Page 53 of Framed in Death (In Death #61)

Mira stepped out of Observation, and before Eve saw it coming, took both of Eve’s hands.

“It takes a lot to chill people in our line of work. He managed.” She squeezed Eve’s hands. “Well done. Very, very well done.”

“He wanted someone besides his mother to tell him what a genius he is. That’s all I had to do. Tell me he’s legally sane.”

“I can and will tell you just that. You worked that out of him as well. He knew right from wrong. He considers himself above all that. Ego doesn’t make him legally insane.

He’s a malignant egoist who’s been pampered and indulged and given whatever he likes so he believes he’s entitled to take what he likes. Including lives.”

“I’m taking his mother next. I’m taking her now.”

“I’ll stay for that. She created him.”

Eve glanced over as Roarke stepped out. “Reo’s on her ’link with the attorney Phoebe Harper’s just managed to engage. Lieutenant, while his work is crap, yours rises to genius. I was here from about halfway through that.”

“He’d have kept killing. She knew that. He couldn’t have stopped, wouldn’t have stopped, and she knew it.”

Mira moved aside so Roarke took Eve’s hands. “She thinks, as he does, her money, her position will buy them both out of this. You’ll prove her wrong.”

Reo came out. “Decent firm, nothing special. Solid enough to understand their clients are in a hell of a fix. They want to talk deal. Ten years for him, in a facility—a nice plush one—for therapy and treatment. Two years of community service for her, and a ten-million-dollar fine.”

“And you said.”

“How about no? Absolutely, unequivocally no. I’d’ve dealt on her, to a point, until I heard that last bit. He told her everything. She knew he’d killed and intended to continue. She intended to get him away despite that. Not even for help, but so he could do as he pleased.”

“Hold that line, Reo.”

“You hold yours.” Reo gave Eve a decisive nod. “I’ll hold mine.”

“I’m bringing her up. Let her attorney know.”

“I’m begging for coffee.”

“I’ll see to it,” Roarke told her. “Charlotte, coffee or tea?”

“I’ll go for the coffee, and thanks.”

As Roarke started toward Eve’s office, Whitney stepped off the elevator. They exchanged a few words before Whitney continued to Eve.

“Interview end?”

“Yes, sir. We got a full, detailed confession. He also implicated his mother as accessory after the fact.”

“I’ve just gotten off the ’link with the governor.

” His eyebrows lifted when he saw Eve’s eyes go flat.

“Relax, Dallas. Yes, they’ve gone to him, the Harper family—which he tells me didn’t include the senator.

He also viewed the live feed. He’ll take no part in this, and wanted to assure me of same.

“Dallas.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to apologize in advance, but when you’ve completed your work here, you’ll need to address the media again.”

“Well, Christ. Sir.”

He laughed at that. “A sincere apology. If it helps, I’ll have to address them as well.”

“It really doesn’t.”

Roarke and Trueheart came down the hall, both of them carrying coffee.

Which told Eve he’d probably provided coffee for the whole damn bullpen.

“I’m going to have a quick sit-down with Harper’s attorney. It’s Malory Felds, Dallas. Solid, but no Kopeckne. And I’ll hold the line. Ten minutes should do it,” Reo said.

“Peabody, my office.”

She went straight there, straight to the window. She opened it, leaned out. Breathed.

“No sympathy for her. None.”

“I don’t feel any.”

“Good. She doesn’t deserve it. What would your mother do if you killed someone in cold blood, and had no problem doing so again?”

“She’d do everything she could to get me help. She’d visit me as often as possible in prison. I would’ve broken her heart, but she’d tell me she loved me, and visit me.”

“And if she had more money than God?”

“Exactly the same thing.”

“That’s exactly it. This isn’t love, it’s obsession. It’s a sick kind of pride. We don’t give her an inch.”

“Two bad cops.”

“Two damn good, pissed-off cops. For them.” She pointed at the board. “She’s as responsible as he is. We stand for them, and we take her down.”

“Do you think we can break her?”

“She’s already broken, so it doesn’t matter. Confession, no confession, it really doesn’t matter. What we’re doing?” Eve closed the window, turned. “We’re spitting in her eye.”

“For them.”

“For them. Let’s go spit in her eye.”

Eve didn’t see fear this time, but absolute arrogance. Though they hadn’t shackled her, they’d exchanged her designer dress for inmate orange.

Beside her, her attorney wore a dark suit, had her glossy brown hair in a twist smooth like Reo’s. Rather than confidence or nerves there, Eve thought she sensed resignation.

“Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, Peabody, Detective Delia, Reo, APA Cher, entering Interview with Harper, Phoebe, and her counsel of record, Felds, Malory.”

Eve recited the rest, then sat. “Ms. Felds, you’ll state for the record that your client has been read her rights and obligations in these matters and fully understands them?”

“I will.”

“Ms. Harper, you engaged the services of one Shaun Ye, a freelance technician, and agreed to pay him ten million dollars—half on agreement, half on completion. You further contracted to provide him with transportation to the Philippines, and purchase a home there for him. In exchange, he would undermine and remove from your son, Jonathan Harper Ebersole, the court-ordered monitor he was charged to wear as a condition of his release on house restriction pending trial for three counts of first-degree murder and other related charges. Is this true?”

“Lieutenant, my client does not deny those actions. In an emotional state after her only son’s arrest, my client led with those emotions in an attempt to protect her child.”

“He’s twenty-eight, shortly to be twenty-nine. He’s not a child. Ms. Harper, did you access false identification, including a passport for Jonathan Harper Ebersole in the name of Marcus Solo?”

“Lieutenant, as I said, Ms. Harper will not refute these charges. Her maternal instincts—”

Eve whipped her head around to Felds. “I will have the charges and her statement verifying them on this record, Counselor.

“Did you provide Jonathan Harper Ebersole, arrested and arraigned for three counts of murder in the first degree and related charges, with transportation to Caracas, which has no extradition treaty with the United States? Did you additionally provide him with lodging in Caracas, with funds in cash and in an account under his false identification?”

“Do you have a son, Lieutenant Dallas?” Phoebe demanded.

Not children, Eve noted. A son. “No.”

“Then you’d hardly understand the need, the duty I felt and feel to protect my son.”

“Is that a yes to the question?”

“Yes! I did what needed to be done to protect my son, to get him to safety.”

“That would include assaulting two police officers, and inflicting harm on a police officer.”

Appearing completely composed, Phoebe folded her hands on the table. “For a mother guided by a mother’s love, her child comes first, and no true mother would fault me for it.”

“You really think you can get off with that?” Eve glanced at Reo, who just smiled slightly, shook her head.

“Your head of security, whom you dragged into this, will do twenty years in prison. He doesn’t matter to you either.”

“He’s a grown man. He made his choice.”

“Jonathan’s a grown man, and made his.”

“We will submit to the court that my client took action in a desperate and emotional state. That she—”

“She got a hell of a lot done in a desperate and emotional state,” Reo said. “You can try it, Ms. Felds, but we both know the chances are slim. Maybe I don’t get the full fifty, but I’d lay odds on a minimum of thirty. And that’s not all.

“Lieutenant.”

“Did Jonathan Ebersole confess to you that he had killed three people, people he lured to his studio with the promise of payment for modeling?”

She saw it then, that first flicker. Not of fear, not really fear, but anger.

“Did Jonathan Ebersole explain to you his motives for doing so? To bring their life into his art, as that art had been rejected over and over as ordinary. At best. Did he explain that he needed to take lives to continue to create his art?”

“My client won’t answer that question. It’s purely speculative.”

“It’s not. It’s fact. He told us, Phoebe.

He couldn’t help himself. You’ve made him believe he’s too important to be denied anything.

He told us he explained it all to you. You told him not to discuss it.

You told him you’d protect him, get him away where he could live free and do whatever he needed to do. ”

“My client will not respond to—”

Eve rose, leaned in. “You knew. You knew what he’d done, why he’d done it. You know what he is, you knew what he’d continue to do. If things got too sticky in Caracas, you’d just move him somewhere else. Lives taken? They didn’t matter. Only he matters.”

“He’s my son. He’s my child.”

“He’s your monster. Created by you, nurtured by you.”

“You shut your mouth about my boy.” Phoebe rose, leaned in so they were all but nose to nose.

“Ms. Harper, please sit. Please leave this to me. This interview is over.”

“You’re not in charge here, Phoebe. You’re never going to be in charge again. Your baby boy’s going to prison, off-planet, forever.”

“He won’t serve a day. I’ll destroy you if you try. You think because you wear diamonds with your weapon it puts you on my level? I’ll ruin you for what you’ve done to my son.”

“Give it a shot. You? You’re never getting out of a cage either. Your baby boy made sure of it.”

“You coerced him. You’ve twisted his words.”

“Didn’t have to. All I had to do was play you. Tell him he was a genius, that his art was masterful. When you know as well as I do it’s crap.”

Eve saw the slap coming, let it land.

“And there’s one more,” she said as the attorney sprang up, tried to control her client.

“Assault of an officer, on record. You made him what he is, Phoebe, now you have to live with it. So do your two daughters, whom you haven’t mentioned once.

For your knowledge of Jonathan Ebersole’s actions, for your knowledge of his intentions to continue his murderous spree, you are additionally charged with accessory to murder after the fact, and conspiracy to murder before the fact. How long there, Reo?”

“She’ll get life, no parole. I’ll give you on-planet, Counselor. That’s it.”

Now Felds looked more desperate than resigned. “We will take this to trial.”

“I look forward to it. As a proven flight risk, we both know your client will be remanded.”

“If this is the best you can do,” Phoebe snapped, “you’re fired. I’ll engage more competent counsel.”

“Ms. Harper—I need to consult with my client.”

“The one who just fired you?” Eve asked.

“Enjoy. You?” She looked back at Phoebe.

“No, you’ll never be in charge again, and that goes down as one of the biggest accomplishments of my life so far.

Peabody, arrange for an officer to wait outside and escort the prisoner back to her cell after she speaks to her former attorney.

“Now, interview end.”

“You think because you married wealth and power you understand what it can and will do?”

Eve paused at the door, glanced back. “I think because I’ve spent my career dealing with monsters, some who make even you look small, I know what I’ll do to stop them.

“And I’ve done it.”

Stepping out, Eve shoved both hands through her hair.

“She clocked you pretty good,” Peabody told her. “Your cheek’s still red.”

“On record. Will she get life, Reo?”

“I’m going to promise you that, and I don’t make that kind of promise lightly. She’s wrong about a jury. Any true mother will see what she is. You wrapped her for me, Dallas. I’ll tie the bow.”

She waited for the rest to come out of Observation. Mira laid a cool hand on her hot cheek. “You baited her.”

“It didn’t take much.”

“No, it wouldn’t. At first pass, I’d call it borderline personality disorder.

She can’t be wrong. Must be the center. Her son has all her love, as to give it to others takes from him.

He, at least, gives her the pretense that she’s the center for him.

I think she’ll continue to believe, for some time, that her money and position will override all of this, and she and her son will walk free. ”

“She won’t,” Reo said. “She will, most likely, insist on a trial, and why not, since we won’t entertain a plea that lets her out in this lifetime. But at trial? We’ll bury her, I swear it.

“I need to update my boss. See you Saturday. I trust you’ll have plenty of wine.”

“You closed the lid,” Whitney told her, then surprised Eve by giving her a light punch on the shoulder. “She swung for the fences. You didn’t even flinch.”

“Well, I saw it coming.”

“Didn’t even flinch,” he repeated, and smiling, walked away.

“Saturday.” Mira touched her lips to Eve’s cheek. “We’ll drink plenty of that wine.”

“I could use some now,” Eve murmured when Mira left them.

“You’ll want to write it up first.”

Eve nodded at Roarke. “I want to close it out. Lid’s on, yeah, but I’m going to lock it down. Peabody, go home. Go bask in your happy kitchen, bake something, build a sofa, play with the kid, whatever.”

“No, sir. I’m locking my own lid first. He took the lives, but…”

“She’s worse,” Eve finished. She started to her office.

Peabody peeled off at her desk.

“Under an hour,” Eve told Roarke.

“Take the time you need.” Like Mira, he laid his lips on her cheek. “I saw it coming as well. I believe I flinched.”

Since that made her laugh, she hugged him. “Under an hour. Close it down, lock it up.”

“Then we’ll go home, take a walk to the pond, have some wine.”

Since she’d taken off her jacket as he’d suggested that morning, he tapped her weapon harness.

“You did look formidable, Lieutenant. Every inch of formidable. Tag me when you’re ready.”

“Roarke?”

He paused at her doorway.

“I’m glad you were here for the end of it. Now we don’t have to talk about it tonight. We don’t have to give them a minute’s more time once we walk out of Central.”

“Just you, me, and the cat for the evening.”

“Sounds good. Real good.”

When he left, she stood a moment, rolled her shoulders. As before, she marveled at the weight lessened.

Duty done, justice served, she thought.

Then she sat to close it out and lock it up.