“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.”
“So the fuck what? He still did it himself. And if you’re so much smarter than I am, why is that pontificating excuse for a chemistry teacher’s older-than-dirt wife dead?”
“You mean Lilliana Rosalind? She’s fine. We intercepted that shipment because you’re an idiot.”
“Enough, enough. This interview is over.” Kobast lurched to his feet.
Eve nodded. “You know it is, Counselor. Your client has confessed, on the record, to four murders and an attempted murder. The other assorted charges are mixed in there, too. And all because somebody said he couldn’t have everything he wanted when he wanted it.”
She looked back at Whitt. “Now you’ll spend the rest of your life in a cage being told every day what you can’t have.”
“I won’t go to prison.” His lips curled. “Do you understand who I am? Who my family is?”
“I absolutely do.”
“Stephen, be quiet. I don’t want to hear another word. This interview is over. Stephen, you’ll need to go back to your cell and wait for me. Ms. Reo, we need to talk.”
“You better fix this, Broward, do you fucking hear me? You better fix this if you know what’s good for you. You’ve got a wife, too.”
Kobash jerked at the shock of the threat, said nothing.
“Peabody, get a uniform to assist you in taking Mr. Whitt back to his cell.”
“I’ll come after you,” Whitt mumbled, his eyes dead and fixed on Eve.
“Stephen, for God’s sake.”
“I’ll come after all of you.”
“Keep believing that,” Eve suggested. “It may help you through the first decade or so. Interview end. Record off.”
Epilogue
In her office near end of shift, Eve drifted off with her head on her desk. She’d sent Peabody home, written the reports, filled out the forms, turned the lock.
She’d had her meetings with Reo, with Mira, added them to her notes.
And closed the book, cleared the board.
When she’d realized she couldn’t take another cup of coffee, she put her head down, closed her eyes.
Roarke woke her with a stroke on the back, a kiss on the head.
“I’m just … resting.”
“Out for the count, Lieutenant, but I thought you’d object to me carrying you out of your office.”
“Yeah, I would.” She rubbed her eyes clear. “I appreciate you coming down.”
“I’m happy to be a part of this, and you can tell me how you worked it all on the way.”
“Okay.”
“Your board’s clear.”
She glanced back at it as she rose. “For now.”
She started the saga on the way to the garage, wound through it as Roarke drove.
“His counsel pushed for a deal. Reo stuck firm. They’ll order their own shrink, try to work something there, but it won’t fly. He knew right from wrong, he just didn’t give a rat’s ass.”
“Will you tell the ex-girlfriend?”
“I’ve already talked to her. I thought she should know before this hits because the media will dig up her name and the connection. And I spoke with Rosalind, let him know there’s nothing to worry about. Same with the others on the list. I figure I owe Harvo a big bottle of something, even though she’s feeling pretty good without it.”
“She seems like a champagne sort.”
“Maybe. Okay. The son of a bitch killed his only real friend because it was convenient. He didn’t have a scrap of remorse over it. There was a time Mavis was my only friend—not that I wanted one. Well, and Feeney, but that was different, because boss. But after Mavis wore me down into friendship, I’d have stood for her no matter what. Now I’ve got all these damn people, and it’s the same. I’d stand for them.”
“He has nothing inside him. And no one who means more than he means to himself. What about Grange?”
“She’s done, or will be. I only wish I could put her in a cage. But I had a discussion with the powers that be at the prep school, gave them documentation, which includes her naked with a then student—minor. She’s done.”
“It did start with her, didn’t it?”
“People like Whitt, I think they’re born empty. But yeah, she nurtured it, planted the seeds for it, perpetuated it. So, done,” she said when he pulled up at Rufty’s house.
Charles and Louise waited on the sidewalk.
“We wanted to walk awhile,” Louise said as Eve got out of the car. “So we walked down to wait for you.” She took Eve’s hands. “Thank you.”
“It’s the job, Louise.”
“I know it, but this is personal.”
“It’s not the job to take this time, to know he’d need a friend,” Charles put in, “when you tell him. It won’t bring Kent back, but it will give Martin some peace.”