Glory in Death (In Death #2)(76)

"They managed to scrape off enough to get type, DNA." His already gloomy face sagged. "It matches our boy. It's David Angelini's blood, Dallas. Lab says it's old, six months minimum. From the fibers they got, it looks like he used it to open packages, probably nicked himself somewhere along the line. It's not our weapon."

"Screw it." She heaved a breath, refused to be discouraged. "If he had one knife, he could have had two. We'll wait to hear from the other sweepers." Taking a moment, she scrubbed her face with her hands. "Listen to me, Feeney, if we go with Marco's confession as bogus, we have to ask why. He's not a crank or a loony calling in trying to take credit. He's saving his son's ass is what he's doing. So we work on him, and we work hard. I'll bring him in to interview, try to crack him."

"I'm with you there."

"I've got a session with Mira in a couple hours. We'll just let our main boy stew for awhile."

"While we pray one of the teams turns up something."

"Praying can't hurt. Here's the big one, Feeney, our boy's lawyers get a hold of Marco's confession, it's going to corrupt the hearing on the minor charges. We'll whistle for an indictment."

"With that, and without physical evidence, he's going back out, Dallas. "

"Yeah. Son of a bitch."

Marco Angelini was like a boulder cemented to concrete. He wasn't going to budge. Two hours of intense interrogation didn't shake his story. Though, Eve consoled herself, he hadn't shored up any of the holes in it, either. At the moment, she had little choice but to pin her hopes on Mira's report.

"I can tell you," Mira said in her usual unruffled fashion, "that David Angelini is a troubled young man with a highly developed sense of self-indulgence and protection."

"Tell me he's capable of slicing his mother's throat."

"Ah." Mira sat back and folded her neat hands. "What I can tell you is, in my opinion, he is more capable of running from trouble than confronting it, on any level. When combining and averaging his placements on the Murdock-Lowell and the Synergy Evaluations -- "

"Can we skip over the psych buzz, Doctor? I can read that in the report. "

"All right." Mira shifted away from the screen where she had been about to bring up the evaluations. "We'll keep this in simple terms for the time being. Your man is a liar, one who convinces himself with little effort that his lies are truth in order to maintain his self-esteem. He requires good opinion, even praise, and is accustomed to having it. And having his own way."

"And if he doesn't get his own way?"

"He casts blame elsewhere. It is not his fault, nor his responsibility. His world is insular, Lieutenant, comprised for the most part of himself alone. He considers himself successful and talented, and when he fails, it's because someone else made a mistake. He gambles because he doesn't believe he can lose, and he enjoys the thrill of risk. He loses because he believes himself above the game."

"How would he react at the risk of having his bones snapped over gambling debts?"

"He would run and he would hide, and being abnormally dependent on his parents, he would expect them to clean up the mess."

"And if they refused?"

Mira was silent for a moment. "You want me to tell you that he would strike out, react violently, even murderously. I can't do that. It is, of course, a possibility that can't be ruled out in any of us. No test, no evaluation can absolutely conclude the reaction of an individual under certain circumstances. But in those tests and those evaluations, the subject reacted consistently by covering, by running, by shifting blame rather than by attacking the source of his problem."

"And he could be covering his reaction, to skew the evaluation."

"It's possible, but unlikely. I'm sorry."

Eve stopped pacing and sank into a chair. "You're saying that in your opinion, the murderer may still be out there."

"I'm afraid so. It makes your job more difficult."

"If I'm looking in the wrong place," Eve said to herself, "where's the right place? And who's next?"

"Unfortunately, neither science nor technology is yet able to forecast the future. You can program possibilities, even probabilities, but they can't take into account impulse or emotion. Do you have Nadine Furst under protection?"

"As much as possible." Eve tapped a finger on her knee. "She's difficult, and she's torn up about Louise Kirski."

"And so are you."

Eve slid her gaze over, nodded stiffly. "Yeah, you could say that."

"Yet you look uncommonly rested this morning."

"I got a good night's sleep."

"Untroubled?"

Eve moved a shoulder, tucked Angelini and the case into a corner of her mind where she hoped it would simmer into something fresh. "What would you say about a woman who can't seem to sleep well unless this man's in bed with her?"

"I'd say she may be in love with him, is certainly growing used to him. "

"You wouldn't say she's overly dependent?"

"Can you function without him? Do you feel able to make a decision without asking his advice, opinion, or direction?"