Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(85)

“Yes! Yes, but it doesn’t matter.” Insult, this time clearly for the stain on his daughter’s skill, raged through his voice. “She’s the best I’ve ever seen. Better than I ever was. She wouldn’t have missed Rothstein.”

“You’re telling me a fifteen-year-old girl made the strikes that killed Michaelson and two others on Wollman Rink. Killed four people including Officer Kevin Russo in Times Square?”

“Do you think I could make those strikes with these hands? With these eyes?”

“She made them for you?”

“For us. Susann would’ve been more of a mother to her, a real mother to her. We were going to be a family. They destroyed that. They destroyed my family! They don’t deserve to live.”

“You and your daughter, Willow Mackie, conspired to kill the people on this list.” Eve took a printout from the file. “And however many others you deemed necessary in your attempt to cover up your connection to these targets.”

“This Interview is over.” Pratt got to his feet.

“She’s my eyes! She’s my hands! It’s not murder. It’s justice. Justice for my wife, my son.”

“All these people.” Eve opened the other files, spread out more pictures. “All those who just happened to be in the same place at the same time?”

“Why do they matter more than Susann and my son? Why do they deserve a life, a family, when I have none?”

“Why do they matter less?” Eve countered.

“I said this Interview is over.” Obviously shaken, Pratt struggled to keep his voice calm. “I need to consult with my client. We’ll take our break now.”

“You do that.” Eve began to gather the photos.

“Where is Rothstein?”

“You can’t get to him.” Eve rose. “Or any of the others on your list. And she won’t. Think about that. We’ll resume in thirty. Interview end.”

She walked out, kept walking straight to her office. While Peabody moved to the AutoChef for coffee, Eve sat, studied the go-cup in the center of her desk, with a label that read: DRINK ME!

She opened the lid, sniffed suspiciously. Frowned, as it smelled like a chocolate malted.

“What is that?”

“Something Roarke came up with.” Cautiously, Eve took a sip. It tasted like a chocolate malted. A real one.

She looked at the coffee Peabody set on her desk, back at the go-cup. And thinking of Roarke, drank half of the booster.

She held the cup out to Peabody. “You look like crap. Drink the rest.”

Peabody tried a testing sip. Her eyes widened. “Oh, it tastes like a zillion calories. But—” She downed it.

“That was genius—making him think she’d missed Rothstein.”

“Just came to me. Either he’d be pissed at her for screwing up, or pissed at me for saying she did. His ego—for himself and his protégé—locked him into confessing to multiple murders, and implicating her. It was enough for the first round.”

“I’m kicking myself for not thinking of it,” Mira said as she came in. “Pride. There’s a lot of paternal pride mixed into his psychosis. She’s his eyes, his hands, his weapon, his child. They’re all conflated. He will go into a cage, Eve, and it’s unlikely he’d be deemed legally insane, but he’s a very disturbed man.”

“He can be disturbed for the rest of his useless life, as long as he’s in that cage. One down, one to go. He may not give a shit about his ex and her husband being targets. He may not give a shit about the seven-year-old kid being a target. But if she’s his eyes, his hands, they aren’t his targets. Let’s see if he can rationalize her planning on taking them out. And the school, all those kids. If that doesn’t work, and I can’t trip him up otherwise, we go with the deal. The deal gives him room to believe she’ll be safe inside for a couple years, then come out and finish. Her agenda, her hit list, that’s weight she’s not leaving the city, and he’ll lose her, lose his eyes and hands.”

“He believes he’s a good father,” Peabody commented. “He genuinely believes it, I could see it. It’s like he took her innate talent and honored it, helped refine it.”

“He’s resentful of the stepfather. More stable and successful—and with a son,” Mira added. “He still harbors anger toward his ex-wife. But the half brother may strike a nerve. I’d put pressure there.”

“Peabody, see how many cute photos of the kid you can come up with. Birthdays, Christmas, like that. Baby shots. They had a puppy, right? Puppy shots.”

“Got it.”

“Make him look at them,” Mira said when Peabody hurried out. “The innocence, the sweetness. Remind him that child shares blood with his. It will matter, I believe, that his child plots to kill her own blood. The mother, perhaps not. She’s an adult who made choices Mackie disagrees with, choices he resents. But the child has no choice. Just as his son, if he’d come to be, would have none.”

“And would have shared her blood. I got it.”

“Your color’s better,” Mira noted.

“Yeah? Roarke boost.”

“Is that a euphemism? When would you have had the time?”

“I just—no, jeez.” Amused, appalled, Eve held up the go-cup. “Booster. Roarke-supplied booster. He probably arranged some for half the cops in here while he was at it.”