Deadly Sins (27 page)

Jaid and Shepherd stepped toward the man in tandem. Taking out her cuffs, she said, “What I understand is that you’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder.”

Adam stood shoulder to shoulder with Cleve Hedgelin in the observation room, silently watching the interview through the plate glass window. The room on the other side of the wall was wired with audio. They could hear every question Jaid and Shepherd put to Scott Lambert. The man’s replies weren’t heard, however. Because he hadn’t spoken since being brought in.

“They’re losing him.” Frustration clutched Adam’s gut. The fear and panic on Lambert’s face when they’d confronted him at his condo was gone. In its place was an impassive mask that didn’t alter, regardless of the questioners’ words. “I’m just surprised he hasn’t lawyered up yet.”

“Give them some more time. Marlowe is solid. And Shepherd will break him down. He’s a seasoned agent.”

“Hard to imagine then why you banished him to North Dakota a few years back.”

The assistant director shot him a look. “I don’t answer to you regarding my agents’ assignments.”

“No.” Adam’s voice was mild. “Don’t have to explain it, either. I already know it was a punishment for me finding the kidnap victim he’d been searching for over two years.” There was no reason to go into this with the man. But the petty bureau politics played after Adam had cracked the child-swap ring still irritated him.

“You’re wrong. I needed someone solid in Bismarck; I chose Shepherd. He’s back now, so what’s your point?”

The agent was only back because Adam had brought some pressure to bear in the right places, but there was no reason for Hedgelin to know that. The man was right about one thing—Shepherd was a good agent. Even if he and Jaid were having absolutely no luck with Lambert.

The man’s knees were bouncing in increasing agitation. But he hadn’t asked for an attorney. Had barely spoken. Frequently, his gaze scanned the room, lingering on the one-way mirror that allowed Adam and Hedgelin to watch the proceedings.

The assistant director’s cell rang. While the man moved away to answer it, Adam watched the scene through the glass impotently. It was time to change the method of attack in his estimation. Lambert had shut down. Despite what Jaid and Shepherd threw at the man, his innate sense of self-preservation didn’t seem to be rising to the surface.

Which meant they needed to change tactics.

He took out his own cell, texted a message to Jaid. Watched her take out her phone and look at it for a moment. When annoyance flickered across her face, he grinned. He hadn’t expected her to welcome his interference. She’d come into her own in the last several years. Developed into a fine investigator in her own right. And she’d never been good at accepting orders unquestioningly.

But even so, in the next moment she held up the phone to Lambert. “So I guess we contact your mother next. See if she can shed some light on your actions.”

The man’s response was immediate. Unexpected. He lunged across the table at her in a sudden movement that knocked the phone from her hand. Shepherd sprang to his feet. He stiff-armed the man and forced him to return to his seat. “You try that again, and the cuffs go back on. Go on,” he ordered when the younger man failed to sit again.

Lambert’s gaze was heated and hadn’t left Jaid. “You leave my mother out of this.”

Adam’s brows rose at his venomous tone. Decidedly different from the mild manner he’d presented both times they’d talked to him in Newell’s offices. Hedgelin rejoined him then. “What’s going on?”

“Jaid got a reaction when she mentioned paying a visit to his mother.”

“What’s his mother got to do with this?”

Without taking his gaze off what was happening in the next room, Adam murmured, “According to the background check we ran on him, she’s his only living relative. Family exposes vulnerability.” Although it remained to be seen how they could use Lambert’s mother to shake some answers from him.

“Griega just contacted me. Sanchez couldn’t positively ID Lambert’s picture but thought it could be the guy who paid him for the code to Cote’s security system. And the lieutenant struck out trying to tie Sanchez to any killings similar to the cardinal’s. He’ll keep working that angle and let us know.”

“You must have a team working the ViCAP angle.” When Hedgelin didn’t answer, Adam cocked a brow at him. “Feed in the garrote, by itself and with the shooting. Both have a professional feel to them.” The Violent Crime Apprehension Program was their best chance to find a link to similar crimes.

“Like you say, I’ve got someone on it,” was all the other man would say.

In the interview Jaid was pressing harder. “That’s the way it’s going to be, Lambert. You don’t want to talk to us, fine. We lock you up and start looking for people around you who’ll be more forthcoming. Your neighbors. Friends. Coworkers.” Her pause was deliberate. “And your mother. We will get answers. It’s your choice who we get them from.”

The man slumped in his chair. “I’m not going to speak to you.” Jaid and Shepherd looked at each other. Rose simultaneously. “Fine. If you need some time in a cage to think things over, we can speak later.”

His expression was defiant. “No, I mean I have nothing to say to you two.” He turned to stare at the observation mirror. “I’ll only talk to Raiker. Get him in here.”

Twenty minutes later Adam walked into the interview room. At his entrance Jaid and Shepherd got up and passed silently by him out the door. It closed after them. He approached the table and set a bottle of water in front of Lambert. Remained standing with both hands on the head of his cane, Adam surveyed the younger man.

Lambert took the bottle and twisted off the cap. Took a long swallow. And then another. After setting it back on the table, he picked up the cap. Toyed with it nervously. “I’ve heard of you, you know,” he blurted.

Inclining his head, Adam said nothing. Something was churning inside the man. It would eventually froth out of him without prodding.

Scott set the bottle cap spinning. “Don’t you want to know how?”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“You killed that man. It was in all the papers.”

Adam waited. There had been more than one man. He’d been at this, after all, for a very long time. Long enough for darkness to settle inside him sometimes. Long enough for black and white to have melded into mottled shades of gray. “Which man is that?”

“John LeCroix.”

He stilled. Lambert was watching Adam for a reaction. He made sure that his features would reveal nothing. “Yes. I killed him.”

The other man licked his lips, his head hunched lower over his fidgety fingers. His voice had lowered. “I was glad.”

“You knew John LeCroix?”

A quick shudder. A jerky nod. “He was my father.”

The words hit Adam with the force of a quick right jab. Because, of course, the infamous child killer had had a son. But despite recent rumors to the contrary, he believed the boy had been murdered years earlier, along with his mother. Paulie had been digging since the rumors had surfaced last winter. Had found nothing.

He pulled out a chair. Sat. Stared at the younger man. “I don’t believe you.”

That had Lambert’s head snapping up. “You think I’d make something like that up? That I’m related to the worst child killer in the history of the United States? Why the hell would I?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.” Because Adam was interested. Very interested in the way that old case kept popping to the surface lately. Mose Ferrell, the man who had attempted to place the explosive under Adam’s car, had claimed that his anonymous employer had told him to call him LeCroix. Was he talking about the man seated across the table?

Suddenly, Lambert scraped his chair back. Stood.

“Sit down,” Adam ordered in a steely voice. But the man’s face was determined. He yanked off his dark suit coat. Twisted off his discreetly patterned tie. Unbuttoned his blue shirt. And pulled the shoulder of the shirt down low enough to bare one bicep. Turned it toward Adam.

“Recognize this?”

The scar was old and white. Spread at the edges as if it had stretched. It was about three inches top to bottom. Two letters.
J. L
.

“That’s how he marked his victims, isn’t it?” Adam didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Lambert shrugged his shoulder back into the shirt. Began buttoning it. “I mean, the papers didn’t say, but I’m betting he did it to all of them. I was five, old enough to start fighting. He used a scalpel on me. Said it marked me as his property and he could do anything he wanted with his property. If my mother hadn’t found a way to get us away from him, we’d both be dead.”

Which was exactly the end that Adam had figured for them. LeCroix had had sizable financial resources with which to mount a search. And there were many in the shadowy world of child lovers who would have joined it to curry favor with the man who was regarded among them as something of a cult figure.

“So.” Adam settled back in his chair. “You’re the one who hired Ferrell to kill me.”

“What?” The man seemed more baffled than outraged. “Why would I? I’m being used here. Me.” His eyes filled with tears. “The phone calls started coming about ten weeks ago. Whoever called blocked his number. Distorted his voice. Then the photos started, sent by e-mail. Someone was threatening my mother and me with exposure. He claimed he was going to go public with our true identities. That we’d be considered prizes among the scum my father used to associate with.”

“Not to mention what that exposure would do to your career,” Adam murmured.

Lambert’s face was bitter. “My mother has Alzheimer’s. She’s confused easily, especially by change. But I had to move her once when the threats started. I got more pictures of her in her new place the next week. There’s no getting away from this guy. I had to follow his orders, don’t you understand that? If he tells the world who we really are, our lives are over. Maybe literally.” He moistened his lips again, his expression pleading. “He said he knew people. Friends of my father’s who would come for us. That we’d die in the most hideous way possible. What was I supposed to do?”

“Go to the police?”

“If I did, he’d expose us! He told me so.”

“So you have photos he sent you on e-mail?” The IP address could be traced. If there was any truth to Lambert’s words, that might provide a link to whoever had hired him. If someone really had.

Unease flickered across the other man’s face. “He made them vanish somehow. They’d be on the screen, then they’d just disappear. So would the message. I tried printing them. That always triggered the self-destruct. I tried taking a screen shot. It would vanish later, too. Afterward, it wouldn’t show up in my in-box or trash. It’d just be gone. I contacted my service provider. They couldn’t help me find it on the server. It was just gone.”

Adam regarded him steadily. “How about your phone?”

Visibly brightening, he said, “Yeah, yeah. The calls would appear on my phone statements as anonymous, but that’s proof of something, right?”

Unfortunately, it proved little. Lambert could buy himself a TracFone, block his number, and call his own cell. “We’ll check it out.” Adam’s tone was noncommittal. “We know how you got Reinbeck’s number. And that you also must have gotten Patterson’s.”

Shock flickered across the man’s expression. His denial was tepid. “No, I swear I never . . .”

“Don’t.” Adam’s terse response effectively halted the lie. “We’ve linked you to Sorenson. And to Sanchez. It stretches credibility that you weren’t involved somehow with obtaining information on Patterson. How’d you do it? I’m guessing through Joseph Bailey.” Because he was watching closely, he noted the man’s reaction. “You work for Newell; you must have met his grandson.”

Clasping his hands before him, Lambert leaned forward. “All right, I play basketball on his team at Dennison, all right? It was just a matter of looking at his company cell in the locker room while he was out warming up. But none of this means anything. I was forced to cooperate by whoever’s been murdering these men. I’m a victim here.”

“A victim.” Adam tasted the word. Found it wanting. “At first, perhaps. But by the second murder you had to have known how your assistance was being used.” He waited until he could keep the judgment from his tone. “Which meant you could have saved Cardinal Cote. And you didn’t.”

The other man broke down at the reminder. “I’m a good man. A Christian. I was forced to choose, don’t you understand? If it were just me . . . but it was my mother. You have no idea what she sacrificed for me. No idea.”

The words arrowed more deeply than the man could have known. “I think I do.”

“I’d do anything to protect her.” He wiped his face, his expression determined. “I can help you. Anything you ask. You just have to guarantee my mother protection. You can’t let him hurt her.”

“Who else?” Adam’s voice was deadly. “Where’s he going to strike next?”