Immortal in Death (In Death #3)(93)

“It’s a question, Counselor. Did he, Jerry?”

“No, of course not. We — we didn’t go there. We went out for drinks. We went home.”

“You taunted her, didn’t you? You knew how to play her. You had to be sure she’d go hunt down Leonardo. Did Redford contact you, tell you when she’d left?”

“No, I don’t know. You’re confusing me. Can’t I have something? I need my drink.”

“You were using it that night. It made you strong. Strong enough to kill her. You wanted her dead. She was always in your way. And her tablets were stronger, more effective than your liquid. Did you want them, Jerry?”

“Yes, I wanted them. She was getting younger in front of my eyes. Thinner. I have to watch every f**king bite I take, but she… Paul said he might be able to get them from her. Justin told him to back off, to stay away from me. But Justin doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how it makes you feel. Immortal,” she said with a horrible smile. “It makes you feel immortal. For God’s sake, just one drink.”

“You slipped out of the back that night, went to Leonardo’s. What happened then?”

“I can’t. I’m confused. I need something.”

“Did you pick up the cane and hit her? Did you keep hitting her?”

“I wanted her dead.” On a sob, Jerry laid her head on the table. “I wanted her dead. For God’s sake help me. I’ll tell you anything you want to hear if you just help me.”

“Lieutenant, anything my client says under physical and mental duress is inadmissible.”

Eve studied the weeping woman and reached for the ‘link. “Get the MT’s in here,” she ordered. “And arrange for hospital transport for Ms. Fitzgerald. Under guard.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“What do you mean you’re not charging her?” His eyes went dark with shock and temper as Casto erupted, “You got a f**king confession.”

“It wasn’t a confession,” Eve corrected. She was tired, dead tired and sick of herself. “She’d have said anything.”

“Jesus Christ, Eve. Jesus Christ.” In an attempt to walk off fury, Casto paced up and down the antiseptic tiled corridor of the health center. “You aced her.”

“The hell I did.” Wearily, Eve rubbed at a headache in her left temple. “Listen to me, Casto, the shape she was in, she’d have told me she personally drove nails into the palms of Christ if I’d promised her a fix. I charge her on the basis of that, her lawyers will tear it apart in pretrial.”

“You’re not worried about pretrial.” He passed the tight-lipped Peabody on his stride back to Eve. “You went for the jugular, just like a cop’s supposed to in a murder case. Now you’ve gone soft. You’re f**king sorry for her.”

“Don’t tell me what I am,” Eve said evenly. “And don’t tell me how to run this investigation. I’m primary, Casto, so back the hell off.”

He measured her. “You don’t want me to go over your head with this decision.”

“Threats?” She angled her body up on the balls of her feet, like a boxer ready to dance. “You go ahead and do what you have to do. My recommendation stands. She gets treatment, though Christ knows how much good that’s going to do her in the short term, then we reinterview. Until I’m satisfied she’s coherent and capable of judgment, she won’t be charged.”

Eve could see he was making an effort to pull himself back. And she could see it was costing him. She didn’t give a damn.

“Eve, you’ve got motive, you’ve got opportunity, you’ve got the personality capacity tests. She’s capable of the crimes in question. She was, at her own admission, under the influence and predisposed to hate Pandora’s guts. What the f**k do you want?”

“I want her to look me in the eye, clear in the eye, and tell me she did them. I want her to tell me how she did them. Until then, we wait. Because I’ll tell you something, hotshot. No way she acted alone. No f**king way she did all of them with her own pretty hands.”

“Why? Because she’s a woman?”

“No, because money isn’t her big pull. Passion is, love is, envy is. So maybe she did Pandora in a fit of jealous rage, but I don’t buy her doing the others. Not without help. Not without a push. So we wait, we reinterview, and we get her to finger Young and/or Redford. Then, we have it all.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

“So noted,” she said briskly. “Now, go file your interdepartmental complaint, take a walk, or blow it out your ass, but get out of my face.”

His eyes flickered, the temper in them ripe and ready. But he stepped back. “I’m going to go cool off.”

He stormed off, with barely a glance at the silent Peabody.

“Your pal’s running a little low on charm this evening,” Eve commented.

Peabody could have said the same went for her commanding officer, but she held her tongue. “We’re all under a lot of pressure, Dallas. This bust means a lot to him.”

“You know what, Peabody? Justice means a little more to me than a pretty gold star on my record or some f**king captain’s bars. And if you want to go run after lover boy and stroke his ego, no one’s stopping you.”