Purity in Death (In Death #15)(97)

"Don't try to hose me." He snorted at her, and she lost even that sliver of sympathy.

He wasn't just a cop who'd broken under the pressure. He was one who'd puffed up on it and filled himself to bursting-like the thin skin of a balloon-bulging with arrogance, with righteousness.

"I'm a badge. I know how this works. If I had anything to say pertaining to the recent homicides, I'd need immunity for Clarissa and myself regarding any possible involvement."

"Immunity." She leaned back, carefully selected a french fry, studied it. "You just want me to wipe your slate? Seven dead, one a cop, and you want a free ride for yourself and your lady? Just how do you expect me to pull that off for you, Dwier?"

"You'll pull it off. You've got weight."

"Let's put it this way." She drenched the fries with salt. They needed help desperately. "Why do you think I'd use the weight you think I have to help you skate on this?"

"You want the bust. I know your type. The bust comes first. Keep your cases-cleared percentage high. You figure they'll pin another f**king medal on you."

"You don't know me." Her voice was low and lethal. "You want a picture in your head, Dwier? How about this one? A sixteen-year-old girl, cut into ribbons, her blood all over the walls following the trail where she'd run trying to get away from a man who was driven insane by a group of people who decided he should die. Her name was Hannah Wade. She was a stupid kid with a bad attitude who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Kevin Halloway, a solid young cop just doing his job. How do the people pushing your buttons rate that in their list of percentages. An acceptable loss?"

"Clarissa's sick over that girl. She's busted to pieces over it. Didn't sleep a wink all night."

Eve felt bile rush into her throat, washed it back with water. "Remorse will weigh in with the prosecutor. Maybe you were misled. Maybe both of you were misled by the people in charge of Purity. You were just looking for a way to protect the kids on your watch."

"Yeah." He drank, keyed in the menu for a second bottle. "If that were the case, it would go toward immunity. The fact, if we did know something relevant, we were willing to give it up-voluntarily."

You puke, she thought, her face blank as a wiped slate. "You know I can't guarantee immunity. That decision doesn't come from me. I can only request it."

"You can push it. You know the buttons."

She looked away from him a moment because knowing she'd try for the deal made her sick. The greater good, she told herself. Sometimes justice couldn't sweep clean.

"I'll push for immunity. But you're off the job, and so's she-"

"You can't-"

"Shut up, Dwier. Just shut up, because what I'm going to lay down here is as good as you're ever going to get. And the offer is one-time only. I put my weight for immunity. Make the case for the P.A. that your information, and Price's, was key to my investigation. If it isn't key, Dwier, this conversation is moot. You and Price walk, no cage time. But you put in for retirement, and she resigns from Child Services. It's up to the P.A. and the brass as to whether you keep your benefits. That's out of my hands. But you walk."

She shoved her plate aside. "You refuse this deal and I give you a vow to hunt you, both of you, until I have enough to put you both over. I'll push for multiple charges, first-degree, conspiracy murder. I'll push for the murder of a police officer. I'll push hard and the two of you will spend the rest of your lives behind bars. The last breath you take will be in a cage. I'll make it my personal mission."

His eyes glittered-temper, terror, alcohol. And, Eve thought with a dull amazement, with insult.

"I got sixteen years in. Sixteen years busting my hump."

"And now you've got five minutes to decide." She pushed up from the table. "Be gone or be ready to talk when I get back."

As she strode across the club, Peabody started to rise. Eve simply shook her head and kept going.

She slammed into what the Squirrel called their rest room. Five narrow stalls and two shallow pits for sinks. She ran the water cold, splashed it on her face again and again until the heat of her anger and disgust chilled.

Face dripping, she lifted her head and stared at herself in the black-flecked mirror. Seven people dead, she thought. Seven. And she was about to help two of the ones responsible ride free so she could stop the others.

Is this what it took to speak for Kevin Halloway, for Hannah Wade? Is this what it took?

Shades of right, Tibble had said. And just now she felt smeared by the shadows.

She scrubbed her face dry, then pulled out her communicator.

"Commander. I need a deal for Thomas Dwier and Clarissa Price."

***

Dwier was still at the table when she returned and starting on his third bottle. She wondered how long ago he'd drowned his conscience.

"Talk," she said.

"I gotta have some assurances."

"I laid it out for you once, I'm not laying it out again. Talk or walk."

"I want you to understand we did what we had to do. You work to get scum off the street and before you write up your fives, they're back out. The system's gone soft. All this shit about civil rights jammed down our throat, lawyers sliding through the grease, you can't do the job,"