Golden in Death (In Death 50)

“But.” She leaned over his shoulder again, turned her voice into a verbal sneer. “You weren’t smart enough to pull it off. Every time you thought you covered your tracks, you left bread crumbs. You kept the knife you used to kill because you’re arrogant, and too stupid to throw it away.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Whitt snarled at her.

“Lieutenant,” Kobast began, but she pushed over him.

“Cards on the table. You kept a record of your enemies, the targets, their schedules on a tablet in the hole in the floor because you felt smug when you looked at it.”

To back up the words, Peabody pulled the tablet out of the evidence box, and a printout of the kill list taken from it.

“You spent a half hour inside your friend’s apartment before you murdered him because you’re such a moron it never occurred to you we’d check the damn security feed.

“You didn’t destroy Cosner’s tablet and couldn’t get by his passcode because you’re stupid. He kept up his habit of documenting, like a journal. Only he went from a book to a tablet. It’s all on there.”

Shifting, she pushed her face into his, filled her voice with derision.

“You’re an idiot who couldn’t get through high school without cheating. You cheated on your girlfriend with a woman old enough to be your grandmother. You preyed on the weaker, the defenseless because it made you feel like a big man. But you’re not, never were. You’re still a small, selfish, stupid boy.”

“Fuck you!”

She shifted again so the elbow he tried to jab brushed her hip. Now she could add assaulting an officer if she wanted to pile it on.

She wanted to pile it on.

“Stephen, you need to be quiet.”

“Fuck quiet. Stupid?”

She saw emotion in him now. Saw the ugly rage.

“If I’m so stupid, how come Rufty’s fag husband’s dead? And that asshole Duran’s bitch? How does stupid get some loser junkie to focus in, to do the work to make something the military would pay billions for? If you’re so goddamn smart,” he shouted over Kobast’s orders to stop talking, “how come you didn’t figure it out sooner? Before Marsh got high and took out the egg?”

“You gave him the illegal in the scotch. You tampered with the seal of the egg.”

“So the fuck what? He still did it himself. And if you’re so much smarter than I am, why is that pontificating excuse for a chemistry teacher’s older-than-dirt wife dead?”

“You mean Lilliana Rosalind? She’s fine. We intercepted that shipment because you’re an idiot.”

“Enough, enough. This interview is over.” Kobast lurched to his feet.

Eve nodded. “You know it is, Counselor. Your client has confessed, on the record, to four murders and an attempted murder. The other assorted charges are mixed in there, too. And all because somebody said he couldn’t have everything he wanted when he wanted it.”

She looked back at Whitt. “Now you’ll spend the rest of your life in a cage being told every day what you can’t have.”

“I won’t go to prison.” His lips curled. “Do you understand who I am? Who my family is?”

“I absolutely do.”

“Stephen, be quiet. I don’t want to hear another word. This interview is over. Stephen, you’ll need to go back to your cell and wait for me. Ms. Reo, we need to talk.”

“You better fix this, Broward, do you fucking hear me? You better fix this if you know what’s good for you. You’ve got a wife, too.”

Kobash jerked at the shock of the threat, said nothing.

“Peabody, get a uniform to assist you in taking Mr. Whitt back to his cell.”

“I’ll come after you,” Whitt mumbled, his eyes dead and fixed on Eve.

“Stephen, for God’s sake.”