by J. D. Robb
“You admit it.” He jabbed a finger at her. “You admit that.”
“I was messing with you before. Nobody’s ever going to forget what you did, who you are. Jesus, Lew, you’re in a league of your own. Tell me what you did. I’ll never forget.”
He shook his head, turned away again, but his breathing was fast, his eyes calculating.
Nearly there, she thought.
“If you did this,” Teasdale put in. “Can prove you did this, the agency will be very interested. They want people like you, Mr. Callaway, working for them. High-level positions.”
“Wait just a damn minute,” Eve began.
“Lieutenant, we’re talking about global security. My superiors—and this reaches the highest chambers—have authorized me to persuade Mr. Callaway, should he prove himself, should he offer details that leave no room for doubt he perpetrated these events, to consider an offer.”
“Working for the HSO?”
“Menzini’s talents have certainly been useful. My superiors are of the opinion yours will follow suit.”
“Some cushy job!” Eve rounded on Teasdale. “Some big, covert government deal? For killing people? I should’ve known you’d play it this way. Let me do all the work, then grab the prize at the end.”
“Those with the skill and aptitude for such matters are more useful with us than not.” Teasdale merely shrugged. “HSO values creativity and—as you so aptly stated—balls. But I can’t discuss any of it any further without solid evidence, and Mr. Callaway’s statement.”
“My grandfather works for the HSO? He’s alive and working for you?”
Teasdale pokered up. “I’m not at liberty to say anything more on that matter at this time. I don’t have that authority.”
“I should’ve known you’d screw me over,” Eve said bitterly.
“Priorities, Lieutenant. And power. The choice is yours, Mr. Callaway.”
“You thought you had me.” He sneered at Eve. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with. All my life I knew there was something more in me, something different. They tried to hold me back.”
“They?” Eve prompted.
“My parents. But I could always get what I wanted, make people do what I wanted—or pay. I knew I didn’t get the more from them. They’re nothing. Ordinary. And when … when I found out where I’d gotten it, I was happy. At last. I’ve finished playing the game, pretending to give a shit. People needed to pay.”
“Joe Cattery, Carly Fisher.”
With a cagey smile, Callaway folded his arms. “Immunity.”
“I can’t authorize that.” Reo put a little squeak in her voice. “My boss has to—”
“The HSO offer takes precedence over assistants,” Teasdale said, smugly. “Once Mr. Callaway has given me the information necessary, I’m authorized to make him that offer. People needed to pay,” she repeated to Callaway. “And you had the means.”
“I had what I needed. Cattery, Fisher, they’d pushed the wrong buttons, hadn’t they? Messed with the wrong person, and for the last time. That’s what I can bring to the table,” he told Teasdale. “I’ve got the means and the brains to make HSO the most powerful agency on-or off-planet.”
“I’m listening.”
“What’s the offer? Spell it out.”
“That depends on what you tell me, and what can be proven. I can tell you HSO is very interested and intrigued by your—alleged—talents.”
“Bureaucratic bitch,” Eve muttered, and got a cool smile from Teasdale.
“You’ve been outmaneuvered, Lieutenant. If, of course, Mr. Callaway elects to cooperate with us.”
“I’m going to have terms,” Callaway told Teasdale.
“We can certainly discuss terms, but we require proof you had not only the means, but did, in fact, execute these incidents.”
“They all did what I wanted, didn’t they? What I made them do. Everyone in that bar, in that crappy café danced to my tune. That’s what you’ll get with me,” he told Teasdale. “Someone who gets the job done.”
“What did you make them do, Mr. Callaway?” Teasdale asked.
“Kill each other. Slaughter. Live their fears and die fighting. It was all there in the journals, my grandfather’s papers. His crazy religious angle? You don’t have to worry about that from me. I’m not crazy, and I don’t believe in anything but myself.”
“That’s important. My superiors will want to be assured of just that.”
“Idiot Joe, sitting there, moping for his wife and brats. And I thought, you won’t mope much longer, asshole. I wanted Weaver, too, but she left, skipping out to have sex. I settled for Joe, and the rest of them. That fucking bartender, the bitch of a waitress, that stupid woman and her friends. All I had to do was put the vial in her pocket when she bumped into me. Already opened. It takes a few minutes to take effect, and I timed it right down to the heartbeat. That’s how good I am. Got a little headache, but that’s all. I was out in the air before it took hold. And I just kept walking.”
“You made the substance yourself?”
“It’s tricky,” he said with a nod at Teasdale. “Not that hard to come up with the ingredients, especially if you take your time. I had to build the lab. It’s small. I wouldn’t mind playing around with other ideas in a better lab. I’ve got a knack.” He tapped his chest with his thumb. “I guess I got it from the old man.”
“I’ll pass that on,” Teasdale replied.
“I think I can improve it, so it lasts longer, starts faster. The second hit would’ve been better if the effects had taken hold quicker. Once the cops got there, started stunning people, it cut down on the count.”
“How did you choose the second location?”
“For that bitch Fisher. She thought she was going to climb over my back? Her and Weaver, always plotting and planning out to hold me back.” He sliced his hands like an umpire calling the runner safe. “That’s done.”
“And the second accomplishment. How was it done?”
“I wasn’t going to go in. It would give the cops a reason to look at me. See, I think things through, figure the angles. I just waited for the delivery girl. Dumb as a bag of hair, that one. I stopped her, asked her to order me a sandwich, grab me a table. Said I had to run into the drug store, but I’d be right there. Gave her a thank-you hug, stuck the open vial in her pocket. Done and finished. I grabbed that pita and strolled on back to the office.”
“Where were you hitting next?” Eve asked. “Indulge me.”
“Why not? There’s an Italian restaurant down from the office. Appetito. Weaver goes there a lot. All I’d have to do is check her book, see when she’s taking some fuck there for foreplay. I made friends with one of the waitresses. I’d use her for delivery. With those three out, I’d move up, take over for Weaver. Now they can suck me. Their loss is HSO’s gain.”
“It is indeed,” Teasdale agreed.
“Is that enough, Reo?” Eve asked.
“Oh, I’d say that, served on a silver platter.”
“Peabody, get a couple of uniforms to help you take Lew through processing. I don’t believe he’s going to feel very cooperative.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Screw that.” He tipped back, smirked at Eve as Peabody slipped out. “I’m not doing any time, even overnight. I’m with the HSO.”
“What you are, Callaway, is deeply stupid.”
“What you are, bitch, is fucked. When do I meet the head men, Agent?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Callaway, if I gave the impression the offer would precede you serving out your sentences. The HSO does believe you’ll be very useful to us—should there be a medical miracle and you survive one hundred and twenty-seven life sentences. And we feel you’ll be very useful serving approximately the same amount of additional time in a federal institution.”
“This is bullshit. You said—”
“I believe the record will show I gave no specific details on this offer. In any case, lying during Interview or interroga
tion is accepted—even encouraged. I believe, Mr. Callaway, it’s you who are fucked. I’m very happy to have played a small part in it.”
Eve braced when he surged to his feet. “Please try it. My turn,” she said to Teasdale. But even as she spoke, Peabody came in with two uniforms.
“Oh well, maybe next time.”
“I want a deal.” He struggled against the vice grip on his arms.
“Sure. Ask me after, say, seventy of those life sentences.” Reo smiled at him like a raptor. “We’ll talk.”
“I want a lawyer!”
“Let him contact a rep after processing,” Eve told Peabody. “Nice work, Agent.”
“The same, Lieutenant. He was proud of it. You were right about that.”
“Yeah, and ambitious. You were right with the HSO angle.”
“I’ll report to my superior, handle the paperwork on my end.” Teasdale let out a long, windy breath. “Then I’d like a very big drink.”
“I hear that. One thing. Is Menzini still alive?”
“My information is he died a few months ago.”
“Okay. I’ll be around.” She turned to Reo. “No deals, right?”
“What’s to deal? He spelled it out. If he gets a decent lawyer, he’ll try for insanity or mental defect.”
“He’s not insane nor defective,” Mira said. “I had a session with him right here, on record. He isn’t legally insane, and was perfectly aware what he did was wrong, immoral, illegal. There won’t be a health facility sentence here. It’s his conscience, his morals that are defective, not his mind.”
“Good to hear. I’ll have all the records for you within the hour,” she told Reo.
“I’ll wait. By the way, sex-me-up shoes?”
“I was following a theme.”
“Well.” Reo turned her ankles, looked down. “They are pretty fabulous.”
“They are,” Mira agreed.
“I was going to say the same about yours. What a terrific color.”
“Could we not talk about shoes in the box that still smells of evildoer?”
“You started it,” Reo reminded her before she turned back to Mira. “Do you have time to run through your findings on him? I’ll buy you a drink in the lounge.”
“That sounds good. Eve?”
“I’m going to deal with the paperwork.”
She stepped out behind them, spotted Roarke with her commander.
“Sir.”
“Good work, Lieutenant. Excellent work.”
“Thank you, sir. We had a good team who put a lot of hours into it, a lot of skill.”
“Agreed. I’ll be addressing the team. We’ll be making an announcement to the media, holding a brief conference within the hour. You’ll need to be there.” He smiled at her, and for the first time in days, with a light in his eyes. “I realize that feels like punishment, but it’s important we inform the public, and you attend.”
“Yes, sir.”
“After which I suggest you go home and enjoy your evening. I’m going to.”
“I wonder if he means he’s going to have so much sex,” Roarke commented when Whitney was out of earshot.
“Please. Don’t put that image in my head. I need to see what you brought back from Callaway’s.”
“Secured in your office, except for the electronics. Feeney’s got them in EDD. I wanted to watch you work this one, so I came down for a bit. But I’ll go back, give him some time. The bastard’s encrypted everything. It’s not overly complicated, but it’s going to take a little time to get all his notes and so on.”
“Everything we can get adds to it, but I don’t think there’s a hurry. Still, I guess I’m going to be a couple hours.”
“Just let me know when you’re ready to go. And we’ll enjoy our evening.”
“I cracked that code,” she said as she split off to her office.
20
She stopped in the bullpen to speak to Sanchez and Carmichael. “Nice job before, on the grief-giving. You could be in vids.”
Sanchez pinned her with a pointed stare. “Did you think I was acting?”
She only lifted her eyebrows, pinned him in turn. “That or asking for a thirty-day rip.”
Carmichael snorted. “Told you not to try it. The LT always wins, Sanchez. It’s why she’s the LT.”
“Well, hell.” With a grin, Sanchez shrugged it off. “Is he down?”
“Down and out. You can pass cases back to the others, just let me know who’s on the board.”
“Can we give Baxter the bloater, cooking in his cat-infested apartment for eight days? I owe him some payback.”
“Fine with me.”
“Then it’s all worth it.”
She left them for her office. Yeah, the new guy not only slid right in, she thought. He fit like he’d been there for years.
She considered a moment, then engaged her ’link.
“This is Nadine, make it quick. I’m in a production meeting.”
“You’re going to want to step out for a minute.”
A flicker of annoyance came first, then cleared. “I’ve got to take this. Keep going.”
Eve waited while Nadine walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. “Tell me you made an arrest.”
“We made an arrest. Wait. There’s going to be a statement and a media conference within the hour. I’m giving you a heads up on it. The data you dug up for me helped.”
“Give me a name, give me the official charges.”
“I’m not going to do that, Nadine. You know I can’t. What you can do is get on air, do your breaking news thing. According to a source within the NYPSD, police have arrested and charged a suspect in the mass murders committed at On the Rocks and Café West. An official statement is imminent. Details to follow or whatever.”
“You’re going to start writing my copy now?”
“It’s the best I can do for you. Don’t ask me for the one-on-one right now. I’ll just say no because I’m fucking tired; I want to tie this up and go home. Ask me later.”
“Was he acting alone? Give me that?”
“At this time, we have no reason to believe otherwise. He confessed. That’s big, Nadine. We apprehended, arrested, and charged an individual, and said individual confessed to perpetrating the incidents that led to the deaths of a hundred and twenty-seven people. You’re going to want to postpone that meeting, get this out, and get your camera-ready ass to Central.”
“You can bet your mass-murderer-catching ass I will. Talk later.”
“A lot later,” Eve added when the screen went blank.
She hadn’t lied about being tired, she thought. Now that it was done, every ounce of fatigue she’d shoved back since walking into On the Rocks wanted to push through and drop her like a stone.
It just had to wait, she decided. She wanted to write up the arrest report personally. And first, she wanted a look at the journals and papers the search team had secured and logged in.
She unsealed the box, initialed it, then sat to study the memorabilia of madness.
The religious rantings in the journal simply annoyed her. The way those thirsty for power, glory or the satisfaction of brow-beating others into their particular beliefs used God as a weapon of intimidation and fear perplexed her.
Not that they’d do it, but that anybody would listen.
If God actually took the time to go around smiting anyone, she’d like to see him start with the self-righteous pricks who inflated their own egos in his name.
But she supposed that was why God made cops.
Menzini had filled pages in tiny, crablike handwriting, pontificating about the chosen, detailing the ritual rapes of young girls, and calling them initiations or cleansings.
He rambled about his God-given mission to purge the unclean, sinners, the unworthy, his holy mission to prepare the way for the end of days. And his plans to repopulate the earth with the righteous after the purge.
He detailed his experiments, his frustrations with his
lack of success. One lack of success had resulted in an explosion that had killed one assistant and blinded another.
That, too, was apparently God’s fault—or his will, anyway. And a test directed at Menzini, to help forge his determination.
“Yeah, it’s all about you, asshole.”
She glanced up when Peabody stepped in.
“I just got to the part where Menzini’s praising God for showing him the way to create the substance. He tested it on some prisoners, which included a sixteen-year-old boy. He dubbed the substance God’s Wrath, and was damn proud of it.”
“Sounds like Callaway came by it naturally. Jesus.” Horror covered Peabody’s face as it reddened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t bother me. He has this in him, but we’ve all got something. Even some daisy-sniffing Free-Ager like you has to have a rotted branch on the family tree somewhere. It’s what we do with it, about it, despite it.”
“Yeah.” Peabody blew out a breath. “I don’t sniff daisies. They don’t really smell. I like peonies, if you’re taking notes on flowers to send me for a reward.”
“Sure, I’ll mark that right down on my shopping list.”
“You don’t have a shopping list.”
“Exactly. Did Callaway tap a lawyer?”
“Not yet. He clammed up, like total lockdown. He gave me a bad feeling, so I put him in solitary, and on suicide watch.”
“Good. We want him safe and secure. Whitney, or likely Tibble will be making an official statement. We’re expected to do the media conference deal.”
“I don’t mind. It’ll be good to let people know it’s okay, we did the job. McNab’s working on decrypting Callaway’s electronics. I’m going to wait for him before knocking off anyway. The search team’s back,” she added. “There’s talk about going out for some brew.”
“I’m going to skip it. I just want to … enjoy an evening at home.”
“If you change your mind, they’re hitting the Blue Line. Cops might as well celebrate a big win at a cop bar. Do you want me to do the five’s?”
Tempting … but no. “I’m going to start on it now. Go ahead and get the records for Reo, and a copy of the log of everything taken from Callaway’s apartment. We’re going to want to send somebody in—with correct authorization—to confiscate his office electronics, toss his office.”