J. Robb - Delusion in Death

He looked away a moment. “My brother is a strong man, a good manager. To be a good manager he has to know how to handle problems—small and large—with equanimity. And he does. I’ve never heard or seen him so broken. I hope to never hear or see him broken like this again.”

He looked back, straight into Eve’s eyes. “So I came in to speak with you, as requested. And I’ll answer these questions fully understanding you suspect him. I’ll answer them, Lieutenant, so you’ll understand Devon is a strong man, with equally strong senses of loyalty and compassion. He not only loves his work, he cared, very much, for every single person who worked under him. He could tell you their names, the names of family members, pets, boyfriends, girlfriends. They are—were—family to him.”

“He wanted to buy the bar.”

“I’m aware. His partner, Quirk, told me Devon had looked into buying it some months back, but didn’t have the funds.”

“You have them.”

“Yes. I would’ve lent him the money, and offered knowing full well he’d refuse. We’re stiff-necked, you could say. Pride is a Lester family trait—or flaw, depending. I can also tell you Devon was pleased when Roarke purchased the property as it gave him confidence it would be well-funded, and marketed.”

“Price should be going down after this.”

He shot Eve a look of pained amusement. “Lieutenant, do you seriously think a man like Devon would bring about the horror of what happened at On the Rocks so he’d lower the market value of the property into line with his own finances? He’d never deliberately cause anyone harm, and in addition, simply lacks the means. He wouldn’t know how to … Ah.”

Now Chris sat back, nodding slowly. “I would have the know-how. The reports haven’t been very specific, but it was a biological or chemical agent, something that infected the people inside the bar. So Devon and I plotted this out, and I gave him the agent.”

“He wanted the bar, you have the means. It’s a theory.”

“My brother isn’t a wealthy man, not monetarily. Did you know he’s planning a memorial, for everyone who was killed? Using his own funds. People mean more to Devon than money, and always have. You don’t have to take my word. Talk to anyone who knows him.”

“You work with hallucinogenics, with psychedelic drugs?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Recently? Currently?”

“If you clear it with the board, I’d have no objections to discussing my projects—past, present, and pending. But I can’t give you information on them without that clearance, not even to eliminate myself, even my brother, from a suspect list.”

“All right. Thank you again for coming in. Interview end.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes, for now.”

He rose. “Even if he weren’t my brother, I’d tell you Devon is the best man I know. It’s as simple as that. I hope you find who’s responsible, Lieutenant. I don’t believe Devon will begin to heal until you do.”

Start working on getting a warrant for Dr. Lester’s records,” Eve told Peabody when they were alone.

“Okay.”

“Problem?”

“It’s just … The way each of them took up for the other, the way each one of them talked about the other. I’m not being soft,” Peabody insisted. “But it’s hard to reconcile that kind of love, affection, and respect with two people who’d plot a mass murder.”

“Do you have enough fingers to count the number of partners who had affection and respect, possibly love for each other who murdered, raped, stole, tortured, and committed other assorted crimes?”

“I guess not.”

“We follow through, Peabody, every detail, every angle—even when the odds are they’re not going to lead us anywhere.”

“You don’t think the two of them are involved?”

“No, but I can’t prove it. If I thought they were involved, I couldn’t prove it. Let’s get data.”

Eve glanced at the time. “Aw, gee, I missed the media conference. That’s a shame.”

“That statement hits the red zone on the lie-o-meter.”

“But it feels good. I want thirty minutes in my office to check incomings and status, then we’re going back to the crime scene.”

“Do you think they’re not involved—the Lester brothers—for the same reasons as me?”

“Probably not.” Eve headed out, moving fast so Peabody had to hustle to keep pace. “Devon’s not stupid. Roarke doesn’t have stupid people managing any of his interests. But when I push him on buying the place—would he if he could—he’s all pissed off, damn straight. Smarter to say it’s tainted, his friends died there. Smarter, too, to go straight to pissed or shocked when I led him to our looking at him and his brother. Instead he’s just confused at first. He didn’t have an answer for everything. He didn’t have the right answers for everything. If he had, I wouldn’t bump him down the list.

“The brother’s smart, real smart, and a lot more cynical. He caught on fast. I want to look at his research, his experiments, I want a feel for what he does and how he does it. But it would be stupid for him to kill a whole bunch of people in his brother’s bar. If he were going to do it, he’d have done it somewhere else, not so readily connected.”

“Part of your reasoning’s like mine. It’s the kind of people they are—the stand-up-for-your-brother people.”

“Half a point.”

“Three-quarters.”

“Three-quarters because I’m too busy to argue.”

“Yay!” Peabody said as Eve swung off and into her office.

She’d barely started on the first report when Baxter came to her door.

“Need a minute.”

“Take it,” she told him.

“Adam Stewart. We just finished up with him. He’s alibied for the time line, and I’ve got nothing that puts him in that bar yesterday, or at fucking all.”

“But?”

“He’s a bad bastard, Dallas, and he’s cagey. Bad and cagey fits whoever did this.”

She saw his eyes flick toward her AutoChef. Under the circumstances, she thought, what the hell. “Go ahead, but don’t spread it around you got coffee in here.”

“To the grave.” He moved quickly before she could change her mind, programmed a mug for each of them. Knowing its miseries, he sat on the edge of her visitor’s chair.

“But,” Eve prompted again.

“With him being a bad bastard and a cagey son of a bitch, I figure he’s capable of doing this. But I don’t think he had the means or opportunity. Plus, poking around, the sister—that’s Amie Stewart—didn’t go in there routinely. Now and then, sure, but she wasn’t a regular. How’d he know she’d be there? They weren’t close, didn’t hang out together, or make regular contact. But …”

Baxter let it hang a moment while he drank coffee. “He’s sweaty in Interview. He’s evasive, and not doing such a hot job of pretending to be sorry his sister’s dead. I had Trueheart drill down into his financials, and they don’t add up. It looks like he found a way to siphon off some funds from the trust deal, so with a little work we could get him there.”

“We don’t have time to poke at some bad bastard for embezzlement right now.”

“I get that, but there’s more. The trustee who oversees all that stuff went missing two weeks ago. Being a detective, I detect two ways, the trustee was in on it with Stewart and went on the lam, or the trustee found out what Stewart was up to, and Stewart made him disappear. Either way …”

“Yeah.” She calculated. “Do you have any problem turning this over to Carmichael and Sanchez?”

Baxter winced, comforted himself with coffee. “I gotta say, I want to see it through. The fucker’s dirty, and he just makes my ass twitch. But I can live with passing it on, at least until we clear this case.”