Eve Dallas 02 - Glory in Death (26 page)

The pupils dilated, but his voice remained steady. "I was wearing a top coat, rain resistant. I discarded it along the way." He smiled a little. "I imagine some itinerant found it and made use of it."

"What did you take from the scene?"

"The knife, of course."

"Nothing of hers?" She waited a beat. "Nothing to make it look like a robbery, a mugging?"

He hesitated. She could almost see his mind working behind his eyes. "I was shaken. I hadn't expected it to be so unpleasant. I had planned to take her bag, the jewelry, but I forgot, and just ran."

"You ran, taking nothing, but were smart enough to ditch your blood-splattered coat."

"That's right."

"Then you went after Metcalf."

"She was an impulse. I kept dreaming about what it had been like, and I wanted to do it again. She was easy." His breathing leveled and his hands lay still on the table. "She was ambitious and rather naive. I knew David had written a screenplay with her in mind. He was determined to complete this entertainment project -- it was something we disagreed over. It annoyed me, and it would have cost the company resources that are, at the moment, a bit strained. I decided to kill her, and I contacted her. Of course she agreed to meet me."

"What was she wearing?"

"Wearing?" He fumbled for a moment. "I didn't pay attention. It wasn't important. She smiled, held out both of her hands as I walked toward her. And I did it."

"Why are you coming forward now?"

"As I said, I thought I could get away with it. Perhaps I could have. I never expected my son to be arrested in my place."

"So, you're protecting him?"

"I killed them, Lieutenant. What more do you want?"

"Why did you leave the knife in his drawer, in his room?"

His eyes slid away, slid back. "As I said, he rarely stays there. I thought it was safe. Then I was contacted about the search warrant. I didn't have time to remove it."

"You expect me to buy this? You think you're helping him by clouding the case, by coming forward with this lame confession. You think he's guilty." She lowered her voice, bit off each word. "You're so terrified that your son is a murderer that you're willing to take the rap rather than see him face the consequences. Are you going to let another woman die, Angelini? Or two, or three before you swallow reality?"

His lips trembled once, then firmed. "I've given you my statement."

"You've given me bullshit." Turning on her heel, Eve left the room. Struggling to calm herself, she stood outside, watched with a jaundiced eye as Angelini pressed his face into his hands.

She could break him, eventually. But there was always a chance that word would leak and the media would scream that there was a confession from someone other than the prime.

She looked over at the sound of footsteps, and her body stiffened like steel. "Commander."

"Lieutenant. Progress?"

"He's sticking to his story. It's got holes you could drive a shuttle through. I've given him the opening to bring up the souvenirs from the first two hits. He didn't bite."

"I'd like to talk to him. Privately, Lieutenant, and off the record." Before she could speak, he held up a hand. "I realize it's not procedure. I'm asking you for a favor."

"And if he incriminates himself or his son?"

Whitney's jaw tightened. "I'm still a cop, Dallas. Goddamn it."

"Yes, sir." She unlocked the door, then after only a faint hesitation, darkened the two-way glass and shut off audio. "I'll be in my office."

"Thank you." He stepped inside. He gave her one last look before shutting the door and turning to the man slumped at the table. "Marco," Whitney said on a long sigh. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"Jack." Marco offered a thin smile. "I wondered if you'd be along. We never did make that golf date."

"Talk to me." Whitney sat down heavily.

"Hasn't your efficient and dogged lieutenant filled you in?"

"The recorder's off," Whitney said sharply. "We're alone. Talk to me, Marco. We both know you didn't kill Cicely or anyone else."

For a moment, Marco stared up at the ceiling, as if pondering. "People never know each other as well as they believe. Not even the people they care for. I loved her, Jack. I never stopped loving her. But she stopped loving me. Part of me was always waiting for her to start loving me again. But she never would have."

"Damn it, Marco, do you expect me to believe that you slit her throat because she divorced you twelve years ago?"

"Maybe I thought she might have married Hammett. He wanted that," Marco said quietly. "I could see that he wanted that. Cicely was reluctant." His voice remained calm, quiet, faintly nostalgic. "She enjoyed her independence, but she was sorry to disappoint Hammett. Sorry enough that she might have given in eventually. Married him. It would have really been over then, wouldn't it?"

"You killed Cicely because she might have married another man?"

"She was my wife, Jack. Whatever the courts and the Church said."

Whitney sat a moment, silent. "I've played poker with you too many times over the years, Marco. You've got tells." Folding his arms on the table, he leaned forward. "When you bluff, you tap your finger on your knee."

The finger stopped tapping. "This is a long way from poker, Jack."

"You can't help David this way. You've got to let the system work."

"David and I... there's been a lot of friction between us in the last several months. Business disagreements and personal ones." For the first time he sighed, deep and long and wearily. "There shouldn't be distance between father and son over such foolishness."

"This is hardly the way to mend fences, Marco."

The steel came back into Angelini's eyes. There would be no more sighs. "Let me ask you something, Jack, just between us. If it was one of yours, and there was the slightest chance -- just the slightest -- that they'd be convicted of murder, would anything stop you from protecting them?"

"You can't protect David by stepping in with some bullshit confession."

"Who said it was bullshit?" The word sounded like cream in Angelini's cultured voice. "I did it, and I'm confessing because I can't live with myself if my own child pays for my crime. Now tell me, Jack, would you stand behind your son, or in front of him?"

"Ah, hell, Marco," was all Whitney could say.

He stayed for twenty minutes, but got nothing more. For a time he guided the conversation into casual lines, golf scores, the standings of the baseball team Marco had a piece of. Then, quick and sleek as a snake, he'd toss out a hard, leading question on the murders.

But Marco Angelini was an expert negotiator, and had already given his bottom line. He wouldn't budge.

Guilt, grief, and the beginnings of real fear made an unsettling stew in Whitney's stomach as he stepped into Eve's office. She was hunched over her computer, scanning data, calling up more.

For the first time in days, his eyes cleared of their own fatigue and saw hers. She was pale, her eyes shadowed, her mouth grim. Her hair stood up in spikes as if she'd dragged her hands through it countless times. Even as he watched, she did so again, then pressed her fingers to her eyes as if they burned.

He remembered the morning in his office, the morning after Cicely had been murdered. And the responsibility he'd hung around Eve's neck.

"Lieutenant."

Her shoulders straightened as if she'd slammed steel poles into them. Her head came up, her eyes carefully blank.

"Commander." She got to her feet. Got to attention, Whitney thought, annoyed by the stiff and impersonal formality.

"Marco's in holding. We can keep him for forty-eight hours without charging him. I thought it best to let him think behind bars for a while. He still refuses counsel."

Whitney stepped in while she stood there, and he looked around. He wasn't often in this sector of the complex. His officers came to him. Another weight of command.

She could have had a bigger office. She'd earned one. But she seemed to prefer to work in a room so small that if three people crowded into it, they'd be in sin.

"Good thing you're not claustrophobic," he commented. She gave no response, didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow. Whitney muttered an oath. "Listen, Dallas -- "

"Sir." Her interruption was fast and brittle. "Forensics has the weapon retrieved from David Angelini's room. I'm informed that there will be some delay on the results as the blood traces detected by the sweeper are of an amount borderline for typing and DNA."

"So noted, Lieutenant."

"The fingerprints on the weapon in evidence have been matched to those of David Angelini. My report -- "

"We'll get to your report momentarily."

Her chin jutted up. "Yes, sir."

"Goddamn it, Dallas, yank that stick out of your butt and sit down."

"Is that an order, Commander?"

"Ah, hell," he began.

Mirina Angelini burst through the doorway in a clatter of high heels and a crackle of silk. "Why are you trying to destroy my family?" she demanded, shaking off the restraining hand of Slade who had come in behind her.

"Mirina, this isn't going to help."

She jerked away and crowded into Eve. "Isn't it enough that my mother was murdered on the street? Murdered because American cops are too busy chasing shadows and filling out useless reports to protect the innocent?"

"Mirina," Whitney said, "come on to my office. We'll talk."

"Talk?" She turned on him like a cat, gold and sleek, teeth bared for blood. "How can I talk to you? I trusted you. I thought you cared about me, about David, about all of us. You've let her lock David in a cell. And now my father."

"Mirina, Marco came in voluntarily. We'll talk about this. I'll explain it all to you."

"There's nothing to explain." She turned her back on him and aimed her scorching fury at Eve. "I went to my father's house. He wanted me to stay in Rome, but I couldn't. Not when every report in the media is smearing my brother's name. When we arrived, a neighbor was more than happy, even gleeful, to tell me that my father had been taken away by the police."

"I can arrange for you to speak with your father, Ms. Angelini," Eve said coolly. "And your brother."

"You're damn right you'll arrange it. And now. Where is my father?" She used both hands to shove Eve back a pace before Whitney or Slade could stop her. "What have you done with him, you bitch!"

"You want to keep your hands off me," Eve warned. "I've just about had my fill of Angelinis. Your father's in holding, here. Your brother's in the tower at Riker's. You can see your father now. If you want to see your brother, you'll be shuttled over." Her gaze flicked to Whitney, and stung. "Or since you've got some pull around here, you can probably have him transported to Visitation for an hour."

"I know what you're doing." This was no fragile flower now. Mirina fairly vibrated with power. "You need a scapegoat. You need an arrest so that the media will get out of your face. You're playing politics, using my brother, even my murdered mother, so that you won't lose your job."

"Yeah, some cushy job." She smiled sourly. "I toss innocent people in a cage every day so I can keep all the benefits."

"It keeps your face on the screen, doesn't it?" Mirina tossed her glorious hair. "How much publicity have you traded over my mother's dead body?"

"That's enough, Mirina." Whitney's voice lashed like a whip, in one vicious snap. "Go to my office and wait." He looked over her shoulder at Slade. "Take her out of here."

"Mirina, this is useless," Slade murmured, trying to tuck her under his arm. "Let's go now."

"Don't hold me." She bit off each word as if they were stringy meat, then shrugged away from him. "I'll go. But you're going to pay for the grief you've brought my family, Lieutenant. You're going to pay for every bit of it."

She stalked out, giving Slade time for only a muttered apology before he followed after her.

Whitney stepped quietly into the silence. "You okay?"

"I've dealt with worse." Eve jerked a shoulder. Inside she was sick with anger and guilt. Sick enough that she wanted badly to be alone behind closed doors. "If you'll excuse me, Commander, I want to finish going over this report."

"Dallas -- Eve." It was the weariness in his tone that had her gaze lifting warily to his. "Mirina's upset, understandably so. But she was out of line, way out of line."

"She was entitled to a couple of shots at me." Because she wanted to press her hands to her throbbing head, she tucked them negligently into her pockets. "I've just put what's left of her family in a cage. Who else is she going to be pissed at? I can take it." Her gaze remained cool, steely. "Feelings aren't my strong suit."

He nodded slowly. "I had that coming. I put you on this case, Dallas, because you're the best I've got. Your mind's good, your gut's good. And you care. You care about the victim." Letting out a long breath, he dragged a hand over his hair. "I was off base this morning, Dallas, in my office. I've been off base a number of times with you since this whole mess began. I apologize for it."

"It doesn't matter."

"I wish it didn't." He searched her face, saw the stiff restraint. "But I see it does. I'll take care of Mirina, arrange the visitations."

"Yes, sir. I'd like to continue my interview with Marco Angelini."

"Tomorrow," Whitney said and set his teeth when she didn't quite mask the sneer. "You're tired, Lieutenant, and tired cops make mistakes and miss details. You'll pick it up tomorrow." He headed for the door, swore again, and stopped without looking back at her. "Get some sleep, and for Christ's sake, take a painkiller for that headache. You look like hell."

She resisted slamming the door after him. Resisted because it would be petty and unprofessional. But she sat down, stared at the screen, and pretended her head wasn't shuddering with pain.

When a shadow fell over her desk moments later, she looked up, eyes fired for battle.

"Well," Roarke said mildly and leaned over to kiss her snarling mouth. "That's quite a welcome." He patted his chest. "Am I bleeding?"