Connections in Death (In Death #48)(109)

Peabody picked up the rhythm. “They’re lined up to give statements, and to sweeten it, a lot of your gang, or those threatened into working for it, are rolling and flipping faster than we can log it in.”

Peabody mimed sweat off her forehead. “Whew! It’s been a day!”

“And all this before the feds take their bite.” Eve glanced at her wrist unit. “Cohen’s spilling those guts about now. We don’t need anything from you, Slice. You’re done. You’ve got nothing left. No property, no money, no gang. And you can forget about Aruba.”

“I’ll get it back.”

She could see him trembling now. Maybe some came from rage, betrayal lit rage, maybe some was despair at the loss of everything.

“No, you won’t. You’re not going down for these three murders, but there are others you ordered, others you committed.” Eve tapped her file. “And they’re all right in here. Names, dates, methods, motives. You stole from them, you cheated them, you betrayed them. And once we showed them you had—and how—hell, they rolled on you like a flood.

“So.” Eve opened the file. “We’re going to talk about all of them. Every last one of them.”

She had to send Peabody out, not only to take a break as the interview ran on, but to let Kyung know he needed to push the media conference to seventeen hundred.

By the time she wrapped, Jones had long since stopped trembling. He’d fallen back on pride—and that rage. She saw the murder in his eyes, and thought it would be frustrating he had no place to put it.

“And that,” Eve said as she sent him to maximum with two guards, “is how it’s done.”

“I appreciate the break, but I’m really glad I got back for the finish.”

“Take another. We’ve got about twenty before we have to talk to the media.”

“He copped to it all,” Peabody said as they walked out. “I didn’t expect him to cop to it all.”

“Under the skin he’s the same as Bolt. The same as Fan Ho. Gang pride. He did what had to be done as he sees it.”

“He stole from his own people.”

“He wasn’t going to end up like his father, brain damaged in a cage. If Bolt had pulled this off, taken over? I bet down the road he’d figure he deserved a little more, and a little more. I need coffee,” she said, then saw Roarke come out of Observation.

“You made it.”

“I did, yes, about a half hour ago. It was more than worth it. And how’s my girl?” he asked and kissed Peabody’s bruised cheek.

“Aw. I’m okay.”

“She needs to put the knee up, and I need coffee before we deal with the damn PR portion of the day.”

Roarke gave Peabody a gentle pat before he walked with Eve to her office.

“That’s already started. I also had some entertainment watching Nadine’s report before I got here. They’re replaying it, or clips of it. It’s lead story, and I expect will be for a while.”

“Good.”

He moved to the AutoChef so Eve went to her skinny window, stared out at the world.

“Sit.” As he had with Peabody, Roarke gave her a gentle pat. “Drink your coffee, take your twenty.”

“I’ve been sitting all damn day in a chair in the box. One after another, and none of them worth a bucket of piss. None of them much smarter than that, either.”

“Where will these less than buckets of piss spend the rest of their lives?”

She drank coffee, looking for the jolt to get her through the next phase. “In cages. Reo and I talked some, and will again, but I’m going to push off-planet for Washington, Chesterfield and Jorgenson. Jones, like Cohen, will do cage time in federal facilities. Separate. No point giving Jones an opportunity to cut Cohen’s sentence short by shanking him.”

“And yet you still have some of that sad in you.”

“I’ll shake it out. In the end, the system worked. And now there are a couple of neighborhoods and the people in them who’ll be safer. My team worked this top to bottom, inside and out. Every interview I’ve reviewed . . .”

She drank more coffee. “Well, it’s good work. Mira said she might write a paper on it.” Now she turned to him. “We gutted two gangs. Gutted them. No leadership left now, and when the word spreads—and it damn well will—about the cheating, the betrayals, the lack of what they’d think of as honor and loyalty?” She shook her head. “They’re done. Something else will spring up, that’s the world. But the system will keep working.”

He leaned down to kiss her because, whether she’d admit it or not, she needed it.

Strong stepped into the doorway. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Not at all.” Roarke eased back. “Coffee?”

“I, ah . . .”

“Why don’t you get that, Lieutenant? I’m going to check on Peabody.”

When Roarke stepped out, Strong still hesitated. “I didn’t mean to chase him off.”

“You didn’t.” Eve handed Strong the coffee.

“Thanks. I wanted a couple minutes before the media briefing.”

“You’ve got it. I reviewed your interview with Ho. You worked him well. He’s smarter than most of them, but he’s got that quick trigger. You figured how to play him.”