Kindred in Death (In Death #29)(97)

“As Darrin Pauley does?”

“Whatever he remembers, or has been taught to remember is different. I know I wasn’t a child to either of them. I was a commodity. A potential income. But did they come up with that together, or did one convince the other? That’s a question I’ll never have the answer to, and isn’t important.”

She wouldn’t let it be important.

“But in this case, maybe it is.”

“Why she chose, or they chose to have the boy,” Roarke continued.

“She’s the player, the brains, the front man. He’s the manipulator who likes the flash and she taught him what she knew. The sex, the drugs, that’s cheap money, and lacks finesse. Quick and greedy, like you said. She had to have finesse to play Pauley for a year. And the kid? He should’ve been baggage, she should have shucked that off. She didn’t. So she either wanted the kid or she wanted Pauley—maybe both. The kid wasn’t a commodity. Maybe a cover, but even that’s a stretch.”

“Easier to move, to blend, to work the grift without an infant to tend to,” Roarke agreed.

“When Pauley got out, they could’ve left the kid with Vinnie. Poofed.”

“Taking them both, the woman Vinnie loved, the child he thought was his? It’s cruel.”

“Fits the pattern. She was clean and healthy, and they had a decent stake—one they stole from Vinnie—and in a couple of years, she’s using and soliciting. And it shapes up that he was running the show.”

“Easy money,” Roarke concurred, “with her doing the work.”

“It’s Pauley, he was her weakness. She whored for him, and dealt for him—and somewhere along the line he started running the show, looking for easier money, more flash, more cash. By the time she did her eighteen and they shifted to Chicago, he was in full charge.”

She took a breath. “That’s the way it was, that’s the way I remember it. The way it felt to me when I remember them together, or get those flashes of events. She was a junkie and a whore—and he ran the show. So maybe I’m projecting.”

“I don’t think so.”

She shook her head. “That’s for later, maybe it’ll be useful. We have to deal with the now. Let’s get Peabody back and take the judge.”

He went to her first, took her face in his hands. “Whatever you remember, or feel, you need to know that whatever they were they did one worthwhile thing in their miserable lives. And that was you. Whatever they were, they couldn’t destroy that. They couldn’t stop you from becoming.”

Judge Serenity Mimoto, a trim and tiny woman, studied the sketch of Darrin Pauley on screen. “He looks like his father.”

“You remember the father?”

Mimoto cut intense eyes to Eve. Their striking azure color radiated against smooth hazelnut skin. “I refreshed myself on the matter, and those involved, when your office contacted me earlier. I’m familiar with the details of the case. The defendant, through her attorney, had reached an agreement with the prosecutor. She pled guilty to all charges, with the APA recommending a sentence of eighteen months. Taking into account the nonviolent nature of the crimes, the lack of previous criminal record, the defendant’s cooperation and plea, I so ordered. She was remanded to the Minimum Security facility at Rikers.”

Mimoto nodded toward the screen again. “And I remember him, the baby in his father’s arms, crying for his mother. I allowed them a moment to say good-bye. She took the boy briefly, very briefly, then passed him to her attorney and embraced the man. I thought, so she has no comfort to give her son, but needs to take it from the father.”

“You haven’t seen him, the father or the son, since that day in court?”

“No, I don’t believe I have. If this young man’s case comes before me, when you’ve arrested him, I’ll be forced to recuse myself due to this conversation, and the previous connection. So I’ll ask you, Lieutenant, do you have enough for an arrest?”

“I believe we do, and will have more.”

Mimoto inclined her head. “You hope I can provide you with some of that more.”

“Yes, I do, and by doing so prevent him from harming someone close to you. You pronounced the sentence that put his mother in prison. Six months after her release, when she, her son, and her partner were going by different names, and I believe continuing the confidence games and illegal activities that resulted in her arrest and incarceration, she was raped and murdered in a manner nearly identical to that of my two victims.”

“And you believe this is the man responsible for two murders, because he somehow blames his mother’s death on her arrest and in carceration?”

Eve appreciated Mimoto’s calm demeanor as much as her quick understanding. “Yes, and I believe he’s been indoctrinated to make that connection throughout his life.”

Mimoto lifted a sharp black eyebrow. “That’s for the psychiatrists and lawyers to sort out. He won’t come after me. That’s a pity as it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been threatened or targeted in my twenty-six years on the bench. Someone in my family. I have a very large family, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, Your Honor, you do. Four siblings, all currently married, three children, also all currently married. Eight grandchildren.”