Kindred in Death (In Death #29)(113)

She turned away. “All right, boys and girls, good work. Let’s close it down.”

At Central, Eve formally notified her commander, the PA’s office, contacted Mira with a request she observe. She wrote her report.

She sat, her boots on her desk, and drank a cup of coffee.

Peabody tapped on the doorjamb. “He’s been booked and processed, and he’s been sitting in Interview for an hour.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Reo and the commander are here, MacMasters just came in, and Mira’s on her way.”

“I’m up on that.”

“Don’t you think we ought to start working him?”

“Feeling twitchy?”

“No. Yes. Well, Nadine’s chomping to break the story.”

“Not yet. Nothing yet.”

“Well . . . we’re supposed to be back, you know, with the rehearsal. I know they’re using stand-ins, but if we wrapped this, we could still . . .”

Eve merely turned her head, stared.

“And ah . . . We should talk about how we’re going at him,” Peabody decided on the spot. “And if we leave him sitting too long, he might start thinking lawyer.”

“He’s not going to lawyer. What name is he going to use? What address? His ID’s bogus. Besides, what good did a lawyer do his mother? That’s what he’s thinking. Fuck lawyers, f**k all of us. He’s too smart to go down. Or, if we get lucky, he’ll go down a hero in his own mind.”

“Well, how do we work him? Oh, let me guess.” Peabody rolled her eyes. “I’m good cop.”

“No good cop.”

A quick, almost childish delight bloomed on Peabody’s face. “I don’t have to be good? I can be bad?”

“We hit, hit hard. Getting the confession isn’t the tricky part.”

“It’s not?”

“He’ll want to confess after he understands we’ve got him cold. He’ll want the hero badge. The tricky part? Getting him to flip on his father.” She dropped her feet to the floor. “Let’s do it.”

Eve walked into Interview, dropped her file on the table, took a seat. Peabody took the chair beside her.

“Record on,” she said and read in all the data, including every known alias she’d discovered.

She noted the quick jump of a muscle in Darrin’s jaw, and knew the depth of her knowledge caught him off guard.

“Legally, I’m covered using the name on your birth records,” she said conversationally, “but I like to be thorough, seeing as you’ve used so many names, including the two used when you murdered Deena MacMasters and Karlene Robins. So, which name do you want me to use in this interview? Your choice.”

“Fuck you.”

“For the record, would f**k be your first name or your last? Never mind. The courts frown on my using that sort of profanity to address interview subjects. Though, personally, I think it fits.”

“To the ground,” Peabody agreed.

“I’ll stick with Darrin. We’ve got you cold, Darrin. You’re a smart guy, so you know this. Well, maybe not so smart as you were set up and knocked down by a ninety-year-old woman. One you intended to incapacitate with an illegal substance, bind, beat, rape, sodomize, and murder.”

“Give me a break.” His sneer struck her as both young and arrogant. “She’s old. I couldn’t even get wood up to do some dried-up old woman. Makes me want to puke to think about it.”

“The stiffie pills in your backpack would’ve helped with that, but you’d have gotten it up, Darrin. Even though I suspect you’ve got a twig in your pants instead of a decent bat. Because it’s all about the hurting for you, the torment, the fear, the pain. That’s what turns sick f**ks—oops, I said f**k—like you on.”

“How are you going to prove that?” He leaned back in the chair, relaxed. Looked around the room as if bored. “Yeah, I figured I’d lay her out. She’s got a lot of valuables in that place. I was going to rob her and walk away.”

“I see. So with Deena and Karlene, your intention to rob just went a little too far. Resulting in . . .” Eve opened the file, tossed the two file shots on the table.

This time his facial muscles twitched into the smallest of smiles.

“You are a sick f**k.” Peabody shoved back her chair as she sprang to her feet. She leaned over the table until she was nose to nose with Darrin. “It pisses me off we’re wasting time with you, that we have to go through this routine. We’ve got witnesses, you ass**le. We’ve got security recordings of you walking into Deena MacMasters’s house the night you killed her. Of you entering the building the day you killed Karlene Robins.”

“Bullshit. That’s bullshit, because I was never anywhere near those places.”

“Bullshit? I’ll show you bullshit. Wall screen on!” She caught herself, glanced toward Eve.

“Go ahead, you’ve already spoiled my surprise.”

“Display image 1-A,” Peabody ordered.

The screen filled with a clear shot of Darrin climbing the steps of the MacMasters’s home toward a smiling Deena. The time stamp pulsed in the bottom corner as the recording continued with him reaching her, offering her the flowers, easing into the doorway, into the house.