Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“He called out a warning, and even before I could turn, he fired on the man who intended to fire on me. I don’t and won’t forget that.
And I’ve seen, clearly, he has given his time, his skills, taken considerable personal risk as consultant for this department.
The file on him is closed. I give you my word on it. ”
“I’ll take your word on it.”
“Let me also add, we’ll file charges against the three you’re about to interview. Should they ever be released from your system, they’ll find themselves in ours.”
“Good to know. But they won’t get out.”
“If we don’t speak again before I leave, it’s been, as always, an experience working with you.”
“Same,” she said, and shook his extended hand.
When he left, she realized the weight that dropped off her had been heavier than she’d admitted.
She rolled her shoulders clear, then walked out to meet Peabody and Reo.
“Busy, busy,” Reo said. “Barrister’s got Jefferson Pinkney as her primary attorney. She actually tried for Robert Wenn.” Reo grinned. “Refused. Not that Pinkney’s easy.”
“It won’t matter. We’ve got her. No deals, Reo.”
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. The media would swallow the PA whole after all this. No deals other than on- or off-planet. We won’t offer on unless we need that push.”
“You won’t. You up for it, Peabody?”
“Got a twenty-minute catnap at my desk, popped my boost, had pizza and two tubes of Pepsi. I’m way up for it.”
Eve opened the door to Interview A.
“Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, Peabody, Detective Delia, Reo, APA Cher, entering Interview with Joy Barrister and her legal counsel Jefferson Pinkney.”
Pinkney had let his hair go snow-white. It was a good look against his deep brown skin. His eyes were a cool blue, his suit a perfectly cut gray worn with a tie of navy and maroon.
“For the record,” he began, “we object strenuously to this absurdity. To my client being dragged from her family home in the middle of the night and incarcerated. Her brother, whom she grieves for, was clearly murdered during a burglary. It appears—”
“Before you roll out any more and waste all of our time, Detective Peabody has something for you and your client to listen to. Playback, Detective.”
“Playback from the clone ’link taken from the desk in Joy Barrister’s home office. Time stamp included.”
Magdelana’s voice came through.
Joy, sweetheart, you know you shouldn’t contact me at this point.
And when Joy’s voice came through, she turned to her lawyer. “How can they do this? Go into my home! Make this stop.”
“Duly executed warrant.” Reo opened a file, took out a hard copy. “Search and seizure.”
“This was a private conversation.”
“Not anymore,” Eve said even as Pinkney warned Joy not to speak.
“I’m not going to listen to this. I refuse. Do what I’m paying you to do and stop this.”
Eve paused the playback. “You’re not in charge here.
You’re never going to be in charge of anything again, unless it’s the prison laundry.
This is one of several private conversations you had with Magdelana Percell, who is now charged with conspiracy to murder, with conspiracy in murder for hire of a police officer, with conspiracy to steal roughly half a billion in jewels from the vault in the office of Barrister House, among other things.
All of which you were part of and had knowledge of before and after the fact. ”
She glanced at Pinkney. “I’m sure your client hasn’t informed you of all this.”
“Voiceprints on clone ’links are hardly one hundred percent accurate.”
“Accurate enough, and she admitted to the private conversation, on the record, before you could stop her. Let’s finish this playback where your client and Magdelana consult on hiring a Timothy Kruger to kill me, and the subsequent conversation where your client agrees to wire the down payment for the hit.
Then we can backtrack to the earlier ones where they conspired to hire a thief to take the jewels, discussed your client’s wish to eliminate her brother and use that burglary as cover to do so—and set up the thief for the murder. ”
She shifted to Joy. “We’ve got it all, and to add a nice flourish, there’s the hundred million or so, and the gold bars, in your home office safe.
We’ll be going over your books, and taking a hard look at where you skimmed from the company your father founded and left in your brother’s hands instead of yours. ”
“I’d like to consult with my client.”
“Consult!” Joy turned on him. “I’m not paying you to consult. You assured me you would handle this quickly.”
“We’ll give you a minute.” Eve rose. “Dallas, Peabody, and Reo exiting Interview for attorney-client consultation. Record off.
“She’s going to fire him,” Eve said when they stepped out.
“That or he withdraws as counsel.” Reo shook her head. “She didn’t tell him a damn thing. He’d have been prepared for some of this if she’d told him. He’d have worked out a strategy to counter some of it. He’d already have a deal in mind to propose after we went a few rounds.”
“She’s scared,” Peabody put in. “But she’s more mad and insulted.”
“She’s already said too much on record. Admitting the ’link’s hers, private conversation.” Reo shrugged. “He knows even if he can get her off on the murder, she’s cooked on the murder for hire.”
Minutes later, Pinkney stepped out. “I’m no longer attorney of record on this matter. Ms. Barrister believes, against advice, she is more capable of handling this interview and its results.”
After a nod, he walked to the elevator.
“I’m going in hard,” Eve said. “She’ll break. The scared and the mad and yeah, the insult. No nice cop, Peabody. Any opening you see, you go hard.”
“Yippee!”
They stepped back in, Eve restarted the record.
“Let the record show Ms. Barrister has released her attorney. Do you waive legal representation?”
“What good is it? Idiots.” She tried to fold her arms, looked shocked to find them restrained.
“I won’t be treated this way, dragged from my home, thrown in a cell, forced to wear this hideous thing, accused of horrid crimes. Have you forgotten who I am?”
“No.” Eve slapped her hands on the table, leaned in. “You’re the woman who’s been stealing from her own company because she wanted more than she’d been given. You’re the woman who plotted for months to murder her own brother because your father favored him.”
“How dare—”
“Shut up. You’re the woman, the coward, who lured her sick brother out of bed on the pretext of a break-in, and when he stood at his desk, preparing to report it, you’re the woman who struck him from behind.”
“You can’t prove any of that. You—”
“Oh, bitch, please.” Eve rounded the table. “You’re the woman who, when she heard her sister-in-law coming, hid, and when Aileen saw the husband she loved bleeding on the floor, slipped away. I bet you counted off the seconds until you rushed in, all shocked.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
But Eve saw the fear growing.
“There was a break-in, there was a burglary! You said so yourself. The Royal Suite was taken from the vault.”
“Yeah. You and Magdelana had several conversations about it. We’ve got them from your ’link.”
“It’s not my ’link.”
“Jesus, Joy, you already said it was. Plus, it’s got your prints. Not just voiceprints.” Eve wiggled her fingers. “Fingerprints.”
“Her father takes some of the blame,” Peabody put in. “Always putting her in second place, her brother first. She just couldn’t settle for being stupid rich, for having everything handed to her. She wanted what he had, too, and killed him to get more of it.”
“What do you know about it?”
“I know a jealous, conniving, murderous bitch when I’m looking at one. You tried to have my lieutenant killed, because you’re afraid of her. Your money doesn’t mean shit here. You’re going down.”
“And hard,” Eve added. “He got the house, everything in it—that’s the vault, too. You couldn’t take that! Why the hell should you? You’re the firstborn, for God’s sake.
“He got the bulk of the business, why should you accept that? The old man wanted a son, and he got one. You? You’re an afterthought.”
“He had no right! No right to cut me out that way! I wanted what I deserved, what I’d earned!”
“So you took it. You killed your brother so you could take it.”
“He was always in the goddamn way! Placating me. ‘Oh, you know how he is, Joy. But it’s a family business, and yours as much as mine.’ Lies! And he finds that vault, and all he can think about is how to give it all back, how to do that without ruining that old bastard’s reputation and legacy?”
“So you got him out of the way, and opened a way for you to take control, to spin the vault so you’d look like the good guy. You moved the break-in from Saturday night to Friday because he wasn’t well.”
“Easier that way,” Peabody put in, then clutched her hands together. “‘Oh, Nathan, I think someone’s downstairs. Please go down and see.’”
“As if I couldn’t handle it myself.” Joy’s chin jutted. “Typical male, typical, typical.”
“You came up behind him. You took that amethyst club, and you struck him with it. You killed him with it.”
“Nathan was always fond of that piece. Then Aileen’s calling him, coming toward the office. I nearly had to kill her, too. Idiot. But she didn’t see anything but Nathan, so I left her to it, left her to scream like a lunatic.”
She looked at Eve. “I paid good money to have you dealt with. I wouldn’t be here if it had been money well spent.”
“Tough luck. You know, you don’t strike me as a woman who wants to go down alone. You weren’t in this alone. You’re going to take some hard lumps, Joy. Don’t you want the others to take theirs? Come on, Joy, pay them back.”
Joy took a deep breath. Folded her hands on the table.
“It was all her idea. That blond bitch. All of it. She’s the one who should be in here. She lured me into it.”
“How?”
“I stopped by to see my father, doing my duty by him, as always. I saw the office door locked. I have a key. I thought, I actually worried he might be in there hurt or even dead, so I unlocked it and went in.
“She was in there, in the vault I didn’t even know existed. He’d told her. He hadn’t told his own daughter, but he’d told her. It all started there. It all started in that room. It all started with her.”
When it was done, Eve stepped out.
“I’ll take her down, Dallas, and write it up.”
“Write it up later. Get her down there and have them send the broker up. We’ll keep it moving.”
“I can’t take any more coffee, but I still need caffeine.” Reo pointed to Vending. “I’m getting a Coke. Do you want?”
“Pepsi.”
Mira stepped out of Observation. “She has no remorse. She regrets being caught, regrets what consequences she’ll face, but she doesn’t regret killing her brother, attempting to have you killed, embezzling.
She doesn’t regret leaving her two nieces without a father, or her sister-in-law without her husband. ”
“Because she’s the center of her own world.”
“That’s exactly right. You did good work in there, all of you, and she certainly gave you more than enough to see the other two share her fate.”
Eve cracked the tube Reo offered. “Broker next. I don’t know the extent of his feelings for Magdelana. If he has them, he might try to protect her. He can’t, and we’ll make that clear. I wouldn’t snarl at a deal on this one, as long as he does plenty of time.”
“He’s got a good lawyer, slightly on the sleazy side but decent enough in litigation. She—Edie French—is repping them both.”
As she drank, Eve smiled. “Good to know.”
“I’d like to continue to observe.”
“That’s always welcome.”
She waited until the broker and the lawyer—wearing a dark pink skirted suit, her streaked brown hair in a fancy braid—settled in Interview.
“Next round,” she said, and pitched the empty tube into a recycler.