Thankless in Death (In Death #37)(115)

“Then why did she make you the ID? Why did she help you out?”

“I … you’re confusing me. You’re mixing me up on purpose. I want a lawyer. I want a lawyer, and I’m not talking to you.”

“That’s your right.” Eve began to box up the evidence again. “Peabody, have him taken back to holding.”

“I am not going back there.” Shouting, he gripped the edge of the table as if to secure himself in place. “I want a lawyer now. I’ve got plenty of money. I can hire the best lawyer there is, and he’ll make you sorry.”

“You don’t have any money, Jerry,” Eve corrected.

“I have millions!”

She sighed. “Jerry, Jerry, you moron. The money was stolen in the commission of various crimes. None of it’s yours.”

“Everything my parents had is mine. That’s the law.”

“Not if you killed them.”

“She’s right about that, Jerry. You can’t use any of that money.” Peabody rose, too. “I’ll notify the Public Defender’s office. With the holiday, though, it could be Monday before they assign anyone.”

“I’m not waiting until Monday.”

“If you want a lawyer.” Eve shrugged. “It could take a while to get you a PD.”

“I want one now!” His eyes went wild, spittle flew. “I want to use my money to hire a lawyer, you bitch.”

“Tough shit, Jerry. We’ll work on getting you a public defender, as is your right.”

“Don’t you walk out of here! You come back here, you stupid bitch. You come back here right now.”

“You’ve exercised your right, requested a lawyer. This interview is done until you are represented. Get the door, will you, Peabody?”

“Fuck a bunch of lawyers. I don’t want a lawyer. I want you to get back here. I want to go home.”

Calm as a lake on the outside, Eve turned back to him. “You’re waiving your right to representation at this time?”

“Fuck you, yes. I’m telling you, Joe killed all of them, and you’re trying to pin it on me. You’re just pissed because I was smarter than you.”

“Oh yeah, I can promise if you were smarter than me, I’d be pissed.” Eve set down the box, sat again. “Here’s another little”—what had Roarke called it?—“spanner in the works. Joe’s alibied for the time of your mother’s death, the time of your father’s death, your ex’s death, and Ms. Farnsworth’s death. Do you think we don’t check these things, Jerry?”

“He’s lying. You’re lying. I want another cop.”

“That’s not one of your rights. You killed them, Jerry, every one of them. You liked it. You found what you were missing in life, didn’t you? And you got rich doing it, you got everything you ever wanted, everything you deserved. All those ass**les screwing with you? You got them back for it. And you were good at it. You f**king excelled.”

“You’re damn right!”

“It came to you when you were sticking that knife in your mother, didn’t it?”

Eve kept her eyes trained on his, kept her tone quiet and smooth. Praise and threaten, she thought. Juggle both the praise, the threats, and toss in the facts.

“She’s bugging the shit out of you. Get a job, get out, get off your ass. Nagging bitch, you’d had enough. Who wouldn’t? So you picked up the knife, right there in the kitchen where she was making you a sandwich, and you carved her up. And you knew, right then, you’d found your calling.”

“She wouldn’t get off my back. They were going to kick me out. Just kick me out. What was I supposed to do?”

Get a job, Eve thought. “So you killed them. Your mother with the knife. And you waited until your father came home from work and you beat him to death with your old baseball bat.”

“It was self-defense. I had to protect myself, didn’t I? They made me crazy. It’s their fault. I did what I had to do to protect myself.”

“What you had to do,” Eve said with a nod. “Then you took their money, their valuables. You stayed in the apartment with their bodies from Friday night until Saturday night.”

“I couldn’t stay there forever, could I?”

“Right. Of course. But you needed some time to do the whole transfer with the accounts, find all the money they had, open your own accounts, wire the money out and over using their passcodes.”

“My money,” he reminded her. “My parents, my inheritance. They owed me.”

“It was pretty smart,” Peabody said, and worked some admiration into her tone. “I mean, the way you transferred the money, then withdrew it so fast on Monday, spent some time in that nice hotel figuring out your next move.”

“People underestimate me. That’s their problem. I figured it out, and I did everything right. You had my name and face all over the screen, but you couldn’t find me. I’ve got skills.”

“And you used those skills on Lori Monday night.”

“That bitch didn’t respect me. Another nag, nag, nag. She humiliated me, so I humiliated her right back. She deserved it.”

“Stripped her, cut her hair,” Eve said. “Tore up her new stuff. You got off when you strangled her, didn’t you, Jerry? They’re powerful, those skills of yours. You found your power.”