Festive in Death (27 page)

“I never touched her. I barely know her. I never saw her.”

“You didn’t see this?” Eve took the crime scene photo of Catiana from the file, tossed it on the table. “In your living area?”

He glanced down at the file photo, quickly away again. “I meant I didn’t see her before. I didn’t let her in. I was upstairs. Natasha must have let her in.”

“And, according to your fairy tale, Catiana subsequently attacked your wife. Why?”

“How the hell do I know?”

“Mr. Copley is unaware of any friction between his wife and the deceased.” McAllister spoke firmly, working to focus Eve’s attention on her and away from her client. “However, in her capacity as social secretary for Ms. Quigley’s sister, the deceased often inserted herself in personal affairs.”

“How did she do that?” Ignoring the lawyer, Eve spoke to Copley directly. “I thought you barely knew her? Which is it, Copley? You barely knew her or she stuck her nose in your business?”

“I didn’t pay any attention to her. She dealt with Tella’s social stuff, with women’s business.”

“Define ‘women’s business.’”

“Parties, shopping, lunches.” He shrugged it off. “Garden clubs and whatever women do.”

Eve smiled toothily at McAllister. “Is that your business? Parties and lunches? Is that how you got your name on the letterhead? Going to garden clubs?”

“Obviously, my client means the victim handled his sister-in-law’s social calendar.”

“I think we both know what he meant, and that he’s a misogynistic asshole, but we’ll let that slide for now. Were you aware of any tension between your wife and the deceased?”

“No. I don’t get into that sort of thing. But she attacked Tash. It’s obvious.”

“Contrarily, it’s impossible.” Eve took out another photo. “As you see, there are ten feet, four inches between the deceased’s body and Ms. Quigley’s. Just how did Catiana DuBois manage to bash your wife over the head with this lead crystal vase while she was dead, ten feet, four inches away?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Copley snapped even as his lawyer ordered him to stay quiet. “That bitch attacked Tash, Tash fought back. The bitch fell, hit her head. Clear self-defense. Then Tash tried to get out, get to me, and only made it that far.”

“Let’s have some fun with that. You’re already seeing it,” she said conversationally to McAllister. “Catiana attacks your wife, smacks her upside the head with this vase—the vase that’s here, cracked and
bloody on the floor right beside your wife’s unconscious body. Then, somehow, with a fractured skull, with a brain bleed, your wife manages to struggle with the deceased, drive her across the room, where she conveniently falls and kills herself on the hearth.
Then
, in this miracle of physical determination, your wife gets back across the room, neatly hits the mark where she was attacked, and drops.”

“She’s a strong woman.”

“Her neurosurgeon agrees with you. She also says your creative scenario is impossible. Our reconstruction will back that up.”

Eyes on him, Eve leaned back, kept her voice, her body language almost casual.

“You argued with Catiana, you shoved her—like you shoved your golf buddy, Van Sedgwick, at your country club.”

“That’s ridiculous. That’s a lie. He slipped. I never—”

“Only you don’t have a handy water trap in your living area, so this shove resulted in Catiana Dubois’s fall, in her death.”

Eve angled forward, just a little, hardened her tone, just a little. “Where did you go after? Did you panic, run off, trying to figure out how to cover it up? An accident, it had to look like an accident.”

She built the edge—harder, stronger—tapping her fingers faster, faster, on the crime scene photo.

“But when you came back in the room, Natasha had come in, had seen. She’s in the way, damn it! You had to get her out of the way. To shut her up, just shut her up, so you picked up the vase, charged at her.”

“I was upstairs!” He shoved up, shook the table. “I heard Tash scream, and I ran down to help her. She’s my wife, you ignorant cunt.”

“JJ, stop! Sit down, and stop. My client has nothing more to say at this time.”

“Fine, let’s hear what Natasha Quigley has to say.”

Eve set the mini recorder with its copy of the nine-one-one call on the table, ordered on.

She’s dead! I think she’s dead! Oh my God, Cate. It’s . . . Wait, please. Oh God. This is Natasha Quigley at 18 Vandam. I need to report a— JJ! Oh, JJ, something terrible happened. JJ! What are you doing? JJ, stop, stop! Don’t!

Copley stared at the recorder, mouth agape.

“You were too enraged to hear her.” Eve tapped the recorder. “Too caught up to think. It was act. Act now.”

“That’s a fake. It’s a fake! She was on the floor when I ran in. She . . . there must have been someone else there. Someone else must have been there. Maybe he looked like me. She was upset. She . . . she wasn’t talking to me. She was . . . calling for me so I’d come help her.”

“Maybe you need to hear it again.” Eve replayed, letting it run under Copley’s increasingly hysterical rants.

“You’re doing this. It’s you, it’s you! You have it in for me. I knew it the minute you came into that meeting. You’re trying to frame me. Someone else was there. I was upstairs.”

“JJ, we’re done,” McAllister said, all but physically holding him down in the chair. “Not another word. Do you hear me?”

“Maybe it was more than rage, more than panic. Maybe you saw your chance. Kill her, kill them both, make it seem like they fought. It clears the path for you and Felicity.”

“I didn’t . . . How do you know? . . . It was you! You’re the reason Felicity moved out, you’re the reason she won’t answer her ’link. You bitch! I could kill you!”

“No handy blunt object.” Like Copley, Eve surged to her feet. She
leaned in, leaned hard. “Ziegler knew, blackmailed you, and it’s never enough. It would never stop. You
made
it stop. Taught that ungrateful bastard a lesson. Catiana knew, wouldn’t listen to reason. You lost your temper, shoved her. Then it’s Natasha. It’s time to finish it. Just finish it. So you fractured her skull. You thought you’d finished it, would have finished it, but the cop’s at the door so fast, too fast.”

She kept going, raising her voice over his rants, his lawyer’s shouts. “Girl cop at your door, stupid cunt, what the hell does she know? But she gets in your way, she won’t do what you tell her to do. You have to make your best pitch, it’s how you make your living. But it won’t work, Copley. It’s all right here.”

She slapped her hand on the file. “It’s all right here. Ziegler.” She dug out the crime scene photo. “Catiana.” Slapped hers beside it. “Natasha.” Added the last. “But you left Natasha breathing. And she’s going to bury you.”

His face glowed red. His eyes literally bulged. Eve half expected him to just explode, spewing flesh, brains, and fury all over the room.

Instead, he collapsed, wheezing, with sweat slicking those bright red cheeks.

“Get a medic!” McAllister ordered, and leaped to kneel beside him.

Eve glanced toward the two-way glass, turned to the door, wrenched it open. In seconds Mira rushed in.

“I’m a doctor. Lieutenant, some water?”

“Shit. Mira, Dr. Charlotte, entering Interview to treat suspect. Dallas, exiting Interview for—”

She broke off, took the bottle of water Roarke offered from the doorway.

“Correction, Dallas remaining in Interview.”

She cracked the water open, offered it to Mira.

“Slow your breathing, Mr. Copley. Look at me now, you’re having an anxiety attack. Slow your breathing. Sip some of this.”

“Can’t breathe.” He wheezed, staring out with eyes the size of moons. “Can’t.”

“Slowly. You need to take slow breaths. Lieutenant, send for a medic.”

“Already done,” Roarke told Eve when she reached for her comm.

“We’re going to get you some oxygen, Mr. Copley. That will help. We’re going to help you, and take you to the Infirmary.”

“His heart,” McAllister began.

“We’ll run all necessary tests, but this is a severe anxiety attack.”

“Dying. Chest . . .”

“You’re not dying,” Mira said calmly. “Look at me. Mr. Copley, look at me. I’m Dr. Mira. I want you to look at me, hear my voice.” She signaled for the med kit when the medic ran in. “Get his BP,” she murmured as she took out the oxygen mask, activated it. “I’m going to put this over your nose and mouth. Look at me, JJ. I want you to take slow breaths once I do. Slowly.”

“Two-ten over one-ten, Doc. Benzodiazepine in the kit.”

“Let’s wait a minute. JJ, I know your chest hurts, it’s difficult to get a breath. It will pass. Take those breaths, slow. That’s good, very good. You’re going to feel some relief in a moment. Breathe in. Let’s transport him down to the Infirmary.”

“Will do. BP one-ninety over ninety. It’s leveling down.”

“No one talks to him outside of my presence.”

“Get a grip, McAllister,” Eve advised.

“You badgered him into a heart attack! Don’t tell me to get a grip.”

“Ms. McAllister, is it?” In that same calm tone, Mira shut the
lawyer down. “Your client hasn’t had a cardiac incident but an anxiety attack, which is passing. We will, of course, examine, test, and treat him.”

“I want him taken to the hospital immediately, and examined by his own physician.”

“Not going to happen,” Eve countered, “unless Dr. Mira deems it necessary. Out here,” she ordered when McAllister started to protest.

She stepped out, moved several feet away from the room. “Look, you and I both know the record will show he worked himself up into a rage that turned into a panic attack. Fricking apoplectic. Medical assistance was speedy, and medical treatment will continue. But he gets it in my house.”

“I’ll get a court order for his transfer to an outside medical facility.”

“Try it, go ahead. The record and Mira’s rep will hold. I’m taking him down for two murders and an attempted. I’ve got him cold, and his own wife’s adding the ice. He had a fucking panic attack. She’s been on the table getting her brain put back together for the last few hours, so don’t try to twist it.”

“You will
not
speak to him again without medical clearance.”

Eve shrugged. “I’ll wait.” Eve angled her head. “The other two partners are men, right?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“And out of town for the holidays, unavailable tonight in any case. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have you as his legal rep on this. He doesn’t respect you. You and I both know it. He’ll use you, until one of the male types gets here, but you’re a placeholder to him.”

“You’re insulting.”

“Me?” Eve watched another medical hustle a gurney toward Interview B. “You’ve got a strange way of defining insulting.”

Eve waited until they’d wheeled him out, with McAllister striding alongside the gurney like a guard dog.

Mira stepped to Eve. “I’ll go, oversee the tests, but I’m confident he suffered a panic attack. His BP is in the safe range now, and he’s breathing normally.”

“Sorry to mess up your evening.”

“Not at all. It’s part of the job, isn’t it? You won’t be able to continue the interview tonight. I couldn’t approve it, medically, and his lawyer will certainly do what she can to block it in any case.”

“Figured.”

“It was real. The panic attack. And that’s something to consider. His reaction to the extreme stress was both physical and emotional. Ziegler’s killer didn’t panic.”

“Killing doesn’t upset him as much as being pinned for it does.” But it left a little hole she’d need to fill in. “He was trapped in there, with me. With the evidence. With the truth. He couldn’t handle it.”

“It’s certainly possible. I’ll review his medical history to determine if he’s experienced these attacks before or been treated for them.” Mira let out a breath of her own. “He’s an ugly little man, isn’t he? Still, I’ll treat him to the best of my capabilities, and unless the tests prove me wrong, he’ll be clear for you to interview tomorrow. I’ll send you a report.”

“Thanks.” Eve stood where she was a moment as Mira walked toward the glide. “Fuck. I want coffee.”

“I could do with some myself,” Roarke told her, went with her to her office.

“I had him. I would’ve had him.” She fisted her hand. “He wasn’t listening to the lawyer—the
girl
lawyer. Tripping himself up with this story, then another. Somebody else in there who looked like him? I mean, Jesus.”

She dropped down at her desk, drank coffee, scowled. “Panic attack. His eyes actually bulged out of his head. More like a temper tantrum, all respect to Mira. He wanted to go at me. If he’d had a weapon, he’d have used it.” She pushed up, paced the small office, while Roarke sat with his coffee in her miserable visitor’s chair.

“He couldn’t get that release, so he had the attack. Maybe, maybe. He couldn’t release the rage in any way, so his body went whack. I should’ve asked Mira about that, for the medical/psych terms for that.”

“I can only agree with Mira. He’s an ugly little man.”

“How do ugly little men get laid the way he apparently did?” Eve wondered. “I’m going to contact Felicity, who apparently had the good sense to break it off. And I want to talk to the Schuberts. And check in with Morris.”

“No point in reminding me I can go home. I have an excellent memory. I’m with you, for the fun and fascination.”

“Your choice. I’m going to call Peabody off then. No need for her to come in. We’ll hit Copley together tomorrow. Maybe her soft-pedal will keep him from going purple and flopping on the floor like a fish.”

She pulled out her ’link. It signaled in her hand. “Dallas.”

“Nurse Vick, Lieutenant. Dr. Campo authorized me to tell you Ms. Quigley is out of surgery. Her condition has been upgraded to serious, but stable. The patient requires rest and quiet for the next several hours. If you check in the morning, after eight, Dr. Campo will be available, and can let you know if Ms. Quigley is up to speaking with you.”

“Fair enough. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

Eve clicked off. “There’s good news. If I can get her statement, I can wrap Copley up in it. Well.” She drained her coffee. “Let’s go
ruin the Schuberts’ holidays. Whatever that asshole Copley thinks, Dubois was more to them than the one who handled Martella’s woman business.”