Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 27)

“It depends,” Edward said.

“You guys are fucking creepy. You know that?” Duke said.

The three of us nodded. We knew.

71

OLAF, EDWARD, AND I headed over to the larger jail where Muriel and Todd Babington were being held. I didn’t know if we could get a confession out of either of them, but that was the one way the judge had told Duke we could stop the clock on the warrant. It wouldn’t vacate it, because there was no system in place to do that, but it was a start. I really hoped we could get a confession out of Todd without having to torture him for real. Threats. I was good with threats, but I didn’t ever want to help Olaf torture another suspect for real. Yeah, the one in Florida had been a shapeshifter and all the parts had grown back, but the fact that I could do it at all had scared me. I wasn’t afraid of Olaf at that moment, but of me and what I’d done and what I might be willing to do again.

The moment I saw Todd Babington sitting in the interrogation room, I was almost certain we wouldn’t have to torture him; guilt might be enough. He looked ten years older than when I’d met him at the Marchand mansion less than twenty-four hours ago. His shoulders were rounded and hunched around himself as if he were trying to hug himself as much as the handcuffs attached to the table would allow. Normally one of the leading citizens of the town would probably not have been handcuffed like that, but he’d been taken in on suspicion of not just murder but a brutal murder. Everything about him said defeat. Perfect.

Edward and I sat across the table from him. Olaf took up his post in the corner so he could loom when needed. Newman had gone to the hospital to see what he could learn about Carmichael. It was the gaming equivalent of sending the paladin around the hill while you looted the bodies, except that Newman knew we might have to do bad things to get a confession. He might not have been able to be there while we did it, but he wanted Bobby alive more than he wanted to keep his sense of moral outrage intact. We’d agreed on our division of labor. Now we just had to live up to it.

The three of us had bought only one thing into the room with us that we normally wouldn’t have had: a manila folder with pictures in it. The insurance pictures were on the top of the pile. After that it was crime scene photos. We’d start with shocking visuals before threats—conservation of energy and all that. I laid the folder on the table in front of me, closed and neutral. Anything could have been in it. Todd’s glance slid to it. Then he gave quick nervous looks at all of us and then went back to staring at the tabletop.

“Was the murder your wife’s idea or yours, Todd?” I asked.

He raised his head enough to look at me for a second, eyes wide and startled as if he hadn’t expected the question. He should have expected it. It was why he was in handcuffs, but I had caught him off guard. If we were smart and didn’t push him too hard at first, he’d talk to us. Muriel Babington had already called for her lawyer, but we weren’t giving in to her yet, because technically she was on my warrant. The warrant of execution stripped you of the right to legal representation. It really was a civil rights nightmare. They’d used that nightmare to try to kill their nephew. Using it against them now was poetic justice . . . or poetic injustice.

Todd shook his head and stared at me with those large startled eyes. He was like a deer in the headlights. I waited for him to say something. I’d have settled for a noise, but he just sat there staring at me with his mouth slightly open, eyes full of nothing but shock and fear. It was like he’d been emptied of anything else, and there was nothing left to answer my question. In that second, I realized that pushing him too hard could shut him down if he hadn’t already. I hadn’t anticipated that and wasn’t sure how to go forward. Subtle and soft weren’t my speed.

I glanced at Edward. He flashed that big friendly Ted smile and then aimed it at the man across the table from us. “Hello, Todd. How are you doing?”

Todd turned and stared at him with those big scared eyes.

“Weird day for you, huh, Todd?” Edward just radiated that good-ol’-boy charm.

“Yes,” he said in a small, uncertain voice. He blinked, but when he opened his eyes, there was more in them than just panic.

“Todd, you don’t strike me as someone who goes around planning murders.”

“I’m not.” He sat up a little straighter until the handcuffs brought him up short, and then his shoulders rounded again, but not as badly. “I mean, I didn’t. We didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Your brother-in-law Ray was more than hurt.”

He shook his head fast and too many times. “We had nothing to do with what happened to Ray. We are not murderers.” He managed to sound insulted.

“We found the murder weapon in your house, Todd. How did it get there if you didn’t use it to kill Ray?”

“I don’t know, but I assure you that we did not have it in our possession.”

“Then how did it get in your house?”

“If Muriel were here, she’d say you planted it.”

“Your wife isn’t here. What do you say, Todd?”

“I’m not accusing the police of planting it in our house, but I swear to you that I have never seen that thing out of its display case. Are you seriously saying that it was used to kill Ray?” He looked so earnest, and he kept using Ray’s name. Usually murderers try to distance themselves from their victims, and one way to do that is to avoid naming them.

“That is exactly what we’re saying, Todd.”

He went pale and had to swallow hard before he said in a breathy voice, “I didn’t want to believe that Bobby could hurt Ray, but to think of someone using that . . . thing on him.” He swallowed hard again, breathing through his nose. I hoped he wouldn’t throw up, because that would have made the rest of the interrogation unpleasant for all of us.

“It’s called a bagh nakha,” Edward said in his Ted accent, but pronouncing the foreign-sounding phrase perfectly so that it was like the down-home accent disappeared on the last two words.

I opened the manila folder and got out the insurance pictures that showed all that shiny gold and the gems flashing in the light. When I got to the one that showed the curved claws, Todd looked away. Was it a sign of guilt or just squeamishness?

“Look at it, Todd,” I said.