by J. D. Robb
She walked out, surprised that her legs felt like glass: the thin, fragile kind that could be shattered with a careless brush of the hand.
“He was out of line, Dallas,” Feeney said, catching at her arm. “He’s hurting, and he took a bad shot at you.”
“Not so bad.” Her voice was rough and raw. “Compassion’s not my strong suit, is it? I don’t know shit about family ties and loyalties, do I?”
Uncomfortable, Feeney shifted his feet. “Come on, Dallas, you don’t want to take it personal.”
“Don’t I? He’s stood behind me plenty of times. Now he’s asking me to stand behind him, and I have to say sorry, no chance. That’s pretty fucking personal, Feeney.” She shook off his hand. “Let’s take a rain check on the drinks. I’m not feeling sociable.”
At a loss, Feeney dumped his hands in his pockets. Eve strode off in one direction, the commander remained behind closed doors in the other. Feeney stood unhappily between them.
Eve supervised the search of Marco Angelini’s brownstone personally. She wasn’t needed there. The sweepers knew their job, and their equipment was as good as the budget allowed. Still, she sprayed her hands, coated her boots, and moved through the three-story home looking for anything that would tie up the case, or, thinking of Whitney’s face, break it.
Marco Angelini remained on the premises. That was his right as owner of the property, and as the father of the prime suspect. Eve blocked out his presence, the cold azure eyes that followed her moves, the haggard look to his face, the quick muscle twitch in his jaw.
One of the sweepers did a thorough check of David’s wardrobe with a porta-sensor, looking for bloodstains. While he worked, Eve meticulously searched the rest of the room.
“Coulda ditched the weapon,” the sweeper commented. He was an old, buck-toothed vet nicknamed Beaver. He traced the sensor, the arm of it wrapped over his left shoulder, down a thousand-dollar sport coat.
“He used the same one on all three women,” Eve answered, speaking more to herself than Beaver. “The lab confirms it. Why would he ditch it now?”
“Maybe he was done.” The sensor switched from its muted hum to a quick beep. “Just a little salad oil,” Beaver announced. “Extra virgin olive. Spotted his pretty tie. Maybe he was done,” Beaver said again.
He admired detectives, had once had ambitions to become one. The closest he’d managed to get was as a field tech. But he read every detective story available on disc.
“See, three’s like a magic number. An important number.” His eyes sharpened behind his tinted glasses as the treated lenses picked up a minute spot of talc on a cuff. He moved on, warming to the theme. “So this guy, see, he fixes on three women, women he knows, sees all the time on the screen. Maybe he’s hot for them.”
“The first victim was his mother.”
“Hey.” Beaver paused long enough to swivel a look toward Eve. “You never heard of Oedipus? That Greek guy, you know, had the hots for his mama. Anyhow, he does the three, then ditches the weapon and the clothes he was wearing when he did them. This guy’s got enough clothes for six people, anyway.”
Frowning, Eve walked over to the spacious closet, scanned the automatic racks, the motorized shelves. “He doesn’t even live here.”
“Dude’s rich, right?” To Beaver that explained everything. “He’s got a couple suits in here ain’t never been worn. Shoes, too.” He reached down, picked up one of a pair of leather half boots, turned them over. “Nothing, see?” He skimmed the sensor over the unscuffed bottom. “No dirt, no dust, no sidewalk scrapes, no fibers.”
“That only makes him guilty of self-indulgence. Goddamn it, Beaver, get me some blood.”
“I’m working on it. Probably tossed what he was wearing, though.”
“You’re a real optimist, Beaver.”
In disgust, she turned toward a U-shaped lacquered desk and began to rifle through the drawers. The discs she would bag and run through her own computer. They could get lucky and find some correspondence between David Angelini and his mother or Metcalf. Or luckier yet, she mused, and find some rambling confessional diary that described the murders.
Where the hell had he put the umbrella? she wondered. The shoe? She wondered if the sweepers in N.L.A. or the ones in Europe were having any better luck. The thought of backtracking and searching all the cozy little homes and luxury hideaways of David Angelini was giving her a bad case of indigestion.
Then she found the knife.
It was so simple. Open the middle drawer of the work console, and there it was. Long, slim, and lethal. It had a fancy handle, carved out of what might have been genuine ivory, which would have made it an antique—or an international crime. Harvesting ivory, or purchasing it in any form had been outlawed planetwide for more than half a century after the near extinction of African elephants.
Eve wasn’t an antique buff, nor was she an expert on environmental crime, but she’d studied forensics enough to know that the shape and length of the blade were right.
“Well, well.” Her indigestion was gone, like a bad guest. In its place was the clear, clean high of success. “Maybe three wasn’t his magic number after all.”
“He kept it? Son of a bitch.” Disappointed in the foolishness of a murderer, Beaver shook his head. “Guy’s an idiot.”
“Scan it,” she ordered, crossing to him.
Beaver shifted the bulk of the scanner, changed the program from clothing. After a quick adjustment of his lenses, he ran the funnel of the arm up the knife. The scanner beeped helpfully.
“Got some shit on it,” Beaver muttered, his thick fingertips playing over controls like a concert pianist’s over keys. “Fiber—maybe paper. Some kind of adhesive. Prints on the handle. Want a hard copy of ’em?”
“Yeah.”
“’Kay.” The scanner spit out a square of paper dotted with fingerprints. “Turn her over. And bingo. There’s your blood. Not much of it.” He frowned, skimming the funnel along the edge of the blade. “Going to be lucky if it’s enough for typing, much less DNA.”
“You keep that positive outlook, Beaver. How old’s the blood?”
“Come on, Lieutenant.” Behind the sensor lenses, his eyes were huge and cynical. “You know I can’t give you that from one of the portables. Gotta take it in. All this little girl does is identify. No skin,” he announced. “Be better if you had some skin.”
“I’ll take the blood.” As she sealed the knife into evidence, a movement caught her eyes. She looked up and into the dark, damning eyes of Marco Angelini.
He glanced down at the knife, then back into her face. Something moved across his, something wrenching that had the muscle jerking in his jaw.
“I’d like a moment of your time, Lieutenant Dallas.”
“I can’t give you much more than that.”
“It won’t take long.” His eyes flicked to Beaver, then back to the knife as Dallas slipped it into her bag. “In private, please.”
“All right.” She nodded to the uniform who stood at Angelini’s shoulder. “Tell one of the team to come up and finish the hands-on search in here,” she ordered Beaver, then followed Angelini out of the room.
He turned toward a set of narrow, carpeted steps, his hand trailing along a glossy banister as he climbed. At the top, he shifted right and stepped into a room.
An office, Eve discovered. Sunwashed now in the brilliant afternoon. Light beamed and glinted off the surfaces of communication equipment, struck and bounced from the smooth semi-circular console of sober black, flashed and pooled on the surface of the gleaming floor.
As if annoyed with the strength of the sunlight, Angelini hit a switch that had the windows tinted to a soft amber. Now the room had shadows around pale gold edges.
Angelini walked directly to a wall unit and ordered a bourbon on the rocks. He held the square glass in his hand, took one careful sip.
“You believe my son murdered his mother and two other women.”
“Your son has been questioned on those ch
arges, Mr. Angelini. He is a suspect. If you have any questions about the procedure, you should speak with his counsel.”
“I’ve spoken with them.” He took another sip. “They believe there’s a good chance you will charge him, but that he won’t be indicted.”
“That’s up to the grand jury.”
“But you think he will.”
“Mr. Angelini, if and when I have arrested your son and charged him with three counts of first-degree murder, it will be because I believe he will be indicted, tried, and convicted on those charges, and that I have the evidence to ensure that conviction.”
He looked at her field bag where she’d put some of that evidence. “I’ve done some research on you, Lieutenant Dallas.”
“Have you?”
“I like to know the odds,” he said with a humorless smile that came and went in a blink. “Commander Whitney respects you. And I respect him. My former wife admired your tenacity and your thoroughness, and she was not a fool. She spoke of you, did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“She was impressed by your mind. A clean cop’s mind she called it. You’re good at your job, aren’t you, Lieutenant?”
“Yeah, I’m good at it.”
“But you make mistakes.”
“I try to keep them to a minimum.”
“A mistake in your profession, however minimal, can cause incredible pain to the innocent.” His eyes stayed on hers, relentlessly. “You found a knife in my son’s room.”
“I can’t discuss that with you.”
“He rarely uses this house,” Angelini said carefully. “Three or four times a year perhaps. He prefers the Long Island estate when he’s in the area.”
“That may be, Mr. Angelini, but he used this house on the night Louise Kirski was killed.” Impatient now, eager to get the evidence to the lab, Eve moved a shoulder. “Mr. Angelini, I can’t debate the state’s case with you—”
“But you’re very confident that the state has a good case,” he interrupted. When she didn’t answer, he took another long study of her face. Then he finished the drink in one swallow, set the glass aside. “But you’re wrong, Lieutenant. You’ve got the wrong man.”
“You believe in your son’s innocence, Mr. Angelini. I understand that.”
“Not believe, Lieutenant, know. My son didn’t kill those women.” He took a breath, like a diver about to plunge under the surface. “I did.”
chapter fifteen
Eve had no choice. She took him in and grilled him. After a full hour, she had a vicious headache and the calm, unshakable statement from Marco Angelini that he had killed three women.
He refused counsel, and refused to or was unable to elaborate.
Each time Eve asked him why he had killed, he stared straight into her eyes and claimed it had been impulse. He’d been annoyed with his wife, he stated. Personally embarrassed by her continued intimacy with a business partner. He’d killed her because he couldn’t have her back. Then he’d gotten a taste for it.
It was all very simple, and to Eve’s mind, very rehearsed. She could picture him repeating and refining the lines in his head before he spoke them.
“This is bullshit,” she said abruptly and pushed back from the conference table. “You didn’t kill anybody.”
“I say I did.” His voice was eerily calm. “You have my confession on record.”
“Then tell me again.” Leaning forward, she slapped her hands on the table. “Why did you ask your wife to meet you at the Five Moons?”
“I wanted it to happen somewhere out of our milieu. I thought I could get away with it, you see. I told her there was trouble with Randy. She didn’t know the full problem of his gambling. I did. So, of course, she came.”
“And you slit her throat.”
“Yes.” His skin whitened slightly. “It was very quick.”
“What did you do then?”
“I went home.”
“How?”
He blinked. “I drove. I’d parked my car a couple of blocks away.”
“What about the blood?” She peered into his eyes, watching his pupils. “There’d have been a lot of it. She’d have gushed all over you.”
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 slumpe
d 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.”