant something that laid the guilt more directly on Cosner. He was always going to kill him.”
“Always?”
“Addict, weak sister, loose end. He used Loco until they had what they wanted, disposed of him. He needed Cosner until he’d finished, but with the pressure building, opted to deal with it, cut things short.
“Breezed in,” she repeated. “I bet that’s accurate. Just breezing in, breezing out again.”
“Shortsighted not to calculate you’d ask or check security feeds.”
She shook her head. “He figures he has at least a couple of days if not more before we find the building and the body. By then the feed’s overwritten, and the memories of the doormen questionable. Added to it, the evidence would be so strong against Cosner, he feels he’d be clear.”
“The building’s in Cosner’s name.” Roarke nodded as they stepped off the elevator. “Valuable property, but he didn’t take any part of legal ownership. Yes, you’re right. He always meant to do for his mate.”
“People like Whitt don’t have mates in any definition of the word.”
She stopped outside the pure white double doors of the Cosner penthouse. Pressed the buzzer.
Seconds later the security comp responded.
Mr. and Ms. Cosner have retired for the evening.
“NYPSD.” Eve held up her badge to the scanner. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and civilian consultant. We need to speak to Mr. Lowell Cosner on official police business.”
One moment while this information is relayed.
When the door opened, Eve expected a housekeeper or butler type, maybe a droid, but Lowell answered personally.
He’d shed the business suit she imagined he’d worn through the day, exchanged it for trim pants, a sweater, and had the faintest whiff of alcohol and tobacco around him.
His face, already sternly handsome with its thick crown of silver-dusted gold hair, showed fury.
“How dare you? How dare you come to my home? This kind of harassment won’t be tolerated. Do you think barging into my home with your badge and your”—he waved a dismissive hand at Roarke—“consultant will intimidate me?”
“Mr. Cosner, we’re sorry to disturb you, but we have difficult news. Can we come in for a moment?”
“No, you cannot. And if you’ve found some petty way to attempt to arrest my son or further attempt to implicate him, I’ll deal with you in the morning, as agreed.”
“Mr. Cosner.” Before he could shut the door in her face, Eve braced a hand against it. His eyes, bright against his rich man’s tan, went molten.
“That will cost you your badge.”
“Mr. Cosner, I regret to inform you your son, Marshall Cosner, is dead. We’re sorry for your loss.”
He reared back. The fury only increased with disbelief whipped across it. “You lie!”
“No, sir. I examined and identified his body myself, along with the chief medical examiner of New York. Your son died at approximately nine-twenty this evening.”
“Lowell.” Roarke used his first name when he saw something shatter in those bright eyes. “It would be better if we came inside.”
“How? You tell me how.”
“He was exposed to the same nerve agent that killed two other individuals,” Eve told him. “Do you want to hear the rest in the doorway?”
Lowell simply turned away, walked through the entrance foyer into a living area done in quiet colors and quiet patterns. He sat heavily in a chair where soft sage merged in tiny diamonds with soft cream.
“He was murdered, like the others. You tried to say he was part of the killing. You—”
“Mr. Cosner, he was.” Eve decided not to wait for an invitation and sat directly across from him. “Were you aware your son owned a building on Pitt Street downtown, one he set up through a shell company?”
“No, that’s ridiculous. Marshall wouldn’t begin to know how to create a shell company.”
“I imagine he had help,” Eve said simply. “He purchased the building, set it up as a residence and workspace for Lucas Sanchez. You know that name,” she said as she saw the knowledge on Lowell’s face.
“Yes. My son has an … addictive personality. He has a weakness for certain chemical enhancements. Sanchez exploited that weakness. Marshall assured me, his mother, his family that he had cut ties with Sanchez. After Marshall’s accident, after he recovered from his injuries, he assured us…”
You didn’t believe him, Eve realized. But you hoped. You had to hope.
“I’m sorry, he didn’t. Moreover, evidence indicates, strongly, Sanchez was paid to create the nerve agent.”
“You expect me to believe my son was some sort of terrorist?”
“Your son was part of a conspiracy to murder certain individuals over a long-held grudge. Sanchez and the nerve agent were tools, and when Sanchez had created the agent, he was killed. Mr. Cosner, your son was packing the agent in its receptacle for shipment when he was exposed.”
Lowell shook his head, just kept shaking it. “He wouldn’t know how. He wouldn’t know.”
“Lowell,” Roarke interrupted. “Let me get you a drink.”
His eyes glittered with tears as he turned to Roarke. “I have…” He gestured vaguely. “I was reading, having some bourbon, unwinding when…”
“I’ll find it,” Roarke told him, and left Eve to continue.
“You took your son out of Theresa A. Gold Academy after Headmaster Rufty took over for Headmaster Grange.”
“That was years ago.”
“Why did you take him out?”
Lowell dropped his head in his hands, sat like that for several moments. “We came to understand Marshall was using, that he was drinking, that his grades had been … inflated. We came to understand his friends weren’t … appropriate. We believed the best solution was to send him to boarding school, to have my wife’s parents help supervise him, to remove him from the situation. We did what we thought best. We tried rehab. He’s my son. I did what I thought best.”