J. Robb: Indulgence in death

“You know that’s wrong, both in reality and in thinking. It could just as easily be said there would be more if you hadn’t intuited the pattern so quickly. You worked the case, and tonight you’ll close it. I’d like to observe your interview with Dudley.”

“It may be a while yet. He’s conferring with his bevy of lawyers.”

“I can wait. I’m told you were hurt.”

“Just a scratch, seriously. It was the shoes. They screwed up my balance. Still.” She tapped her arm. “It was an antique Italian fencing foil. That’s pretty frosty.”

Peabody stepped in. “Hey, Doctor Mira. Dallas, Dudley’s head lawyer’s asking to talk to you.”

“This ought to be good. I’ll meet him outside the interview room.”

An imposing man with white wings flowing back from his mane of black hair, Bentley Sorenson nodded curtly to Eve.

“Lieutenant, I’m informing you that I intend to file formal complaints over your treatment of my client, and your use of excessive force, entrapment, and harassment. Additionally, I’ve already contacted the governor, who will be speaking with the prosecuting attorney about falsifying information for an improper search of my client’s residence, business, and vehicles. I want my client released until these matters can be fully resolved.”

“You can file all the papers you want. You can call the governor, your congressman, or the freaking president, but your client’s not walking out of here. You can stonewall me, Mr. Sorenson.” She added a careless shrug. “I’ll go home to bed and have a nice relaxing weekend. Your client will spend his in a cage.”

“Mr. Dudley is a respected and valued businessman from one of the premier families in this country. He has no prior record and has cooperated fully with you and this department. Additionally, he contacted you for help, and to offer his, and you abused him.”

“You know it’s a toss-up as to whether you’re an idiot or just doing your job. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and going with doing your job. You’re going to decide now if you’re going to block this interview tonight-which means he’ll chill behind bars until Monday-or if we go in there and talk.”

“I can have a hearing before a judge set within the hour.”

“Go ahead. I’ll go take a nap while you set it up. It’s been a long week.”

“Are you seriously willing to risk your career over this?”

She shifted, stood hip-shot, hooked her thumbs in her front pockets. “Is that a threat, Counselor?”

“It’s a question, Lieutenant.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m not willing to risk. Your client stepping out of that room unless it’s into a cage before I’ve interviewed him. I’m not willing to risk him going poof because he has the money and means to do so. In or out. You know very well I can hold him until Monday, so let’s stop wasting each other’s time. I talk to him now, or I go home.”

“Have it your way.”

Eve used her wrist unit. “Detective Peabody, report to Interview. Frosty, huh?” she said when she noted Sorenson studying her unit. She opened the door, stepped in.

Dudley sported a bruised and swollen jaw and eyes red and puffy from weeping. He’d had enough time to come down from his high, she noted, and that could be useful. Flanking him were two other lawyer types. Young, female, attractive. One of them actually held his hand.

“Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in interview with Dudley, Winston-the Fourth.” She dropped a thick file on her side of the table. “Also present is Mr. Dudley’s attorney of record, Sorenson, Bentley, and two other representatives. Would each of you state your name for the record?”

As they did, she simply delegated them to Blonde and Redhead. “Peabody, Detective Delia, entering Interview. So, the gang’s all here. How’s the face, Winnie?”

“You struck me. I saved your life and you struck me and dragged me in here like a criminal.”

“Saved my life? Gosh, my recollection, and my recording, which was-as is proper procedure-engaged throughout our meeting, have a different take. As do the recordings and statements of the officers in Our Lady of Shadows Church.”

“And those recordings and statements will be questioned,” Sorenson put in, “as we can document your vendetta against my client.”

“Yeah, you do that little thing, see where it gets you. So let’s start from there. You contacted me at just past twenty hundred hours.”

“She was drunk,” he said to Sorenson. “But I was desperate. She could barely speak coherently, and when she arrived, she could hardly stand up she was so inebriated.”

Eve opened the file, pulled out a hard copy, tossed it on the table. “My tox screens, taken at hour intervals from nineteen hundred hours to twenty-one hundred hours. Clear and clean.”

“Falsified, just like the rest! You were already drunk when you accosted me and Sly at Lionel’s. A dozen witnesses would corroborate that, and your abusive attitude. Your own husband was disgusted with you.”

“Roarke says hi, by the way. You might not have noticed him in the church.” She smiled as fury reddened Dudley’s face.

“You entrapped my client,” Sorenson began.

“Bullshit. Your client contacted me, which is verified by both our ’link logs. I met him, as he requested. My backup was not only within procedure, but recommended by departmental policy. You confessed, Winnie, during our meeting-when your pal had a stunner to my throat-that the two of you had engaged in a competition that involved killing selected targets.”

She drew photos out of her file, lined them up.

“You misinterpreted my words. I was doing whatever I could to stall Sly.” Tears, and she thought them sincere, sprang to his eyes even as he lied his murdering ass off. “I betrayed and killed my dearest friend for you.”

She sent him a look, the same kind she’d seen him send Roarke in Lionel’s. Civilized contempt. “You sure roll on your dearest friend quick and easy.”

“I’m doing my duty. And God knows it can’t harm him. He’s dead. I killed him to save you.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you didn’t kill him. He’s actually doing pretty well.”

“You’re a liar. I saw him.”

“You didn’t see much of anything being souped up on Hype cut with a little prime Zeus. Your client’s tox screen.” Eve tossed it out of the file.

“I was frightened. Maybe I was weak, but I was frightened, so I took something. You can charge me with using, but-”

“Be quiet, Winnie.”

“I’m not a murderer!” He rounded on Sorenson. “It was Sly. And Sly’s dead!”

“Not dead yet, and I’ll be talking to him in the morning,” Eve commented. “I’m betting he rolls on you just as quick and easy. The officer with him tells me he’s pretty steamed you stabbed him.”

“Saving you.”

“Why did you bring an antique Italian fencing foil to church, Winnie?”

“I didn’t. Sly did.”

“Actually, no, he didn’t. Your droid did. The same droid that the two of you used to pose as Simpson’s house droid the night Sly murdered, and you conspired to murder, Luc Delaflote. We have the droid, Winnie, and are running his drives. You guys really should have destroyed that unit.”

She nodded to Peabody, who went out.

“Detective Peabody exiting Interview. There are a lot of things you probably should’ve gotten rid of. Oh, look here, more pictures.”

“I have no idea who those people are.” But his hands began to twitch.

“Sure you do. You killed them.”

“Lieutenant, if you’re going to add more ridiculous charges to those already levied against my client, I’ll-”

“It’s a pattern, Counselor, and I can connect each and every one of these people to your client. This one, the first one we’ve dug up. You’re in Africa, it’s hot, kind of wild. And hell, you’re paying her, aren’t you? She should do what the hell you want when you want it. And you’ve got that buzz on,” she added, rising and circling the table. “Women are supposed to lie down when you say lie down, supposed to spread them when you say spread them. It was her own fault, really, and thank God you had Sly there to help you out.”