Glory in Death (In Death #2)(63)

His breathing was shallow. "I loved my mother. When I saw this other woman murdered, as my mother had been murdered, all I could think of to do was run."

He paused, took a last quick swallow of vodka. "Do you think I don't know you've been checking on me, asking questions, digging into my personal and professional lives? I'm a suspect already. How much worse would it have been for me to be there, right there, at the scene of another murder?"

Eve rose. "You're about to find out."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Eve questioned him again, in the less comforting surroundings of Interview Room C. He'd finally taken up his right for counsel, and three pinstriped, cold-eyed lawyers ranged beside their client at the conference table.

Eve had privately dubbed them Moe, Larry, and Curly.

Moe apparently was in charge. She was a tough-voiced woman with a severe bowl-cut hairstyle that had inspired Eve to christen her. Her associates said little but looked sober and occasionally made important-looking notations on the yellow legal pads that lawyers never seemed to tire of.

Now and again Curly, his wide forehead creased, would tap a few buttons on his log book and murmur conspiratorially in Larry's ear.

"Lieutenant Dallas." Moe folded her hands, which were tipped with wicked looking inch-long scarlet nails, on the table. "My client is eager to cooperate."

"He wasn't," Eve stated, "as you've seen for yourself from the first interview. After recanting his original story, your client admitted to leaving the scene of a crime and failing to report said crime to the proper authorities."

Moe sighed. It was a windy, disappointed sound. "You can, of course, charge Mr. Angelini with those lapses. We will, in turn, claim diminished capacity, shock, and the emotional trauma of his mother's recent murder. This would all be a waste of the court's time, and the taxpayer's dollar."

"I haven't charged your client with those... lapses as yet. We're dealing with a larger theme here."

Curly scribbled something, tilted his pad for Larry to read. The two of them murmured together and looked grave.

"You have confirmed my client's appointment at Channel 75."

"Yeah, he had an appointment, which he canceled at eleven thirty-five. Odd that his diminished capacity and his emotional trauma eased off enough for him to take care of business." Before Moe could speak again, Eve turned and pinned Angelini with one hard stare. "You know Nadine Furst?"

"I know who she is. I've seen her on the news." He hesitated, leaned over to consult Moe. After a moment, he nodded. "I'd met her a few times socially, and spoke with her briefly after my mother's death."

Eve already knew all of that, and circled her quarry. "I'm sure you've seen her reports. You'd have a vested interest, as she's been covering the recent murders. Your mother's murder."

"Lieutenant, what does my client's interest in the news coverage of his mother's death have to do with the murder of Ms. Kirski?"

"I'm wondering. You have seen Nadine Furst's reports over the last couple weeks, Mr. Angelini."

"Of course." He'd recovered enough to sneer. "You've gotten a lot of airtime out of it, Lieutenant."

"Does that bother you?"

"I think it's appalling that a public servant, paid by the city, would seek notoriety through tragedy."

"Sounds like it pissed you off," Eve said with an easy shrug. "Ms. Furst has been getting plenty of notoriety out of it, too."

"One learns to expect someone like her to use someone else's pain for her own advancement."

"You didn't like the coverage?"

"Lieutenant," Moe said with her patience obviously straining. "Where's the point in this?"

"This isn't a trial, yet. I don't need a point. Were you annoyed by the coverage, Mr. Angelini? Angry?"

"I -- " He broke off at a sharp look from Moe. "I come from a prominent family," he said more carefully. "We're accustomed to such things."

"If we could get back to the business at hand," Moe requested.

"This is the business at hand. Louise Kirski was wearing Nadine Furst's raincoat when she was killed. You know what I think, Mr. Angelini? I think the killer hit the wrong target. I think he was waiting for Nadine and Louise just happened to choose the wrong time to go out in the rain for cigarettes."

"It doesn't have anything to do with me." His eyes darted toward his attorneys. "It still doesn't have anything to do with me. I saw it. That's all."

"You said it was a man. What did he look like?"

"I don't know. I didn't see him clearly, his back was to me. It happened so fast."

"But you saw enough to know it was a man."

"I assumed." He broke off, struggling to control his breathing while Moe whispered in his ear. "It was raining," he began. "I was several meters away, in my car."

"You said you saw the victim's face."

"The light, she turned her head toward the light when he -- or when the killer -- went toward her."

"And this killer, who might have been a man, and who came out of nowhere. Was he tall, short, old, young?"

"I don't know. It was dark."