Golden in Death(116)

She took a photo of Whitt’s father and Grange out of the box. “You didn’t send this one to Greenwald because you didn’t, at least then, want your father ID’d. But, like the one you sent, you took this—kept it in your hidey-hole. But I’m guessing Cosner took this one.”

And pulled out another, one of Lotte Grange with Stephen Whitt.

“My client was a minor, and this woman an adult, and the headmistress of his school.”

“Agreed, and that will be addressed, take my word. You wanted to punish her for doing your father, your own father, while she was doing you, didn’t you, Steve? You made sure you got one of Grange with your father’s face turned away, obscured.”

Pausing, she pulled a copy of what she described out of the evidence box. “You sent it to Grange’s husband. The divorces, your parents, Grange, that was just fine. But you didn’t expect Grange to leave the school. She was your shield, plus sex. Seriously teacher’s pet, right?”

“As a minor—”

Eve cut Kobast off with a vicious look that jolted him as much as her slap on the table had Whitt. “This is where it started.” She jabbed a finger on the photo of Grange with Whitt—a teenager, a student.

“Right here. But it didn’t end until today. Grange cut her losses, took another position in another city. Then the next thing you know, Rufty’s in there laying down new rules. That son of a bitch. You’re getting pulled out, but at least you’ll still be with Grange, still have that shield, probably the sex. But you lose the girl.”

Eve rose, walked around the table. “You didn’t love the girl, you’re not capable of it. But she belonged to you, she did what you said, what you wanted. She was nearly beautiful and obliging enough to be worthy of you. And all of a sudden, she moves on. She just let you go. You can blame her parents at first, but Jesus, she doesn’t even try.”

She leaned down, close to his ear, whispered, “That stupid, spineless cunt.”

Eve watched his hands fist as she eased back.

“Then what does she do? She gets tight with the mother who sep arated you, she goes off and starts a business. Then, the final blow.” Eve reached into the box, took out the bagged clippings from the evidence box. “She gets engaged, and not to just anyone, but to someone important, to the son of someone really important. She had no right.”

Eve rapped a fist on the table, whipped out the words. “Isn’t that how you saw it? Nobody walks away from you like that. And whose fault was it?”

She took the printout of the kill list, tossed it on the table. “Theirs. It’s just not as simple as hitting delete, Steve. You didn’t want to kill them, not the ones responsible. You wanted them to suffer, to lose, to never forget. The academy had been your golden goose, and they killed it. So you killed Rufty’s husband, Duran’s wife. You killed Sanchez when you didn’t need him anymore, and you killed your partner in this, your best friend, so you could shovel all the blame on him and walk away.

“But.” She leaned over his shoulder again, turned her voice into a verbal sneer. “You weren’t smart enough to pull it off. Every time you thought you covered your tracks, you left bread crumbs. You kept the knife you used to kill because you’re arrogant, and too stupid to throw it away.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Whitt snarled at her.

“Lieutenant,” Kobast began, but she pushed over him.

“Cards on the table. You kept a record of your enemies, the targets, their schedules on a tablet in the hole in the floor because you felt smug when you looked at it.”

To back up the words, Peabody pulled the tablet out of the evidence box, and a printout of the kill list taken from it.

“You spent a half hour inside your friend’s apartment before you murdered him because you’re such a moron it never occurred to you we’d check the damn security feed.

“You didn’t destroy Cosner’s tablet and couldn’t get by his passcode because you’re stupid. He kept up his habit of documenting, like a journal. Only he went from a book to a tablet. It’s all on there.”

Shifting, she pushed her face into his, filled her voice with derision.

“You’re an idiot who couldn’t get through high school without cheating. You cheated on your girlfriend with a woman old enough to be your grandmother. You preyed on the weaker, the defenseless because it made you feel like a big man. But you’re not, never were. You’re still a small, selfish, stupid boy.”

“Fuck you!”

She shifted again so the elbow he tried to jab brushed her hip. Now she could add assaulting an officer if she wanted to pile it on.

She wanted to pile it on.

“Stephen, you need to be quiet.”

“Fuck quiet. Stupid?”

She saw emotion in him now. Saw the ugly rage.

“If I’m so stupid, how come Rufty’s fag husband’s dead? And that asshole Duran’s bitch? How does stupid get some loser junkie to focus in, to do the work to make something the military would pay billions for? If you’re so goddamn smart,” he shouted over Kobast’s orders to stop talking, “how come you didn’t figure it out sooner? Before Marsh got high and took out the egg?”

“You gave him the illegal in the scotch. You tampered with the seal of the egg.”