Connections in Death (In Death #48)(95)

“You were attempting to keep bystanders out of danger.”

“Yeah, like that.” He shifted back to Eve. “Nobody calls the Snapper a coward. I don’t run from nothing and nobody.”

“Are you a member of the urban gang known as the Bangers?” Eve asked.

“Shit, yeah, and Bangers don’t take no shit from anybody, don’t take no shit from cops, sure don’t take it from beat-up girl cops.”

“As a member of said urban gang, have you engaged in any criminal activity?”

“We just living, that’s all.”

“Does ‘just living’ include possessing, distributing, selling illegal substances?”

“Don’t know nothing about it.”

“Several thousand dollars’ worth of illegal substances were confiscated from the building which serves as Banger headquarters.”

“Cops plant it there.”

“Did they also plant the equipment and supplies used to generate false identification and to commit identity theft?”

“Don’t know nothing about it.”

“Did you, as a member of the aforesaid urban gang, participate in coercing residents and shopkeepers in your area to make payments to you or other members under the threat of property damage or personal injury?”

“Nuh-uh, people they pay us to protect them. We keep people safe ’cause cops is wheeze.”

Eve sat back. “You’re off the streets, you’re going in a cage. We have officers out right now in your neighborhood taking statements from people you threatened, coerced, intimidated, and physically harmed for profit.”

“They liars.”

“If you were protecting them,” Peabody said helpfully, “they’ll be grateful and say so.”

“They know what’s good for them they will.”

Now Eve pushed forward. “What’re you going to do, asshole, when they say how it really was?”

“People make trouble for me, I make trouble for them, got that? And I ain’t afraid of going inside. I get out again.”

“You think?” Eve took Rochelle’s earrings out of the file, then Lyle’s earbuds, set the evidence bags on the table. “Where’d you get these?”

“Bought those buds.”

“Where?”

“Off the street. Some guy.”

“Funny, some guy didn’t leave his prints on them. You did, and Lyle Pickering—to whom these are registered—did.”

“Don’t know no Pickering. I bought those buds.”

“When?”

“Like last week.”

“Are you that stupid? I just told you these were registered to Pickering, have his prints on them. And I can pull in a half dozen witnesses to attest he had these buds on his person the day he was murdered.”

“They lie. I bought those buds last week from some guy.”

“How about the earrings? Did you buy them from the same guy?”

She watched those old, bitter eyes try to calculate the best answer. “Never seen ’em before.”

“They were in your pocket when you were processed. Keep lying, just keep lying.”

“What’s it to you?” Snap, snap, snap went his fingers. “I found them. No law against finding some stupid earrings.”

“There is when you find them inside a drawer in an apartment you entered for the purpose of killing Lyle Pickering. There’s a really big law against premeditated murder. The sort that sends you to a concrete cage off-planet for the rest of your ugly life. Coward.”

“Fuck you. I don’t kill nobody. I don’t know no Pickering. I bought them buds off some guy. I found them earrings on the street. You can’t prove no otherwise.”

“Then how did your prints get inside Lyle Pickering’s apartment?”

“Didn’t leave no prints. We sealed up.”

Idiots, Eve thought, a bunch of idiots, and this one might win top prize for falling for that line so easily.

“You sealed up before going in the apartment to kill Pickering. Who used the syringe on him?”

His fingers snapped faster, faster.

“It matters, Denby,” Peabody said, earnest, almost kind. “If you didn’t actually use the syringe, it could matter in the charges.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have to talk to you no more.”

“Lying coward.” Eve shoved up, looked into those bitter eyes, saw the flare of hate and pride. “You used Dinnie Duff to get inside, and inside you attacked Pickering, stuck him with a tranq because you’re a coward and wouldn’t take him on man-to-man. Then you pumped him full of Go, overdosed him because you hated he was better than you.”

He tried a lunge, but the restraints held him. “Motherfucker wasn’t better than me. He got no loyalty, he turn his back on his family. Got no reason to live, got no right. Bolt says take him down ’cause Slice is too weak to do it, we take his ass down.”

“Bolt aka Kenneth Jorgenson ordered you to kill Lyle Pickering?”

“Bitch cop trying to mess me up, but I did what had to be. Ain’t no coward. I take on anybody comes at me,” he spat out. “I take you on and we see who gets messed up.”