Vendetta in Death

by Robb, J. D.

  “Then I’ll stand by.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  Eve pocketed the ’link.

  Moments later, with Donnalou beside her, Eloise came in. She’d put on what Eve figured was a dressing gown, as it looked too quietly glamorous to be called a robe.

  The soft, warm blue draped over her small frame to just above her ankles. She’d brushed her hair back, applied some subtle makeup.

  “Thank you for waiting. Donnalou, would you mind getting us all coffee?”

  “Of course, you sit down now.” The nurse helped her into a peacock-blue chair, walked over to a serving bar.

  “I want to say I’m grateful to you—I want to call you Eve, and I hope you’ll allow it, because there’s an intimacy between us now. I respect your rank, your work, but I need to speak to you as a woman as well as a police officer.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “You were correct that I knew Darla was—is suffering from an illness. I believed living here, even tending to me—and she did tend to me so devotedly—when I fell ill helped her cope. I swear to you I had no idea how deep the suffering, how severe the illness. She hid it very well.”

  When her voice broke, she paused to fight for composure, then took the coffee Donnalou offered. She sat, sipped, drew herself up again.

  “I swear to you, I never saw this in her. Self-destruction, that I feared when the life she so desperately wanted crumbled, but not this. I can’t conceive of it. I love her with all my heart, and I never saw this in her. I would have gotten her help. Her father—my son—he would have gotten her help.”

  “I believe you,” Eve said without hesitation. “I saw it when I met you. This is not on you in any way.”

  “Oh, but how can it not be? She’s the child of my child. You saw it in her, didn’t you? How did you see it?”

  “It’s a different thing. It’s training, it’s … I don’t love her,” Eve said.

  Nodding, Eloise looked down at her cup. “It’s too late to get her the help that would have saved the lives she took, to spare those who loved those men the grief of loss. But she is the child of my child. I’ll engage the best attorney available, the best doctors.”

  “I have the department psychiatrist coming in to evaluate her. Dr. Charlotte Mira. She’s the best there is.”

  “I know her from the book, the vid, but—”

  “You should engage your own. I’m telling you that Dr. Mira will evaluate your granddaughter, and that you can trust her. I’m going in to interview Darla, and Dr. Mira will observe.”

  “Will I be able to see her, speak with her?”

  “Yes, later. Is there somewhere you can go for a few days? This isn’t where you want to be now.”

  “Yes. I have friends. Donnalou will help me pack what I need. You’ve been very kind and very patient with me. I won’t forget it.”

  “I’m just doing my job.”

  “Kindness isn’t a job, Eve, it’s a choice. I’m keeping you from doing what you must.” She rose, extended a hand. “Thank you. I’m going to pack what I need, contact my son. He’ll want to come to New York.”

  “I’ll contact you when you’re clear to see her.”

  Eve went downstairs where sweepers and uniforms and techs moved through the house. She wished she could spare Eloise the journey through the logjam of cops, but it would be one more point of pain to push through.

  In the basement it was more of the same. Much more.

  Peabody broke away from a conversation with a couple of white-suited sweepers. “I’m having them get scrapings from the floor for the match. We’ve got her cold but more evidence isn’t wrong.”

  “More the better. Let’s go get her in the box.”

  As Eve did, Peabody looked toward the e-team still swarming the toys. “I think they’d like to live here.”

  “Hold on.” Eve crossed over. “The droid there? That’s the one she’d have used to drive her to get the targets, and to help her transport them to the dump site. I need his memory banks.”

  “We’ll get to ’em,” Feeney assured her. He actually had roses in his cheeks. “We got plenty on here, too. Docs, schedules, photos, backup plans if she missed one the first time out, alternate routes, the works.”

  “Kept, like, a diary, too,” McNab put in.

  “Yeah, her type would. She’s a planner, a grudge holder, a freaking organized soul.”

  “She also has the skeleton of a business plan in the works,” Roarke said. “A solid one even in the early stages. If, well, on the mad side of things.” His gaze stayed on her face. “Are you heading in then?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to get her in Interview, so I’ll want copies of whatever you get off the comps and out of the droids.”

  “Give us a moment,” he said to no one in particular, then steered Eve away until he found a relatively quiet corner. “Must it be tonight? She won’t be going anywhere, after all.”

  “Yeah, I need Mira to observe. I have Reo coming in. And I need to hit her while she’s whacked about not getting her kill. She’ll be more open.”

  “Then eat something first.”

  “Oh, for fuck sake.”

  He simply snagged her by the chin. “You’re near to pale enough to see through. You’ll take a moment with your steady partner there in your office and have a shagging pizza while you work out your interview strategy and look over some of what we send you.”

  When he put it that way. “I didn’t know they made shagging pizza.”

  “Still have some smart left in your very tired ass. What happened upstairs to make you so sad?”

  “I was witness to grace and strength, and for some reason it scraped me raw. I’ll eat some shagging pizza.”

  “Good. And it’ll do you no good to snap at me, because I need this as much as you do.” He pulled her in, just held her, felt her stiffen, then give.

  “Well, if you need it.”

  “I do.” He brushed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll be with my EDD mates till you’re done.”

  “It’s going to be—”

  “A long night,” he finished. “Won’t be the first of them for us.”

  Or the last, she thought as she started out. “Peabody, with me.”

  She had pizza—but rather than in her office with Peabody, in a conference room with Peabody, Mira, and Reo.

  “Eloise Callahan’s going to get her a serious lawyer,” Eve began. “I’m going to take the window before she can get that going to get what I can out of her.”

  “You and several other cops caught her in the act of torturing her fourth victim.” Reo bit into a slice, went mmm. “We’re going to match the hair from the wig, the scrapings from the floor. We have her journal, her documentation. I don’t care if she gets the ghost of Clarence Darrow, she’s cooked.”

  “Not disputing. Confession’s always best, and this one will give us chapter and verse. She’s never going in a concrete cage off-planet.”

  “Legal insanity isn’t your call.”

  “I know it when I see it.”

  “She’s right, Reo.” Peabody nibbled her own slice to make it last.

  “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t go into a high-security prison, but it’s going to be the mentally defective wing. Still.” Eve looked at Mira. “If we’re wrong, you’ll know it.”

  “She planned each murder precisely,” Reo argued. “With alternatives, escape routes, ways to avoid detection. She knew right from wrong.”

  “I’ll observe, and I’ll have a one-to-one evaluation session with her. Eve, what is this pizza? I’ve never had better.”

  “Shagging, apparently.”

  “Sorry?”

  “It’s one of Roarke’s deals. He’s started stocking my office AC because he’s constantly afraid I’ll starve to death.”

  “Aw,” Reo and Peabody said in stereo.

  “Love sometimes comes with mozzarella,” Mira said with a smile.

  “I guess it does. I have to tag some
body, then we’re going in. Peabody, we square on approach?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have her brought up. I’ll meet you there.”

  Now Eve went to her office, contacted Nadine.

  “Late this afternoon,” Eve began, “officers attached to Homicide and EDD entered the home of Eloise Callahan—”

  “The what!”

  “On a duly authorized warrant,” Eve continued. “At that time they apprehended Darla Pettigrew. Ms. Pettigrew is charged with the abduction, torture, and murder of Nigel McEnroy, Thaddeus Pettigrew, and Arlo Kagen, and the abduction and torture of Linus Brinkman. Ms. Callahan, grandmother of Ms. Pettigrew, had been sedated by her granddaughter and is not a suspect or a person of interest in the investigation.

  “Those are the highlights, you could say.”

  “Jumping Jesus, Dallas.”

  “I want Eloise Callahan protected, Nadine. I want you to give her a damn good cushion. She’s a victim in this, too.”

  “You’re sure she wasn’t—”

  “One hundred percent. Pettigrew slipped her something before she went out on the hunt and had a goddamn medical droid—of her making—guarding her. She did her dirty work in the basement behind doors locked so tight it took Roarke—who designed the damn system—several precious minutes to get through.”

  “Okay, got it. Give me—”

  “I’m putting her in the box now. That’s all I can give you. You do your job, I’ll do mine.”

  “And good luck to us both.”

  Eve put the ’link back in her pocket, rolled her shoulders to loosen them, and went out to meet Peabody.

  “She’s in there,” Peabody told her outside the door of Interview B. “Hasn’t asked for legal representation, hasn’t asked to make any contact. The uniforms who brought her up said she’s anxious to talk to us.”

  “Then let’s not keep her waiting.”

  Eve stepped in.

  “Finally.” Darla rattled her restraints as she lifted her hands. She looked calm, composed as she sat at the table in her orange jumpsuit.

  “Record on,” Eve began. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Peabody, Detective Delia, entering Interview with Pettigrew, Darla, on the matters of case files H-33491, H-33495, H-33498, and H-33500.” Eve set down a file as she and Peabody took their seats. “Ms. Pettigrew—”

  “Oh now, it’s Darla.”

  “Fine. Darla, you’ve been read your rights. Do you understand those rights and obligations?”

  “Of course I do. I understand we have to go through these formalities, deal with these fussy little rules, but I’m here to talk with you, both of you.”

  “Great.”

  Oh yeah, Eve thought, studying Darla’s animated face. About to get chapter and verse.

  “You’re charged with the abduction, administration of barbiturates without consent, enforced imprisonment, torture, and murder of Niles McEnroy, Thaddeus Pettigrew, Arlo Kagen. You’re additionally changed with the abduction, administration of barbiturates without consent, enforced imprisonment, and assault on Linus Brinkman.”

  Darla rolled her eyes with the same attitude as a teenager caught breaking curfew. “That’s all nonsense.”

  “How can it be nonsense?” Peabody asked, all quiet reason. “We apprehended you in the act of assaulting Linus Brinkman, we found articles belonging to McEnroy, Pettigrew, and Kagen in your workshop. Denying the charges isn’t going to fly, Darla.”

  “The charges are nonsense,” she insisted.

  “You’re actually denying you tortured and killed three men,” Eve put in, “and were in the process of taking another man’s life?”

  “Absolutely not. I’m not denying the acts and actions, for goodness’ sake. It’s the charges that are foolish. I executed justice, justice no one else had been able to execute. The city should throw me a damn parade, and every woman who’s ever been harassed, raped, beaten, cheated on would cheer.”

  She leaned forward. “You of all people should understand. You’re constrained by those formalities, those rules, but you’re women, women who must see nearly every day the pain, the humiliation, the degradation men cause women. I did what you’re unable to do—what I realize you must be afraid to do. I stopped them from causing more harm, from benefitting from the pain they’d inflicted. None of them deserved to live.”

  “And you figure that’s your call?” Eve demanded. “To determine who lives, who dies?”

  “Someone has to decide.” Darla slammed a fist on the table. “Someone has to act! Do you understand what the women in my group have suffered while those men paid no price? No price! I did what needed to be done. I made them pay. Every one of them chose to turn to me, accept me, ruled by their dicks, every one.”

  Her eyes went bright. Bright, bright. “Do you really believe the men you give yourselves to are faithful? Are you so blind to see them as loyal? They’re built to cheat, steal, take, strike. It’s their nature.”

  “Did you plan to kill all men?” Peabody wondered. “Any age restriction on that?”

  Darla sent Peabody an amused look. “We’d be better off smothering males at birth, but until we find a way to propagate without them?” She shrugged. “Young boys grow into men, and men have a fatal flaw in their programming. The solution may be in droids, or a human/droid hybrid. I hope to begin work on that solution when this initial phase is complete.”

  The business plan Roarke spoke of, Eve realized.

  “Sure.” Bat-shit crazy, Eve thought. “But let’s stick with the initial phase for now. Start with McEnroy, walk us through your work there.”

  “All right. I’m really quite proud of it. Justifiably.”

  She told them everything, every step, and her only emotion was that pride.

  Licks of anger came through as she spoke of her ex-husband. “I shouldn’t be so upset with him.” She held up a hand, took some breaths, then let out a quick, brittle laugh. “He actually opened my eyes, gave me my purpose, so I should be grateful. Until his betrayal I was content to be under his thumb, to focus my life, even my work, to suit his needs and pleasures. If he hadn’t betrayed me, stolen from me, crushed my heart, my pride, I would still be his wife, still be used by him.”

  “That’s when you moved in with Eloise,” Eve prompted.

  “Yes. My darling Grand opened her home to me, gave me comfort. She’s the kindest, most loving creature ever born. But naive. She believes, always has, that the man she loved was faithful, that he never strayed, never harmed another.”

  Once again, she slammed a fist on the table. “He was a man, wasn’t he? But I let her hold that illusion, as accepting the truth would only hurt her. I’d never hurt Grand.”

  “You drugged her,” Peabody said. “Again and again.”

  “She needed rest, so I gave her rest. Sleep heals. She was very ill. I never left her alone, never! I built a medical droid to look after her when I couldn’t be there. She’s safe and sleeping now, but I have to get back before she wakes. She needs me.”

  “Let’s move on to Kagen,” Eve instructed.

  “Disgusting man.” Darla waved a hand in front of her face as if she smelled something foul. “Nothing could have been easier, but being in his presence? A chore.”

  Eve listened, didn’t interrupt, found no need for questions even when Darla, on her own, slid right into the details of Brinkman.

  “Really, I’d barely started with him. I did begin a bit earlier than with the others but, to tell you the truth, I wanted to finish with him and get some sleep. I haven’t had much in the last several days, and using stimulants tends to make me jumpy after a long period.”

  “I bet. And you had other men to deal with.”

  “Of course, but that’s for tomorrow. I’m an interior designer meeting a man with a wife, and a mistress, who also found it necessary to exploit yet another woman, take her misplaced love before destroying her career. He has a property he wants redone. I’ll be Roweena Carson, and I have a marvelous costume for th
e scene.”

  “You do realize this isn’t a vid?” Peabody asked.

  With all the masks stripped away, her eyes were crazed.

  Direct, Eve noted, but crazed.

  “Of course, but I play the parts, dress the part these men expect before I reveal who I really am.”

  “Lady Justice.”

  Darla beamed at Eve. “Yes, exactly. Now that we’ve cleared this up, and you understand, I really have to get home and check on Grand.”

  “Donnalou’s with her.”

  “Oh.” Darla frowned. “That’s all right then. But—”

  “We’re going to need you to stay. You can get some sleep, and tomorrow Dr. Mira will talk to you.”

  “Oh, I’d love to meet her. I just adored her in the vid. But Grand—”

  “Donnalou’s going to stay with her,” Peabody said and rose. “She’ll take care of her.”

  “She’s a wonderful nurse. Still—”

  “Grand’s sleeping now.” Peabody walked around the table to release the chain, help Darla to her feet. “She’s safe, and sleeping. We could all use some sleep.”

  “You’re right. I’m just exhausted. I’m glad we straightened this all out. I was angry with you at first,” she said as Peabody led her out of the room. “But then I realized, we women have to stick together. Women for women.”

  Eve let out a long breath as the door closed behind them. “Peabody, Detective Delia, exiting with Pettigrew, Darla.

  “Interview end.”

  She sat where she was, continued to sit when Mira and Reo came in, when they sat with her at the table.

  Mira spoke first. “I’ll interview and evaluate her formally tomorrow, but from my observations she doesn’t meet the threshold of legal sanity, and is unfit mentally and emotionally for trial.”

  “I’m forced to agree,” Reo said. “If that wasn’t an act—”

  “It’s all an act,” Eve interrupted, “but that was as real as she gets. She thinks we’ll let her go, seeing as we’re all in this big sisterhood, so she can go out and keep doing what these silly rules prevent us from doing. I guess you could say she found the role of her lifetime in Lady Justice.”

  “You stopped her, very likely saved more lives, including her own. She couldn’t have maintained this facade for much longer. You can leave her to me, and to Reo now.”