Thankless in Death (In Death 37)

Eve’s question snapped him back. “It was mine since they were dead. I didn’t know what else to do. I was scared—and, and not thinking straight. You try coming home and finding your parents dead, see how you act.”

“It had to be awful, but … You should’ve called the police, Jerry,” Peabody said, gently.

“I know. I know that now, but then, I just wasn’t thinking straight.”

“Straight enough to take what cash and valuables they had in the apartment. Straight enough to withdraw the funds you’d transferred Monday morning,” Eve pointed out. “To book a high-flyer hotel suite and eat hearty Saturday and Sunday nights.”

“That’s not a crime.” But he swiped at the sweat on his lip. “I needed some money to get by, didn’t I? I needed time to think, then I saw how you cops were after me, and I needed time to figure it out, so—”

“So you went to Lori Nuccio’s apartment, used the key you hadn’t given back to her after she dumped your sorry ass, and you tortured and killed her.”

“I did not! And she didn’t dump me, I dumped her. It wasn’t working for me, so I dumped her—and she begged me to stay with her, give her another chance. Then, I figured it out when I heard about how she was dead. The same person who killed my parents killed Lori.”

“Now, that I agree wi

th.”

“But Ms. Farnsworth,” Peabody began, gave Reinhold a worried look.

“Her, too!” Excitement lived on his face as he grabbed his theme, ran with it. “The same person did it, trying to screw with me. See, it was all about screwing with me, so you cops would come after me—maybe kill me before I could prove my innocence. Joe.”

Eve all but saw the metaphoric lightbulb flash on over his head.

“I knew it had to be Joe who did it. He’s crazy, anybody’ll tell you, and he was really jealous of me. That’s why I got him to come to my new place, why I was messing with him. I needed to get him to confess so I could turn him over to you.”

“Wow.” Peabody hoped she looked shocked and impressed instead of showing the absolute disgust she felt. “So Joe killed your parents, and Lori, and Ms. Farnsworth because he was mad at you, jealous of you?”

“Yeah. He hit on Lori a few times—she told me—and she blew him off. So he was pissed about that, too. And he ragged and ragged on me about Vegas, kept buying me drinks so I got a little, you know, impaired, then pushed me into betting all that money. He made me lose all that money. And, oh! He knew I didn’t really hold anything against Ms. Farnsworth—she taught me a lot. But he ragged on me, so I made like she was a bitch. Just saving face like. Then he goes and kills her so he can pin it on me.”

“This is very serious, Jerry.”

“I know, right?” Trying for sincerity, he bobbed his head up and down. “He’s crazy, I guess. But he was ready to admit it. He told me some of it, but I didn’t have the recorder on yet. He said how my ma let him in, was going to fix him a sandwich—she did things like that—and he picked up the knife and stabbed her and stabbed her.”

He covered his face with his hands again. “My ma.”

“Golly. Where was your father? Did Joe say?”

“He said how he got the bat from my room, and he hid and waited till my dad got home. Then he bashed him, and bashed him. And he just left them there.”

“It’s funny,” Eve said, “how he walked in and out of the building without ever once showing up on security.”

Oops, she thought as Reinhold’s eyes shifted again. “Ah, sometimes those things don’t work right. The super’s supposed to get it fixed, but he doesn’t. He’s lazy.”

“So the security on the door magically shows you going in Thursday night—late, and not leaving again until Saturday night—suitcases in tow. And also magically never showed Joe entering or exiting the building.”

“It can happen.”

“Well, at least we can check with the super,” Peabody said doubtfully.

“He’ll just lie.”

“You know all about liars,” Eve said. “Just let me ask you one question. Just one that’s bugging me some. How’d you get the fake ID and the money to rent that swanky apartment?”

“I … won some money in Vegas I didn’t tell the guys about. And I paid this guy I met at a bar for the ID.”

“What guy, what bar, how much?”

Eve rapped the questions out.