“Good. That’s good. I … I liked her,” he said again, and walked away.
Mira looked after him. “Death, especially murder, casts long shadows. I need to get back to my office. If you need me, I’ll come back.”
“We’ve got this, but thanks for your help.”
Moments later, the door opened again. “In order for my client to make a statement, we require a representative of the prosecutor’s office.”
“That’s handy. I’ve got one right here.”
Reo stepped forward, held out a hand. “APA Cher Reo. I’ll be sitting in on the interview.”
“We need to have a discussion.”
“No problem. Let’s have it in Interview, on the record, just so all parties, including your client, are fully apprised and aware of the details of that discussion.”
“Record on,” Eve said as she walked by Gotte and into the room. “Dallas and Peabody reentering Interview. Reo, APA Cher, now in attendance. Looks like you’re down a lawyer, Tween.”
It also looked like some of that fear had begun to cut through the arrogance.
“Mr. Barkley has removed himself as counsel,” Gotte said briskly. “Before my client agrees to answer any questions or give any statement, we need to be assured of considerations.”
“You want a deal?” On a dismissive snort, Eve rocked back in her chair. “We’ve got you nailed, Tween, up, down, sideways. You’re going down, and hard. Two consecutive life sentences, no parole, in a concrete cage off-planet. There’s your goddamn deal.”
Gotte merely folded her hands on the table. “You don’t make the deals, Lieutenant, the prosecutor does. I’m sure APA Reo understands the expense, the risks, the difficulties in a long, complex, public trial.”
“I understand this.” Reo slid Eve’s file over, opened it. And took out the copy of Galla’s body with the message from the killer. “I understand how a jury’s going to react when I put this on the screen in the courtroom.”
Casually now, Reo flipped through the file. “I understand your client hired a PI to spy on his wife—and paid for it in a fraudulent manner. Just a little thing considering all, but something a jury’s going to tsk over. I understand he contacted a convicted felon with known ties to the old Italian Mafia who acted as a broker—for a fee your client paid fraudulently—to put him in contact with a professional hit man.”
She hammered, just as Eve had, only with the hint of a Southern drawl.
“I understand your client communicated with this hit man, and paid him a million euros plus expenses to rip a knife through his wife, the mother of a four-year-old boy, from crotch to sternum. And aided said individual by giving him the details of where she would be at the time and place of her murder.”
Reo closed the file, folded her hands on it. “There’s more, but golly, that should do it.”
“There are avenues I can take to convince a jury to sympathize with my client, the betrayed husband, and reduce his sentence, if indeed they convict. The victim’s family and her young son would be spared the pain and scandal of a trial if we come to terms here.”
“I met the victim’s family,” Eve put in. “I think they’d revel in a trial.”
“One that paints their daughter as a faithless wife, that brings her lover into court to answer questions on their sexual relationship?”
Those hard eyes bored into Eve’s.
“One that brings in experts to discuss my client’s emotional break, his temporary loss of reason?”
“That lasted six weeks?” Eve shot back. “You want to try to convince twelve people and a judge that this selfish, greedy excuse for a human being just, what, lost his mind for, oh, a month and a half? That’s some temporary loss of reason.”
“Reasonable doubt can be established, and it only takes one juror to hang a jury. A second trial, more expense, more time, more emotional pain for the victim’s family. When what you want is the person who used the knife, who took her life.”
“He might as well have.”
“But he didn’t,” Gotte snapped, “which we can prove. Which you know to be true. If my client has information on this person, it has value. Conspiracy to murder, drop the second charge, twenty-five years on-planet with possibility of parole in twenty.”
“No! Jesus Christ, Reo.”
Reo waved Eve back, rolled her eyes. “No. Your client solicited and paid for his wife’s death. He worked at it, and he’s actually tried to cash in—to cover those fees, I imagine—the day after. Both charges stand.”
“Concurrent.”
“No. If your client knows something that leads to the killer he conspired with, let’s hear it.”
“I told you I want immunity.”
Reo snapped her head toward Tween so quickly, Eve wondered it didn’t fly off. “And I want a mansion in Connecticut with a pool boy named Steve. I will put you away.” She leaned forward, all the fragile magnolia she could put on burned away. “I will put you away for two lifetimes so far from the world you know it’s not even a vague memory.”
“Consecutive,” Gotte broke in. “Fifteen each.”
“No. Give me a nibble or I walk and see you both in court.”
“Lorcan Cobbe. He—”
“Not another word,” Gotte ordered. “You got your nibble. Seventeen and a half each, twenty-five total, before my client agrees to give you more.”
“No. Peabody, do me a favor and run that name.”
“Sure. Peabody exiting Interview.” She rose, walked out.
Reo leaned back. “Here’s how I see it. First, we establish whether or not your client’s a liar, as he’s proven to be. If, in this case, Lorcan Cobbe proves to be the sort of individual a man like Bellacore would broker, and if your client further provides information that aids the authorities in apprehending this individual, in arresting and charging this individual in this matter, we will offer thirty years on each charge, to be served consecutively.”
Both Eve and Tween erupted.
“That’s sixty years! That’s my life!”
“That’s only sixty years! Goddamn it, Reo, this isn’t the time for cheap, lazy lawyer bullshit. We’ve got the son of a bitch.”
Ignoring both of them, Reo kept her eyes on Gotte. “Two people are responsible for Galla Modesto’s murder. I want them both.”
“My client will be over a hundred at the end of that sentence. He’ll have less than twenty years of life expectancy at that time—and that’s not factoring in those years in prison. Twenty-five for each charge, with the possibility of reduction to twenty on each for good behavior.”
Eve shoved up, cursing. “Fucking lawyers. I gave him to you on a platter.”
“Twenty-five on each charge,” Reo agreed, “with the possibility of reduction to twenty as stated. If, and only if, the information is valid and assists in apprehension. If it’s discovered your client has withheld any information or lied about any information, the deal is voided.”
“On-planet.”
“Not a chance. Ms. Gotte, you and I both know if we go to court, your client’s never getting out. You may, on an outside chance, convince a judge and jury to lessen the sentence, but not by much more than I’m offering. And he’ll spend most of that potential reduction in prison awaiting trial, standing trial, and so on. You’re not going to get a better deal.”