by J. D. Robb
Eve rolled her eyes at the un-coplike giggle, but she smiled, just a little.
“No, no, stop talking, start packing. Totally, totally. Mag!” Peabody ended with a long, loud kissing sound.
“Sorry,” she said to Eve.
“We will never speak of it.”
With Roarke grinning, Eve swiped her master to call the elevator. “Eighth floor,” she ordered. “Engage recorders. He’s not going to want to open the door when he sees me. If he refuses, you can take care of that,” she said to Roarke.
“Happy to assist.”
“He’s eight-eleven.” The elevator opened and, as they stepped out, she saw a woman, mid-thirties, bold red coat, a tumble of blond hair, step out of eight-oh-six.
“Excuse me.” Eve held up her badge.
“Oh!” The woman’s attractive face displayed the typical unease when faced unexpectedly with the police.
“Do you know Bill Hyatt—eight-eleven?”
“I … yes. A little. Not really know, but—”
“Do me a favor? Just ring his bell.”
“Um … all right.”
“Spoilsport,” Roarke commented as they moved down the hall.
The blonde rang the bell.
“Just stand there and smile a minute. Thanks.”
So the blonde worked up a slightly nervous smile.
The door opened. Hyatt, obviously fresh out of the shower with his hair still a little damp, the scent of manly pine wafting, beamed. “Hey, Cynthia. What can I—”
“Thanks,” Eve said, nudged the blonde aside, put a shoulder against the open door. “William Hyatt, we are duly authorized and warranted to enter and search these premises.” She showed the badge she still held. “Remember me? Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. NYPSD.”
Though he tried to shove the door closed as she spoke, she muscled her way in, along with Roarke and Peabody.
“This is outrageous!”
“Yeah, it is, and it gets better. William Hyatt, you’re under arrest on suspicion of murder—that’s first degree, two counts. You weren’t going to get away with Mars, Bill, but you had a better shot before you killed Kellie Lowry.”
The blonde in the hall gave a little squeak of shock before Peabody closed the door.
Maybe Eve took her time rather than moving straight in to restrain him. And was rewarded when he turned, ran.
“Really?” She let out a little (somewhat pleased) sigh as a door slammed. “I’ve got this.”
“Let her have the moment.” Roarke patted Peabody’s arm. “She’s still working through being pissed.”
Eve walked back to the door, angled her head. Interior door, she thought. Not much of a challenge.
And kicked it in.
Across the bedroom, Hyatt struggled to open a window.
“Stop where you are.” She said it mildly as she strolled across the room. “I repeat, you’re under arrest.”
He spun around, took a sloppy swing at her. It gave her time, the sloppiness of it, to decide whether to take the shot or evade it. She decided she just couldn’t let some dick-ass land a weak punch. The record would show the swing.
All she had to do was lean left. His own momentum carried him around. And since Nadine’s thoughts on bruised knuckles rang true under the circumstances, Eve just kicked him in the ass and sent him sprawling.
“Okay, we add attempting to flee and resisting, attempting to assault a police officer.”
She dragged his hands behind his back as he tried to kick her, tried to inchworm away.
“Lawyer, lawyer!”
“Okay, Bill, you’ll have that right along with others. Here they are.”
She recited the Revised Miranda. “Do you understand your rights and obligations?”
“Lawyer, lawyer, you bitch. You cunt.”
“I take that as a yes.”
She hauled him up, pushed him into a chair in the scrupulously clean, absolutely tidy, and obsessively trendy room. “Sit!” She snapped. “If you try to get up, attempt to assault me or flee again, I’ll be forced to take measures you won’t like. You know, Bill, we’ve got you locked. More, we’ll double the lock once we go through your place because I’m just betting you’ve got the murder weapon stashed in here.”
His eyes flicked to a low, three-drawer bureau—glossy black with silver trim and knobs.
“Seriously? You’re making it too easy. Peabody, we need to seal up. We need a field kit.”
Roarke took a mini can out of his pocket. “From the center compartment of your vehicle.”
“You are handy.”
“I’ll get the kit. More steps, more calories burned,” Peabody said before Roarke could object. “I’ve got this little bikini.”
She dashed out before Eve could snarl at her. Instead, while Roarke leaned on the doorjamb, Eve sealed her hands.
“Now let me guess.” She watched Hyatt’s stony face as she walked to the bureau. “This one?” She circled a finger in front of the middle drawer as he fought to keep his gaze level.
“Or is it…”
His eyes flicked down.
“Made you look.” She pulled open the bottom drawer. “I see you work out, and wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same gym Kellie Lowry used. Coordinating outfits, very stylish,” she added as she pushed through them.
“Get your filthy hands off my things.”
“Hey, they’re clean enough, and hello, warrant. Why, just look here under this neatly folded stack of gym socks, and in its plastic sheath.”
She held up a scalpel. “All clean—or I bet you think so. You think you washed all the blood away. It’s really hard to do that. And even if you managed it, the question will be just what is the lapboy of some mediocre talk-show host doing with a medical scalpel under his gym socks?”
“Mediocre! Annie Knight is an icon! You aren’t fit to speak her name.”
Since his reaction gave her just what she’d wanted, she just smiled again. “Aw, are you in love?” She drew out the word, mockingly.
As he started to lunge up, Roarke moved fast as a snake. He only put a hand on Hyatt’s shoulder, shoved him back down again. “You’ll want to sit where the lieutenant put you.”
At the buzzer, Eve said, “That should be the uniforms. Would you mind?”
“Not at all. Just where she put you,” Roarke said to Hyatt, and left to let in the uniforms.
“You’re cooked, Bill.” Eve studied the scalpel.
“That proves nothing.”
“Oh, it’s going to have weight. Then there’s the swipe cards, the log-ins. There’s going to be the lineup with the wits you walked out of Du Vin with. And better? What we find on your comp. Because someone like you? An organizer, a planner, somebody who handles details, schedules? You wrote it all out. You researched how to kill them, how long it would take. You timed it and wrote it all out.”
“You can’t break into my electronics.”
“My warrant and badge says different. Officers.” She nodded to the two uniforms. “Take this dick-ass to Central. He’s invoked his right to counsel, so let him contact a lawyer, then put him in Holding. Roarke, you’re on e-duty. Make me proud.”
“It’s what I live for.”
“You’re going to arrest me? Me? Do you know what she was? What she did? Why didn’t you arrest her?”
Stir him up, Eve thought. Just keep him stirred up. “Bill, you’ve invoked your right to counsel, but you keep talking. You really ought to shut the hell up.”
“Don’t you tell me to shut up! I’ll have my say.”
With the hand at her side, Eve signaled the uniforms back. “Are you waiving your right to counsel at this time? You want a lawyer, or not? Make up your freaking mind, Bill.”
“I’ll get a lawyer when I’m ready to get a lawyer. You’re going to listen to me.”
“Are you waiving your right to counsel at this time?” Eve repeated.
“Yes. And you’re going to listen!”
Eve walked over, sat on
the side of the bed. “Happy to, I get paid either way. We’re on the record here, Bill.”
“She was a spider, a leech.”
“Who?”
“You know damn well. Larinda Mars. She was blackmailing Annie, threatening to break a story about how Annie defended herself against a rapist when she was just a teenager. She bled her month after month. Mars, she held that over Annie’s head, said she’d spin the story so it came off Annie was whoring, like her bio mother, and was a junkie, like her bio mother. Annie would lock herself in her office and cry her heart out. And what did Bic do about it? Nothing! He did nothing to ease her pain, to protect her.”
“So you did.”
“You’re damn right.”
“Did she tell you all this? Annie? Did she come to you for help?”
His chin jutted up. “She’d never unburden herself that way, never let herself lean or ask for help. But I could see, months ago I could see how upset she was. She lost weight, wasn’t sleeping. She and Bic would close themselves in her office to talk about it.”
“Her private office?” Eve asked. “You listened to conversations they had in her private office? Oh, Bill, did you bug her office?”
His jaw tightened. “I’m Annie’s personal assistant, and I need to know what she needs, often before she does. I have to know her moods, her difficulties. I did what had to be done to protect her. I’m the one who looked after Annie, not Bic. I’m the one who confronted that bitch, not Bic.”
“When did you confront Mars?”
“Months ago. The way she’d just stroll in whenever she liked, bag little pieces, even in-depth interviews with people Annie had worked, honestly, forthrightly, to get on the show. You can thank Ilene Riff for that. She’s the one who fed that bitch names and times. Arrest her.”
As his venom spewed, Eve thought Riff could consider herself lucky. Hyatt would have killed her eventually.
But she simply said, “So noted. You confronted Mars.”
“You’re damn right I did. I told her straight out she had to stop tormenting Annie, that I wouldn’t tolerate it. And she laughed at me, she insulted me. She dared me to go to the police, and said if I did, Annie would be ruined, and I’d be to blame.”
“You realized words wouldn’t be enough to stop her.”
Lost in his own version of heroism, Hyatt leaned forward.
“Do you understand she wouldn’t, couldn’t be reasoned with? She was bleeding Annie. It wasn’t the money, it was the stress, the constant reminder of something horrible that happened when she was so young, so defenseless.”
“You decided to bleed Mars. Literally.”
“It was justice. You’re supposed to stand for justice, but you didn’t stand for Annie, did you? I exterminated a spider. I did what had to be done.”
Eve made a noncommittal sound. “It took planning, I’ll give you that. Planning and precision—and, you could say, some poetry. You spent the months since she laughed at you planning it out, following her routine.”
“She wasn’t the only one who could dig up dirt, dig up secrets. I found out she was doing the same thing to a lot of other people. Making them pay so she wouldn’t expose them. No doubt some of them deserved it,” he said dismissively, “but she was despicable.”
“Back to the poetry of it all. How did you come up with the method?”
“I wanted her to bleed—that’s the justice. I found out how to make her bleed.”
“Smart. And you knew her pickup locations, the routines of them.”
“She liked having her victims have to sit there, pay for her drinks. I could see how she liked it.”
“How’d you decide on switching swipe cards with Kellie Lowry?”
“She had her routine, too. Twice a week she stayed until between seven and seven-fifteen. Clockwork. Mars met the people she was bleeding at Du Vin on Tuesdays, and she’d finish up with them by about seven, no later than seven-thirty. Logging out with Kellie’s card gave me the alibi I needed if anybody asked. Mars usually hit the restroom before she left. Primped herself up for wherever she was going next. I just had to wait.”
“You followed her down,” Eve prompted.
“Gave her a minute, went down. It had to be fast. I’d timed it out. I could block the door for a minute if I had to, but it had to be in and out and gone, even though it would take her up to four or five minutes to bleed out.”
He stopped to take a breath, and looked, for a moment, pensive. “It had to be done,” he concluded. “She had to be stopped.”
“You walked into the women’s restroom.”
“She smirked at me when I went in. Smirked, and made some insulting comment about knowing I didn’t have a dick so I needed the women’s room. I walked right up to her—my ears were buzzing, buzzing, but I walked right up to her. I sliced her arm just where I’d practiced. She didn’t smirk then.”
Tears gathered in his eyes. “‘That’s for Annie,’ I said when she grabbed her arm and stumbled back. For Annie. And even though I wanted to keep slicing her, I just walked out. I held the door for ten seconds, just in case. My legs shook a little, and I needed to catch my breath. Then I went up the stairs, walked out right behind a group of people. And it was done. Annie was free.”
“Yeah. Smooth.”
She’d seen Peabody come back, field kit in hand, seen her partner ease out again. But kept her focus on Hyatt.
“It wasn’t smooth to try to block me and my partner from speaking to Annie the next day, contacting the lawyer, pushing back so hard.”
His eyes cleared, and a touch of insult crossed his face. “It threw me off a minute. I didn’t expect the cops to figure out what Mars was doing so fast. If you could figure it out so fast, why didn’t you stop her before?”
“Why didn’t you call her bluff and go to the police when you found out what she was doing?”
“And betray Annie?” He looked sincerely shocked. “I’d never betray her. I’d never risk her welfare.”
“Right. You killed for her instead.”
“I ended the torment. I killed to defend someone. It’s not a crime, it’s heroism!”
“Okay, you could look at it that way.” If you’re a dick-ass, she thought. “But then there’s Kellie. She didn’t do anything. She wasn’t a threat to Annie.”
“I’m sorry about Kellie. Collateral damage. It happens,” he said with a shrug that had Eve’s pissed-off level threatening to rise again. “And it’s your fault. Not mine, yours.”
“It’s my fault?”
“Looking at me the way you did. Talking to me the way you did. Pushing, sneering. Do you think I don’t know you asked questions about when I left that night, even after I told you? Asked questions about me, and when I logged out on Tuesday. And I know damn well Junie was talking to one of Nadine Furst’s people about Mars, and that would lead to Annie, and that could lead to me if you started asking if anybody saw me leave. If you started poking around. I did what I had to do to protect myself.”
“You waited for Kellie to come out of 30 Rock.”
“She was running a little behind, didn’t even see me until I bumped into her.”
“You went for her leg instead of her arm.”
“She had a jacket on, plus the thigh would bleed out faster. I didn’t want her to suffer. I’m not cruel.”
“You killed Mars to protect Annie. You killed Kellie to protect yourself.”
“It protected Annie, too—protecting myself protected Annie. It should have ended it. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I am here, Bill. I’m here after standing over a young woman who did you no harm. Who, from what I know at this point, harmed no one. I stood over her lifeless body where she collapsed and bled to death on the sidewalk, on a bitter winter night. Because you decided to use her as cover for the murder of another woman. Because you decided to end her life rather than risk exposure. You’re exposed anyway, and Kellie Lowry is still dead by your hand.”
“What about Annie? What
about what she suffered? You heartless bitch! What about Annie?”
“Do you think she’ll thank you for this? I’ve had exactly two conversations with her, and I know—I know—it’s not thanks you’ll get from her. It’s disgust, and it’s grief, and she’ll suffer more now because you used her as an excuse to kill.”
“You don’t know her. You don’t understand her. I protected her!”
“You’re pathetic.” Eve rose. “William Hyatt, you’ve confessed, on the record, to the premeditated murders of Larinda Mars and Kellie Lowry. You’re under arrest for two counts of first degree murder, and the lesser charges already on record. Other charges may be added. Take him in, out of my sight. Book the son of a bitch.”
“I defended Annie!” He struggled when the uniforms flanked him, hauled him out of the chair. “I defended her. I’m a hero! I want a lawyer.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let him get his lawyer. Let’s see how his lawyer can spin what he’s just blathered onto the record. Get him the hell out.”
She stood a moment, blocking out his shouts as the uniforms dragged him away. And studied the scalpel. Such a small thing, she thought. Created to save lives. Some would always twist the good into the ugly.
She walked out, saw Peabody conducting the search of the living area.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Peabody said. “I could hear. I knew you had him.”
“Yeah. He’ll be the PA’s problem now. Maybe Mira’s.” Eve took an evidence bag out of the field kit for the murder weapon. “Roarke?”
“Small second bedroom converted to a home office. He’s in there—which is also a little shrine to Annie Knight, with photos of her, posters, photos of the two of them. It looks normal until you know. And when you know, it’s a little sick. Anyway, Roarke’s got it all.”
“Figured he would. Go home, Peabody. Go to Mexico.”
“McNab texted he packed for me, which is a little scary, but what the hell. He’s going to meet me at the transport when I text him back. I’m stupid with grateful, Dallas. He really needs this break.”
“Then go give it to him.”
“So going.” She grabbed her coat, hat, scarf. Then, moving fast, rushed Eve, hugged hard, then rushed out. “Adios, amiga!”