Page 126 of Calculated in Death

“And where do you have all this data?”

Milo shifted his skinny butt on the chair. “What’s the deal? Tell me the deal first.”

“You give me hard evidence that leads to the arrest and conviction of Sterling Alexander for murder and the state of New York will not pursue any charges of fraud, embezzlement or money laundering, or accessory thereto against you.”

“What about the e-crimes, the charges for what you pull in from my place.”

“Now you’re getting greedy. I just gave you back about fifty years of your life.”

“Come on. I can give you Alexander on a plate, and all his operatives. He’s got operations all over the place. Dummy companies, Internet scams, land fraud. You’ll put away a major case, right? How about I give you this, I testify against him, and then I just go away. Just—” He spread his hands, made a poofing sound.

“Can’t do it.” Eve gave a careless shrug. “Maybe I can talk the PA into lightening the load some.”

“Alexander’s the big fish,” Peabody put in. “We might be able to work something, Dallas. Maybe house arrest, five to ten?”

“Jesus, Peabody.” As if frustrated, Eve dragged her hand through her hair. “Might as well let him walk.”

“Give us a good faith,” Peabody told him. “You’ve got the hard on Alexander. Save us time, trouble, money. Give us some part of that. It’ll go a long way toward softening up the PA. Dallas?”

“Yeah, yeah, it would. Hell.” She sucked in a breath. “I’ll push for the five to ten, house arrest,” she told Milo. “On the hacking, on what we pull from your place outside of the Alexander issue. Give me something to push with.”

“I’ve got a safe room. It’s below ground level, fully secured and shielded. You can’t get in without my palm print, voice print, retina scan. You have to take me back there so I can get you in.”

Eve thought of Roarke, smiled. “We’ll see about that. Peabody.”

“I’m on it.”

“Peabody exiting Interview,” Eve said. “Okay, Milo. Now that we’ve got that tidied up, let’s talk about murder.”

“Huh?”

EVE GAVE HIM A MINUTE TO ASSIMILATE, TO sit, mouth agape so his narrow strip of chin hair looked like the stem on a wide glass bowl.

“Murder, Milo. You know, the unlawful killing of a human being. Like say, Marta Dickenson.”

“I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill anybody. I hacked into her files, okay? I told you that. We made a deal on that.”

“That’s right. Now we’re talking about this.” She drew out the crime scene photo, slid it toward him.

“I didn’t do that.” He shoved the photo away again. “I never touched her. If you’re trying to throw that on me, I’m done talking.”

“Your choice.” She shrugged it off. “Same rules apply. I can’t help you out if you don’t talk. Or if you lie to me. If you try to tell me you weren’t there, you don’t know anything about it, we’ll just stop right here. We can pick it up again after the lineup.”

“What are you talking about? What lineup?”

“The one where we bring in the witness who saw you and your pal, and the van—your Cargo utility van—outside Whitestone’s apartment on the night of Marta Dickenson’s murder. Jesus, Milo, do you think we pulled your name out of a hat? We’ve got a witness.”

He shifted again, swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “I didn’t kill anybody.”

“You’ve admitted to working for Alexander, for corrupting and destroying files Marta Dickenson was working on. You and your van were seen at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder. You want to contact your lawyer, Milo, because I can promise you he or she will tell you that’s some pretty hot water you’re swimming in.”

“I didn’t kill anybody! Okay, yeah, it was my van, but all I did was drive.”

“All you did was drive?” Eve repeated, pleasantly, and thought: Gotcha, asshole.

“That’s right. I drove the van. I didn’t know she was going to get killed. I drove the van, and I was supposed to get through the security if the codes didn’t work.”

“What codes?”