Random in Death, page 31
“Miles. You don’t have to wait through this.”
“I’m sticking, and apparently Peabody and McNab are as well. They’ve gone down to the Eatery to get something that passes for a meal. You’re going to eat as well, and so, by God, am I. I suppose, considering the time and place, it’s pizza.”
She decided not to mention she’d had a slice—a homemade slice—that afternoon.
She double decided when the scent of it hit her very empty stomach.
“We’ve got at least an hour,” Roarke told her.
“How do you know?”
“I deduced given the circumstances, Dr. Nolan Bryce would book a private shuttle in Vegas, and do so quickly. And indeed, found one booked in his name. It should land in New York in about fifty minutes. He’s booked a car service to bring him to Central.”
Eve got up, sat on the floor. “This is where we eat when I have company.”
He didn’t bother to sigh, just sat and set the pizza between them. “You’re never going to accept a bigger office, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Ah well, this one suits you, doesn’t it?”
Riding on her second or third wind, she smiled at him. “Look at you, master of the universe, sitting on the floor of a cop shop, eating pizza, and wearing a borrowed shirt.”
“And all for love.”
She reached out for his hand. “When this is wrapped, it’s you and me. Sun, sand, sea, and sex.”
“I want the sex in or on all of the first three, and elsewhere.”
“I’m in.” Munching on pizza, she looked up at her board. “He wanted sex, but not the intimacy, the unity, the sharing of bodies, minds, certainly not hearts. He’d have killed her after, because that—destroying, eliminating, punishing—that’s the main thing. He hates them, the girls. Women, females. He feels superior to the boys—men, males—but he hates the girls.”
“He’d have hurt this one. Del. Before he used that second syringe, he’d have hurt her. That’s what he is. She? An attractive vessel for his hate and rage.”
“Mira will sort through the whys—I’ve sent her a request to observe when I have him in the box.” She shrugged. “But the whys are pretty clear. What he made Del say and do, allow him to do? He’s entitled. He’s better and smarter, comes from money and privilege, and he’s psychotic. They should all do what he wants, when he wants. If they don’t? They deserve to be forced, and they deserve to die.”
“Not yet seventeen,” Roarke murmured. “And planning to kill his father.”
“It puts the money in his hands. The power of it. He doesn’t love. He’s incapable of genuine feeling. So I want a sense of the father. Didn’t he see? If not, why not?
“Nobody’s using Interview, so I’m going to put the father in there. I want to set it up. I want to show him what we found in that lab, on those comps, in that journal.”
“Are you thinking of charging him? Neglect, accessory?”
“I want to get a sense,” she repeated.
He helped her set up as she wanted in Interview A, then stepped back as Peabody and McNab returned. She laid out her strategy.
Her comm signaled.
“Send him up,” Eve responded. “He’s here. Alone. I wondered if he’d talk a lawyer into coming in with him. Peabody, you can handle the e’s?”
Peabody shot two thumbs up.
“Any trouble there,” McNab put in, “just signal. We’re in Observation.”
When the men walked off, Eve laid down her files, unsealed evidence boxes. Then she went out to wait for the elevator.
When it opened, Bryce rushed out. He wore khakis, a pale blue golf shirt, and looked both harried and stressed.
“Dr. Bryce. Lieutenant Dallas.”
“I want to see my son. I want to see Francis.”
“He’s locked down for the night. I can arrange for you to see him at eight tomorrow morning.”
“He’s not staying in a cell overnight! I’ll pay his bail until this horrible mistake is corrected.”
“Dr. Bryce, he won’t have a bail hearing until tomorrow, and my experience tells me bail will be denied. Do you understand the charges against your son?”
“I don’t understand anything!” Against a golden summer tan, his light green eyes glittered with anger and fear.
“If you’ll step in here, we’ll explain it to you.”
Bryce drew himself up, a tall man who hadn’t passed his height to his son. “Francis is only sixteen. You can’t lock him in a cell.”
“He’s charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, one count of sexual assault and attempted rape.”
“That’s just ridiculous. Francis is—”
“Also charged with multiple counts of creating, possessing, and using illegal substances, lethal substances, on others without their consent. Please come with me.”
She led him to Interview. “This is my partner, Detective Peabody. Have a seat, Dr. Bryce. Francis has an exceptional knowledge of chemistry, correct?”
“He’s brilliant, but that hardly—”
“Please sit.” Eve did so herself. “When’s the last time you were in his home lab?”
Bryce dragged a hand through his thick mane of sun-streaked brown hair, and sat. “It’s his space. Privacy is very important to Francis. I don’t want to get into this, except to say his mother developed an addiction.”
“To heroin.”
“Yes.” When he folded his hands on the table, his knuckles went white. “She wasn’t able to conquer that addiction, and eventually it killed her. When we were separated and early in our divorce, she would bribe or bully her way past the nanny, and take things, valuables, from the house, from Francis’s room, to sell. Eventually, I replaced the nannies with a droid, as they can’t be bribed or bullied. Privacy is important to Francis, and it’s little to ask after what he dealt with.”
“I see. Peabody, let’s give Dr. Bryce a look at his son’s home lab.”
She brought up the recording, and as planned zoomed in on the glass-walled cabinet. Under the summer tan, Bryce went very pale.
“You’d recognize the names of these substances. Some are labeled by your company.”
“I—he shouldn’t have these. He—I—he must have taken them from the lab. He occasionally interns there. I’d never permit him to take these, to experiment with these. I’ll see they’re removed, immediately.”
“Already done, and in evidence. You see the equipment on the workstation? And do you recognize the wrapped cakes, the molds?”
Now the pallor took on a gray tinge. “Oh my God. Oh God. Is he using? I’ve never, I swear to you, seen a single sign. I know the signs. I lived with them.”
“There’s no evidence he’d used illegals on himself. There is quite a bit of evidence that he’s created a lethal substance which he’s used on others.
“Show him the formulas, Peabody. Side by side. On the left is the formula from your son’s lab computer. On the right, the tox reports on Jenna Harbough, age sixteen, and Arlie Dillon, age seventeen. Your son injected Jenna, without her knowledge or consent, on Saturday night, and Arlie, without hers, on Sunday night. They died, painfully, within minutes.”
“He wouldn’t. There has to be some mistake.” But Bryce’s breath had quickened. “He couldn’t.”
“You haven’t heard about the murders, Dr. Bryce?”
“I was at a medical conference until yesterday. I was taking a few days off after … He didn’t want to go. He rarely does.”
“So he stayed home alone.”
“He’s almost seventeen, and he’s never … Another year, he’ll be in college. He’s never given me a moment’s trouble. He excels in school, has already been accepted by ten universities. He’s quiet, prefers his own company, but…”
Eve took the baggies, trench, wig, shades, shoes from an evidence box. “Do you recognize any of these?”
“No. Those aren’t his.” Relief flooded his voice, his face. “You’ve mistaken him for someone else. Francis wouldn’t wear anything like that. I actually bought him pants like that a couple of times, pants like a lot of them wear. He returned them. He’s a bit fussy about his clothes. I ended up hiring a personal shopper, as he didn’t like what I’d choose, and disliked shopping.
“He’s fussy,” Bryce repeated. “And yes, somewhat socially awkward. But you’re talking about murder.”
She’d gotten a sense, Eve decided, of a father who didn’t know his son. Of a father who trusted and indulged his son because he didn’t see him for what he was.
But he would, she thought, and continued.
“He attempted to inject Kiki Rosenburg on Monday night, but was unsuccessful. She only got a very small dose. We have witnesses who saw him wearing these, at the scene of Jenna Harbough’s murder, at the scene of the attack on Kiki Rosenburg.”
She paused, just a beat, to let that sink in.
“And these are what he was wearing tonight when he dosed another girl, this time with a date-rape drug of his own making. He had that empty syringe and a second loaded with the lethal dose in his possession when he was captured.”
“This isn’t my son. Francis is well-mannered, well-educated. He’s quiet, studious.”
“Notes, Peabody, on Jenna and Arlie. You’ll see he chose these two girls at random, though he’d worked out a very careful plan. He didn’t know them. The photos, copies of media reports, his personal notes, were added the day after each was killed.”
The relief had died. Even the fear had faded against a kind of desperate disbelief.
“You’re making him into a monster.”
“I’m not making him into anything. I’m giving you facts and evidence.”
“You’re telling me my boy’s a monster. He’s—he’s never been violent. Wouldn’t even play sports. He’s shy, but always polite. How can he be a monster? How could he do these things you’re telling me he did?”
“I can only tell you he did them, and planned to do more. Journal entry, Peabody. This is from the tablet taken from his lab.”
Bryce seemed to shrink into himself as he read. “But—he wanted to kill me? That can’t be. For money? It can’t—we’ve never had a hard word between us. What can I do?”
Bryce covered his face with his hands. “What have I done? What can I do?”
Eve didn’t have the answers.
* * *
“You didn’t show him all of it,” Peabody pointed out.
“I didn’t need to. He’d had enough. This wasn’t neglect, but indulgence. He saw what he wanted to see, what Francis wanted him to see, and trusted his son. Go home, get some sleep. We’ll give him his eight A.M. visitation, give the lawyer his time, get Mira and Reo in here. Say ten for Interview. Just be here in time to prep for it.”
“Can do. Home, sleep, morning prep. We saved the girl, Dallas, and the others who could’ve come after.”
“We’ll drop you,” Roarke said as he came out of Observation with McNab.
“Actually, I’d like the walk. A little fresh air, some unwind time. You up for that?” she asked McNab.
“As long as it’s with you. We’ll take the boxes back to Evidence, Dallas.”
“Thanks.”
When they’d hauled the boxes out, she secured the Interview room, flagged it as in use.
With the first, second, and third wind depleted, she fell asleep in the car, and only woke when Roarke lifted her out.
“Thanks. Don’t let me oversleep, okay? I have to set all this up for tomorrow, write up the interview with Bryce.”
“Not to worry. I’m rearranging things and going in with you. I need to see the end of it. And, as foolish as it may sound, I want to stand witness for Del.”
It didn’t sound foolish at all.
“She got to you, didn’t she?”
“She did, yes.”
When he set her on the bed where the cat sprawled, she reached for her boots. “How about you rearrange and I arrange, and after I cook this little psycho in the box, and I will, we take off for the island and those four s’s?”
“Done.”
She stripped down, got into bed. And was asleep again before Roarke put his arm around her and the cat curled up at her back.
* * *
In the morning after he programmed omelets—loaded with ham and cheese and, maybe like a kiss on the cheek, no spinach—he gestured to her closet.
“I have a suggestion. You’ll enrage and intimidate him just by being you, but why not pile on a bit?”
“I’m listening.”
“T-shirt. You have excellent, leanly muscled arms. A vest. Let’s show off the weapon as well as the arms. Go with straight-leg pants, ankle boots with laces.”
“Combat ready.”
“In a sense.”
She looked at him in his black T-shirt and jeans. “And you with no suit.”
“I’m counting on you to do that cooking. No need for a suit on the island.”
“And the meeting you took before dawn?”
“I’m the boss.” He shrugged. “I wear what I like.”
True enough, she thought, and went in to peruse her closet. Black and white, she decided. The absence of color made a statement, too. Black pants, thick-soled laced boots, white tee, black leather vest.
“A woman of power and authority. He’ll detest you,” Roarke said when she came out.
“Counting on it.”
She strapped on her weapon, grabbed the rest. “Let’s do this.”
In the car, she contacted APA Cher Reo.
“He’s got the money for a solid lawyer.”
Reo, who’d somehow worked her fluffy blond hair into a short, stylish braid, nodded. “And he’s got one. Marshall Derwood. He’s very good, and he’s also not even a little bit stupid. I’ve spent the last hour going through the evidence, the statements, and I’m not finished. Holy mama, Dallas. Derwood will know we’ve got this locked.”
“He could try for insanity.”
“He may try, but he won’t get it. I just got off with Mira, and she agrees. She’ll factor in what she observes in Interview, but with what we have, he doesn’t reach the bar of legal insanity. He certainly will try to deal down given Bryce’s age, but—”
“No.”
“And agreed. Two girls the same age are dead, two others were attacked. He spent a couple years on this so-called project. The boss is in full agreement. He’s tried as an adult. He’s a stone-cold killer, and I don’t give a skinny rat’s ass for his feels about how the girls won’t bang him.
“You play him,” Reo added, “and we’ll lock his teen-killer ass away.”
“There’s a deal. See you at Central.”
When they got there and she walked into the bullpen, she paused. She didn’t even let Jenkinson’s frosted pink-and-blue-cupcake tie bother her.
“Santiago, Carmichael?”
“Caught one, about four hundred hours. Pity the saps.”
She actually did. “Pass it to them if I’m not around when they come in. Good work on the Bryce investigation.”
“Are you taking him this morning?” Baxter asked.
“Ten, Interview A.”
“Fry him up, boss.” Jenkinson grinned. “Fry him up good.” Then he pointed at Roarke. “No suit?”
“After I fry him up,” Eve said, “I’m taking a couple of days.”
“You got it coming.”
“Detective Sergeant, after we fry him up, take Detective Peabody off the roll for the rest of the week. On call, off the roll.”
“Yes, sir. She’s got it coming, too.”
Eve went into her office, organized her thoughts, put more files together, then sent a just-arrived Peabody down for evidence boxes.
Reo, with the braid and in a slim red dress, breezed in.
“Coffee.” Without waiting for an answer, she crossed to the AutoChef. “I just had a brief conversation with Marshall Derwood. It appears Dr. Bryce had an even briefer one with his son. I don’t know what was said, but the doctor was visibly shaken. I saw that for myself before Derwood asked him to leave us alone.”
“He saw the monster.”
“That may be. Derwood broached diminished capacity. Sixteen, frontal lobe’s not fully formed, mother was an addict, OD’d, busy father, bullied in school.”
“Gosh, this is breaking my heart. Of course he had to kill those girls.”
“Right.” Reo eased down on the corner of the desk, a better bet than the ass-biting visitor’s chair. “He had to try, that’s his job. And I called bullshit, which is mine. He tried his first deal. Juvie, mandatory counseling, five years’ probation upon release.”
“Oh please.”
Reo batted her pretty eyes.
“I believe I said about the same in about the same dismissive tone. His next move will be to try for twenty, on-planet, pointing out that the boy—and he’ll make sure to call him that—will have spent more time in prison than he’s currently spent alive.”
“Two girls aren’t alive, two more were attacked and traumatized.”
“Which is why there’ll be no such deal. He knows this. He has to try. He knows I’ll be observing, so he may pause the interview to take that swing. He will miss.
“I can’t say what the father’s told him, what the son’s told him. But you’ll do what you do, then I’ll do what I do.”
“He may pause to take that swing, but I know Francis Bryce, and before I’m finished, he’s going to admit to all of it. On record.”
She pushed up as she heard footsteps. She knew Nadine’s stride.
And when the reporter stepped in, along with Jake and, damn it, Quilla, she simply said, “No.”
“I’ve already reported on the arrest. It’s all over the media—along with vids taken by several civilians who witnessed your takedown.”
Nadine held up a hand for peace. “I anticipate you’re going to take him into Interview this morning. I’m not going to ask you for a one-on-one—though I wouldn’t turn it down. We just need to be here.”
“You can’t observe.” Eve pointed to each in turn. “Civilian, reporter, minor.”
“We’re not asking that, either. We just need to be here. I know you can kick us out. I’m asking you not to.”
