Festive in Death (In Death #39)(111)

She saw Jenkinson had taken her at her word.

A banner hung over the break-room door, facing out so any who came in would see the sentiment:

NO MATTER YOUR RACE, CREED, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, OR POLITICAL AFFILIATION, WE PROTECT AND SERVE, BECAUSE YOU COULD GET DEAD.

Obviously, there’d been some discussion, some teamwork on the wording, but Jenkinson’s original sentiment remained. Her first reaction wasn’t the amusement she’d expected, but a tug of pride. Because it was the righteous truth.

She took a quick scan of the men and women who served under her. Trueheart in his pristine uniform earnestly working on his comp. Baxter, kicked back, designer shoes propped on his desk, talking on his desk ’link. Jenkinson scowling at his screen as he chowed down on some questionable sandwich from Vending.

The room smelled of truly terrible coffee, someone’s greasy lunch, the fake pine someone had sprayed on the silly tree. It smelled like cops at Christmas, she thought.

“Peabody, let’s lock this up. The rest of you? That—” She pointed toward the banner. “That stays up. Anybody from Maintenance or Standards or Legal tries to take it down, kick them to me.”

Peabody scurried after Eve. “We’re really leaving it up?”

“How did we start this investigation? Giving our time and effort to get justice for a worthless ass**le. The sign stays. It speaks the truth.”

She walked into Interview, read the necessary data into the record, then sat across from Copley and his lawyer.

“So, here we are again.”

And let it hang.

McAllister broke the silence.

“My client is a victim of Trey Ziegler, a blackmailer, an extortionist, a man who—through evidence you yourself discovered—used illegal date-rape substances on a number of women.”

“I’ll give you Ziegler was a lousy human being. It’s still illegal to murder a human being, lousy or otherwise.”

“My client didn’t murder anyone, and at the established time of death of Trey Ziegler was in his own home.”

“So he says, but he’s got no one to back that up—including the wife he recently sent to the hospital.”

“I never touched Natasha.”

“She says different.”

“I don’t believe that,” Copley continued, even as his lawyer tried to silence him. “You’re lying.”

“Do you want me to play the nine-one-one call again?”

“JJ.” With barbs in the name, the lawyer clamped a hand over Copley’s. “Ms. Quigley was in fear for her life, and called out for her husband. Called out for him to help her.”

Eve smiled. “You can try that one, but you know what the jury’s going to hear. From the recording, from Natasha Quigley’s own lips in court.”

“Ms. Quigley suffered a severe head injury during an attack by an unknown assailant, one who very likely killed Ziegler, one who very likely was in league with him. Her recollection, and her testimony on the events, isn’t trustworthy.”

“And this ‘unknown assailant’ mysteriously went poof?”

“My client believes that Catiana Dubois assaulted his wife, and in the struggle fell, was killed. My client believes the deceased was in league with Ziegler.”

Rage tickled the back of her throat. Eve let it show, let it come.

“So you want to try to hang Ziegler on her? Let me say this, so you both hear it. Try it. Just try it. Your client’s a liar, a cheat, an adulterer, a fraud. Just who do you think a jury’s going to sympathize with? A man who cheats on his wife with a naive young woman he lies to—one he’s set up with money he’s stolen from his wife? A man who paid a blackmailer to keep that arrangement quiet? Or an innocent woman, one who worked for a living, came from a nice family, had no smears on her record?”

“You leave Felicity out of this,” Copley demanded.

“I talked to her, too, just about an hour ago. Did you get her memo?”

He lurched up; Eve rose with him.

“You had no business talking to her. I’m going to explain everything to her. She’ll come back to me. I love her. I’m going to marry her.”

“But you couldn’t until you got rid of the wife you already have. Killing her clears the way.”

“I don’t have to kill her! Why do you think I paid Ziegler to f**k her!”

“JJ, God! Shut up!”

“Don’t tell me to shut up.” Color high, he rounded on McAllister. “You useless bitch. Why haven’t you gotten me out of here? I told you I wanted Silbert or Crosby.”

“You’ve got me.”

Eve sat again, looked at Peabody. “Now, this is interesting. Don’t you find this interesting, Peabody?”

“I’m riveted. Absolutely riveted. Did he say what I think he said—on record—that he paid Ziegler to sleep with his wife?” Peabody glanced at Copley. “Did you get to watch?”

“Shut the hell up. You’re disgusting.”

“He pays some sleaze to sleep with his wife, and I’m disgusting? Jeez. Okay, if you didn’t do it for kinky watching, what did you do it for?”

“For Felicity!”

“She got to watch?”

More pride swelled in Eve’s heart as Copley snarled at Peabody.