Chapter Twenty-One #2
She got coffee, began to update and rearrange her board when Peabody came in. Since she’d heard her coming, Eve didn’t turn.
“Reo’s coming in. We’re taking Banner in a half hour.”
“I want to see your face.”
“In a minute. More data’s coming in from EDD, data we’ll use in the interview.” Now she turned.
Peabody winced. “Okay, it’s bad. But it’s better. What about the shoulder, all the rest?”
“Better. It’s in a brace that’s only mildly annoying. I’ve been wanded, iced, soaked, salved, had crystals on my freaking eyes. I—”
“What kind? Rhodonite? Amethyst?”
“The purple ones. We’ve got work here, Peabody.”
“And I have valid concerns about my partner, my lieutenant, and my friend.”
“Understood. Roarke came in with me. He’s with Feeney for now. If I weren’t fit for duty, would he have come in with me or, over my objections, hauled me to a hospital?”
“Okay. If I’d been the one getting tossed around in that elevator, you’d have the same concerns.”
“I would. Now put them away and let’s get this bastard.” She tapped a finger on Banner’s ID shot. “He’s the one responsible for me getting tossed around.”
“I want him bad.”
“And we’re going to get him. Here comes Reo.”
Reo also winced. “I say again: ow.”
“That said—” Eve broke off to check the data coming into her unit. “Financials, Banner’s. I’d say Feeney’s crew worked these down the field, and Roarke just carried them over the goal line.”
Reo took a look. “Fraudulent accounts in, hmm, three countries so far, using fraudulent identification. Hello, tax evasion and so on.”
“I’m adding blackmail. See there, quarterly payments, same source. Roarke’s note ID’s that source as a U.S. congresswoman. Nice.”
“An embarrassment of riches for us, with what we already have.”
“Which means no deals. No deals for this fucker, Reo.”
“I’m getting coffee while I explain how this part will work.
He’s got the best lawyers billions can buy, and as such, when you hit with that embarrassment of riches, they’ll know that whatever deal I might be authorized to make means bupkis.
The feds are going to have their own field day.
Teasdale’s already on that end. Federal charges galore.
” Reo toasted with her mug. “And that’s in front of the warrants and fines that will pour in from all around the globe. ”
She sighed, happily. “And oh, the civil suits will be, borrowing from Mavis, magalicious.”
“Sounds good, but what deal are you authorized to make?”
“Today’s grand prize? Multiple concurrent life sentences on-planet. And that’s ahead of the multitude of painful fines, the related charges that would add, oh, another fifty years.”
“Can I sum up?” Peabody asked. “He’s cooked.”
“All right.” Eve nodded at her board. “Here’s how we fry him up.”
When she walked into the bullpen, sans jacket, Jenkinson rose.
“I’m speaking for all of us.”
“Make it quick. We’ve got a mass murderer to fry up.”
“You didn’t stay down until you couldn’t get up. We don’t stand down when somebody goes for one of us. We don’t stand down when somebody goes for the boss. But.”
He paused, pointed at the squad’s motto.
NO MATTER YOUR RACE, CREED, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, OR POLITICAL AFFILIATION, WE PROTECT AND SERVE,* BECAUSE YOU COULD GET DEAD.
*EVEN IF YOU WERE AN ASSHOLE.
“That’s the truth for all of us. So we protect and serve Steven Redman by getting him justice, bringing him in, working it so he goes away and gets help.
They killed his family. They fucked him over beyond the fucking of it.
We protect and serve that motherfucking Calvin Banner by locking him in a cage.
So you go in there, LT, and you take him the fuck down. ”
“That’s just what we’re going to do.”
“Not all cops are created equal,” Reo said as they walked toward Interview A. “You know that, both of you. You’ve got the cream, Dallas. It’s an honor to work with them.”
“It damn sure is.” She paused outside the interview room. “Now, let’s go give this asshole a miserable start to the rest of his miserable life.
“Record on,” she said as they walked in. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, Peabody, Detective Delia, Reo, APA Cher, entering Interview with Banner, Calvin, and his attorneys of record.”
She read off the file numbers, the charges as she laid three fat files on the table. “Mr. Banner, have you been read your rights and obligations, and do you understand those rights and obligations?”
“My client has been so informed, and understands his rights and obligations. You will address any questions for my client to me, Oscar Lomax, or my associate Sylva Ripski.
Eve took a moment to size up the trio as Lomax started the expected objections to the arrest, with elegant outrage over the charges.
Banner wore the orange jumpsuit and shackles—included in Lomax’s list of outrages and objections. Shadows dogged his blazing brown eyes, a sign of a rough night. The lawyers flanking him both wore sharp, and again elegant, suits, navy pin-striped for the female, gray chalk-striped for the male.
The woman, mid-forties, creamy brown skin, had her ink-black hair sleeked back in a thick roll at her nape. Lomax, hair the color of the syrup that had soaked her breakfast casserole, had a wintering-in-the-tropics tan and came in about two decades his associate’s senior.
Eve finally held up a hand to interrupt.
“Mr. Lomax, you are aware your client is charged with conspiring to have incendiary devices planted, rigged, and discharged, thirteen years ago, in an occupied residential building where two hundred and eight people were killed. That he is accused of paying Carlos Cruz, former military, demolitions expert, eight million dollars to blow up this occupied residential building occupied by two hundred and nineteen people on the night in question.”
“I’m aware that explosion, that tragedy, was thoroughly investigated and found to be accidental. What motivation would my client, a humanitarian whose reputation for saving lives, improving lives is known throughout the world, have for bombing a building in New York?”
“Does your client dispute that he knew Carlos Cruz, had occasion to contract Cruz?”
“He does not, as Banner-Wyst in its humanitarian efforts around the world would have occasion to safely take down a building.”
“As Mr. Cruz has been brutally murdered, he is unable to speak in his own defense.” Ripski finally spoke.
Clipped, dismissive. “You have no evidence this building was purposefully destroyed, or that Mr. Cruz was responsible. Certainly none that warrants the charges our client had anything to do with that tragedy.”
“See, there you’re wrong. We have all of that, and in your client’s own words. Peabody, play the recording.”
The screen came on with Banner sitting at his desk.
“Jacob,” he said, “what is it now?”
Eve watched Banner stiffen, saw the rage consume his face. And then, as the recording played, she saw what she wanted most.
His fear.
“It’s fake!” He shouted it. “Doctored.”
“Pause it, Peabody. Our EDD accessed this recording from two sources. The computer in the penthouse owned by Banner-Wyst and the clone ’link found on the scene of Mr. Wyst’s murder.
He hadn’t had time to destroy it, if that was his intention.
I don’t think it was. This was insurance.
He was running. But if we took him down before he got away, he’d have taken your client down with him. ”
She opened a file, slid over a printout.
“Full text of the recording where your client admits, without remorse, to hiring Cruz for the purpose of rigging the explosion, for the motive of killing Steven Redman in a way that would make the target one of many and remove Banner-Wyst from any suspicion. Everyone else in the building, including Redman’s pregnant wife and two-year-old son? Collateral damage.”
“For what reason?” Lomax demanded, but he read the text.
“Basically? World domination.”
Eve pushed to her feet. “He was going to stop you. Oh, sorry, talking to you. He was going to stop your client and his conspirators, his company. I have another recording, my official record of my altercation and conversation with Redman, where he lays it all out.”
“We’ll have the recordings thrown out.”
“No,” Reo said, “you won’t. You can and will have them authenticated.
The first is evidence acquired on a crime scene, a scene where the lieutenant and detective had warrants for search, seizure.
For the arrest of Jacob Wyst. The second, from the lieutenant’s own lapel recorder, mandatory record of executing warrants, investigating a crime scene.
“You’ve read enough to ascertain your client admitted to hiring Cruz, to conspiring to kill hundreds of innocent people to protect himself, his company and further his ambitions.”
“And there’s more,” Peabody put in. She opened a file. Crime scene photos spilled out. Chu, Dent, Cruz, Wyst. She said, “Oops. Wrong file.”
“Nasty, isn’t it?” Eve commented as Ripski pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
“We’re saving your client from a similar fate.
He thinks—it’s in the recording,” she added as she circled the table.
“He’s too rich, too important, has too many important people in his pocket to pay any price for any crime.
People like senators, congresspeople, judges—right up to the Supreme Court. ”
She leaned down between Lomax and Banner. “Oh yeah, we found them. They’re not in his pocket anymore.”
Peabody smiled. “The FBI’s having a really busy day.”
“Blackmail, payoffs, kickbacks, bribery, fraudulent accounts using fake ID. Your client’s records, seized through duly executed warrants.”
“We’ve got the goods, counselors.” Reo tapped a file. “All the lieutenant listed, plus intimidation tactics, kidnapping as a method to pressure compliance. I could go on, but we’d be here all morning.”
“And that’s before we work our way around the globe, where your client’s humanitarian efforts”—Peabody used scare quotes—“come with a really ugly cost.”