J. Robb - Innocent In Death

“For a guy with that hot a wife, he was pretty puritanical.”

“You move on her, too?”

“Just felt her out when he first came on staff. At that point, she was too into him, into them. Now, a few months more, the marriage gets routine, and I might have given her another sniff. But there are plenty of others. I’m good at what I do.”

“Yeah. I bet. Craig might’ve been a little jealous of that. You think?”

Williams lifted his brows. “I never thought of it that way, but yes, maybe. Probably, in fact. He was a nice enough guy, and a damn good teacher, I’ll give him that. For the most part, we got along fine. He did get nosy, and a little pushy, about some of my activities. Personal ones.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“I wouldn’t call it a threat.”

“What then?”

“A lecture.” Williams rolled his eyes.

“Did this lecture cause you to cease those activities?”

“I was a little more discreet, you could say. A little more choosy.” He lifted a shoulder. “No point in stirring things up.”

“But you weren’t worried about him going to Mosebly with his disapproval, or even over her head to the board?”

He smiled now, serenely. “I never figured he’d have the chops for that. He didn’t like making waves. Basically, it was a nonissue for me.”

“Well.” Eve tugged on her ear. “It may not have been one for him, especially if he was aware that you used illegal substances in some of those private activities.”

“What?”

“Street name Whore, street name Rabbit, which we found in your bedroom toy chest. Oh, didn’t I mention that with the information gathered and statements taken we were able to secure a warrant to enter and search your residence? Bad boy, Reed. Bad, bad boy.”

“This is outrageous! This is entrapment.”

“This is the warrant.” Eve slid the hard copy from the file. “We take a very dim view on the use and possession of these particular substances, no live and let live about it. So does the PA. I bet the board of Sarah Child and the teachers’ union also take dim views.

“And here’s something else,” she continued, and for the first time, he began to sweat. “It makes me, with my suspicious mind, wonder if a guy who can score those particular items might just be able to score enough poison to eliminate a threat. He put the pressure on you, didn’t he?”

She rose now to walk around behind him, lean in over his shoulder. “Interfering little bastard, shoving his puritanical views into your personal life. You have a good thing going. Coworkers, support staff, mothers, guardians, caregivers. Like plucking plums off a low branch for a guy like you. He was going to cut you off from that branch, he jeopardized your job. No, your whole career.”

“No, it wasn’t like that. No, he didn’t.”

“Sure he did. Others might have known, or suspected, but they looked the other way. No skin off theirs. But this one, he takes it on himself to do something about it. Lecture you? Asshole had no right, did he? And there he is, day after day, in your face, keeping his eye on you in case he doesn’t like what you’re up to. Sitting at his desk every day with his neatly packed lunch from home. Routine. Boring. And a sticky thorn in your side. Where’d you get the ricin, Reed?”

“I never had any ricin. I didn’t even know what the hell it was before this. I didn’t kill anyone.”

“It must’ve pissed you off that Mirri Hallywell would rather study with him than roll around on that big red bed with you. It’s a fucking insult. You had to take him down. Had to do it. So you slipped out of class while he was away from his, and you took care of it. Quick, easy. Done.”

“That’s a lie! That’s crazy. You’re crazy.”

“There are ways to soften this, Reed. Say he was blackmailing you. Stalking you. A constant threat. It was him or you. You had to protect yourself.”

“I never went near his classroom that day. I didn’t kill him, for God’s sake. I was with someone when I left my class that morning. I have a witness.”

“Who?”

He opened his mouth, shut it tight. Then he stared hard at the table. “I want a lawyer. I demand my right to speak to a lawyer. I’m not saying anything else until I have one.”

“Okay, but just FYI? You’re under arrest for possession of illegal substances and for dispensing them, we’ve got that from your naughty camera. You can contact your lawyer before you’re booked.”

Eve went through the interview in her mind, and added to her murder board. She had stills of the bottles from his sex drawer, and linked him on that board with Laina Sanchez, Allika Straffo, Eileen Ferguson, Mirri Hallywell. Who else had he approached? she wondered. Who had he succeeded with, failed with?

She needed to review all the discs from his bedroom camera. And wouldn’t that be fun? At least she had McNab picking through the building’s security discs for the last three days. Though she doubted they’d score in that area.

She got coffee, but it wasn’t working for her. She was tired to the bone, and caffeine wasn’t going to change that. She put in a request to subpoena Williams’s financials. With the illegals charge, that would be a dunk.

She checked her messages to find Nadine Furst had called twice to remind her of airtime, to wear something appropriate, to ask if she had any solid leads on the Foster case.

Nag, nag, nag.

And why hadn’t Roarke buzzed in to nag her?

Too pissed at her for flipping him off that morning, she thought. Well, she hadn’t been the one with a former playmate on her fucking pocket ’link.

She started to sit, started to sulk, and Peabody poked her head in. “Williams’s attorney is here, and guess who it is.”

It took Eve one beat. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“I don’t know whether or not I shit you as I didn’t say it was-”

“Oliver Straffo? What kind of sick irony is this?”

Peabody’s face moved to sulk at having her scoop dumped. “Well, he walked in, big as life, and is advising his client to make no further statements, answer no more questions until they consult. Then he wants to talk to us.”

“Hmmm.” Eve glanced at her board where she had Allika Straffo’s picture lined up in Williams’s shooting gallery. “This should be interesting.”

Who knew what about who? Eve wondered, and thought of Allika, the kid. How was she going to find out who knew what about who without blowing the situation up in the faces of the innocent?

Maybe Straffo had a right to know his wife had tossed up her skirts for a slime like Williams. But it wasn’t her job to rat out a foolish wife unless it closed her case.

“Eggshells,” Peabody murmured as they stepped toward the interview room.

“What? You want eggs?”

“No, I meant we’re going to have to walk on eggshells here. Be really careful,” she explained.

“I thought it was something like ‘You can’t make scrambled eggs without breaking some.’”

“No, it’s ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.’ But this is more like the opposite in the food-saying spectrum. Eggs have been broken, but we don’t want to crush the shells.”

“It’s a stupid saying because if the eggs are already broken, who gives a damn about the stupid shells?” Eve wanted to know. “But I get it. Let’s go.”

She saw immediately that Williams had his confidence back. A high-powered defense attorney could do that for a suspect, guilty or innocent. Straffo sat in his conservatively and perfectly cut suit, hands folded on the table.

He said nothing until Eve started the record.

“One of my associates is already drafting a motion to have the warrant you secured invalidated, and the search deemed illegal.”