Apprentice in Death (In Death 43)

“It’s questionable if said officers clearly indentified themselves as same. We will be pursuing charges of illegal entry, police harassment, and excessive force.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.” She smiled at Mackie as she spoke. “You know that’s lawyer bullshit, and it doesn’t change a thing. Here we are.”

“Due to my client’s injuries, you’re limited to one-hour intervals for Interview. My client will take his guaranteed thirty minutes after the hour. I request on my client’s behalf that he be returned to the hospital for a full medical evaluation after said hour.”

“Denied, which is within my authority, as his medical team has signed off. He can take his thirty in a cage, or if you insist, be evaluated here, medically, by a doctor. He’s done with the hospital. You’re done with the outside, Mackie. It’s all cages all the time now. That’s going to be fun for you in general population. You know how much they love ex-cops in GP. Don’t waste my hour,” Eve snapped at Pratt. “I have questions for your client. Here’s the first: Where is she? Where is your daughter? Where is Willow Mackie?”

“How would I know? I’ve been in the hospital.”

“Did you keep up with current events? Has your counsel informed you of what your daughter did last night? Eighteen dead this time around. Must swell your chest with pride.”

“My client was held incommunicado during the time of that incident, and cannot be held responsible for—”

“And the bullshit keeps coming. You’re responsible. You’re responsible for turning your own flesh and blood into a stone-cold killer. Eighteen people. Fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. And all because you had some bad luck.”

“Bad luck?” Mackie lunged forward in the chair.

“Yeah, bad luck. Your wife didn’t look where she was going. Now she’s dead.”

“They ran her down in the street!”

“No, she ran out into the street, into traffic, because she was too stupid to pay attention. And you couldn’t handle it so you went on the funk. Look at your hands shake. Pathetic. What they give you to keep you level just isn’t enough, is it? It’s never going to be enough. You destroyed yourself because your wife couldn’t remember to walk down to the fucking crosswalk. And when that didn’t fix it for you, you decided to destroy everyone else you could think of.”

“Including his own daughter.” Peabody said it just loud enough to be heard, and in a voice that rang with emotion. “That’s what I can’t get under, can’t get throug

h. She’s just a kid, and he used her, he screwed her up. You destroyed her, Mr. Mackie. How is she ever going to live with what she’s done? What you, her own father, told her to do?”

“You don’t know anything about my Will.”

“I know at fifteen she should be thinking about boys and music and schoolwork and meeting friends for pizza and vids. I know she should be angsting over what to wear.”

“Not my Will.”

“Not your Will,” Peabody repeated, with disdain. “Because you wouldn’t approve. You think all those things are frivolous, aren’t important, but they are. They’re building blocks, they’re rites of passage. They’re part of the childhood you stole from her. Now she’s a murderer, a fugitive. Her life’s over.”

“Just beginning,” he replied.

“He thinks she’s going to Alaska,” Eve tossed out with a deliberate smirk, “to live off the land, free as a . . . What the hell do they have in Alaska?”

“Bear. Moose. Wolves, too, I think. Deer. Lots of deer.”

“There you go. Like a deer. But people hunt deer, don’t they? Don’t they do that up there? Isn’t that part of living off the land?”

Eve leaned back. “I’m hunting her right now—like a deer. I’ve got some of my best trackers on her. She’s left a trail, Mackie.” Eve opened a file, read off the addresses of the three nests. And saw his trembling hands close into trembling fists. “Already got a wit at one of them who saw her exiting the building. Here’s what I wonder. Did you tell her to get her ass to Alaska when you sent her off, or did you tell her to finish the job first?”

“My client denies any and all allegations pertaining to his daughter, Willow Mackie. She is missing due to her fear of the police, due to your department’s false accusations against her.”

“Right. I’ll wade through the lawyer bullshit all day. A decent father would have told her to run, run far and fast.”

“He’s not a decent father,” Peabody put in.

“I’m a good father!” Insult and rage flashed hard color into Mackie’s cheeks. “I’m a hell of a lot better than that useless prick her mother married.”

“That would be the useless prick with the good job, the nice house.” Eve studied his ruined and furious eyes through the goggles. “The one who’s not a funky-junkie. Yeah, that’s a burn on the butt all right.”

“He’s not her father.”

“Nope, but she lived with him half the time. You were working to change that, to get full custody, then oops, dead wife. That got messed up.”