Festive in Death (In Death #39)(93)

“What are you talking about? You’ve all lost your minds. I’m leaving.”

He tried a charge across the room. Eve pivoted, but Roarke was faster, and merely shot out his foot. It sent Copley on a face-first dive.

“Oops,” Roarke said.

“Peabody, restrain the suspect, and read him his rights. John Jake Copley, you’re under arrest for suspicion of murder, for attempted murder, for assault, for assault on an officer.”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Peabody began, then her voice was drowned out by Copley’s raging.

“Give him to the female officer—Shelby. Have her and the other two officers transport him to Central. To a box. I’ll be down to deal with him when we’re done here.”

“Let me give you a hand with that, Peabody.” Roarke hauled Copley to his feet, and with Peabody taking the other side perp-walked him out, raging still.

“Whew.” McNab stepped in. “And I thought the SkyMall was crazytown. The house droid’s been shut down since sixteen-thirty, LT.”

“Shut down?”

“Yeah. Turned off. There’s a secondary droid, but that one’s been turned off since about noon. The main house droid reports Ms. Quigley ordered her to shut down, as she routinely does on Sundays when they aren’t expecting company or entertaining. She reports no one coming or going after you and Roarke earlier today. No help from that quarter.”

“Check the security cam, and let’s make a copy of that.”

“On it.”

She pulled out her comm, contacted Dispatch.

“Dispatch, play back nine-one-one call from this location made by Quigley, Natasha, at eighteen-fifty-six.”

“Acknowledged, one moment. No video recorded. Audio only. Playback commenced.”

Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?

She’s dead! I think she’s dead! Oh my God, Cate. It’s . . . Wait, please. Oh God. This is Natasha Quigley at 18 Vandam. I need to report a— JJ! Oh, JJ, something terrible happened. JJ! What are you doing? JJ, stop, stop! Don’t!

Eve heard a scream, a thud, pictured the ’link dropping to the ground. Then the recording stopped.

“Playback complete.”

“Okay, copy recording to my files. Dallas and Peabody, along with Detective McNab, currently on scene. Dallas and Peabody will transfer to Central to interview Copley, John Jake, now charged with suspicion of murder and related charges.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Dallas, out. Got ya,” she muttered.

“Your suspect’s on his way to Central,” Roarke told her.

“And he’ll stew in it for a while. When we finish up here, we need to go by the hospital, check on Quigley. If she’s awake, we’ll get her statement. You can go home.”

“Why do you want to punish me?”

She shook her head. “Suit yourself.” She walked out with him, joined Peabody.

“I liked her,” Peabody said. “There was something likeable about her.”

“Yeah, there was. Contact the sweepers, the morgue. Let’s get started on getting her justice.”

“I was complaining, sort of, about working on a vic who was an ass**le.” Peabody looked back toward Catiana. “And now . . .”

“I know it.” Eve crouched to study the broken ’link. “Looks like it’s been stomped on. She drops it, he comes at her, stomps on it. The vase is right there. It sat on that table. He grabs it, comes at her, stomps the phone, smacks her with it.”

Before she could ask, Roarke handed her an evidence bag. She bagged and sealed the phone.

“He drops the vase, doesn’t give her the second smack like Ziegler. Vase is big and heavy. It cracks, but it didn’t break. Does he think smashing the phone erases the damn nine-one-one? Was he too wrought up, too far gone, to think about it? Just attack, just cover it all up. Then blame it all on a dead woman? He was upstairs, minding his own, heard his wife scream, ran down.”

“But there’s no report, is there, that he called for help, for medicals, for the police.”

She looked at Roarke as she marked the vase. “Nope. None. It took Shelby two minutes to get here, and took him another two to answer. Working on his story, getting himself under control. Not enough time to set up a fake break-in or burglary. He thinks he’s got two dead women, until Shelby checks, gets a pulse. Now he’s got to get to his wife, fix it somehow. Or run. But Shelby handled that, and then backup arrived. He can’t push his way through three cops. He has to be outraged, the worried husband, the victim.”

She stood again. “How it looks is, for some reason—and we’ll need to talk to the sister—Catiana comes here. Copley lets her in. They come in here, argue. Maybe she knew something, maybe he thought she knew something. He loses his temper, pushes her. She falls way wrong, and that’s it. He barely has time to think. Look what she made him do! And in comes his wife. Sees the body. Calls nine-one-one. He couldn’t have been in the room.”

Frowning, she turned a circle. “If he’d been in, he’d never have let her call through. So he ran out, to get something, to hide something, to get a damn drink, but he had to have come back in at that point in the call when she said his name. She’s ruining everything. He has to make her stop. Snaps, or is still snapped, grabs the vase, charges in.”