Thankless in Death (29 page)

“He gave you a bad time, so beating the shit out of him while you’ve bound him to a chair is self-defense? You’re an idiot, Jerry.”

“I’m not an idiot!” Harsh red color stained his face, ran down to his neck as if his fury needed to pump through his pores. “I’m smarter than you, smarter than most people. I proved it.”

“How?”

“I did what I had to do. I got what I needed to get.”

“Starting with stabbing your own mother over fifty times.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked away again. “I wasn’t even there. I came in, and I found them. It was awful.”

He covered his face with his hands.

“You’re saying you came home and found your parents dead, Jerry?” Peabody did her masterful slide, a touch of sympathetic horror in her voice. “God.”

“It was …” He dropped his hands, and for the first time looked at Peabody. “I can’t even tell you. I’d warned them not to just open the door for anybody, but they never listened. And I came in, and they were … all the blood.”

“Give me a break,” Eve muttered, but Peabody shook her head.

“Come on, Lieutenant. We wondered about that. What did you do, Jerry?”

“I don’t know exactly. It’s all kind of crazy in my head. I just freaked. I think maybe I blacked out or had a kind of, I don’t know, seizure or something.”

“So you don’t really remember what you did after. When did you find them, exactly?”

“Ah, I guess late Friday night. I came in and—”

“Where had you been?”

“Just around. Anyway, nothing made any sense, you know?”

“Did you come out of your seizure long enough to steal the watch you sold? To transfer your parents’ life savings to accounts you opened?”

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 with.”

“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.

“Some guy, I don’t know. Just a bar. Um, maybe a thousand dollars. About, um, five hundred dollars, I guess.”

“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.” Eve pushed forward, into his space, so he jerked back.

“You lost your ass in Vegas. You didn’t just happen on an expert on fake IDs at some bar, and you sure as hell didn’t get one, with the accompanying database, for five hundred. You lying piece of shit. We’ve got the comps you stole from Ms. Farnsworth after you tortured her, after you killed her. The ones you had her droid take to a swap store. The data’s right on them.”

“They were wiped. Wiped clean!” Wound up, he leaned toward her, shoved his face toward hers. “You’re the liar.”

“How do you know they were wiped, Jerry?”

“I …” Jerking back, he ran his tongue around his lips. “Just figured. Joe’s not stupid. He’d’ve wiped them first.”

“You should’ve paid more attention to Ms. Farnsworth in Computer Science, Jerry. With the right techs, the right equipment—and believe me the NYPSD has both—you can retrieve damn near anything. Your ID was made on her comps.”

“Okay, okay. I didn’t want to get her in trouble.”

“She’s dead, Jerry.”

“Her … reputation. She made the ID and stuff for me. I went to her, explained things, and she helped me out. That’s why Joe killed her. After I left.”

“But she was dead when you left, Jerry, when you left carting your
new duffel and
her
suitcase, and caught a cab to the clinic because she’d managed to break your foot.”

“That wasn’t me. That was Joe. It was all Joe.” He began to cry, tears of terror and self-pity. “I didn’t do anything. Get off my back. I didn’t do anything.”

“We’ve got witnesses. We tracked you, you stupid fuck. We know where you bought the hair color, the eye color, the bronzer.” She shoved to her feet again. “And these.” She began dropping sealed evidence on the table. “The tape, the rope, the knife. This saw you intended to use to cut Joe to pieces, these bags for disposal of body parts.”

“I did not! I did not! The droid bought that stuff.”

“Some of it, on your orders. Ms. Farnsworth’s droid. Then there’s this.”

Eve lifted out the evidence bag holding the hank of Lori Nuccio’s hair. “How’d you get Lori’s hair, Jerry?”

“She gave it to me. Like a love token thing.”

“Really? How did she manage to do that when the person who hacked it off her before killing her took it? Had her hair colored just that afternoon, Jerry. This color.”

“That’s … I got mixed up. You’re mixing me up. Joe had that with him. He brought it with him. He showed it to me to prove he killed Lori.”

“You killed Lori, and got off doing it. You left the boxers you had on in her bathroom, you fuckhead.”

“Joe planted those. He told me.”

Eve sat back. “Not going to fly, Jerry. Not even going to get off the ground. On top of everything else, Ms. Farnsworth left a deathbed statement, too, right on her computer. Coded it in right under your
idiot nose while you had her terrorized. Your name, Jerry, and everything we need to wrap you up.”

“That’s a lie! She did not.”

“She really did, Jerry.” Peabody spoke quietly, pushing what sympathy she could into her tone. “It’s all right there.”

“She did that to get back at me, that’s all. She always had it in for me.”

“Then why did she make you the ID? Why did she help you out?”

“I … you’re confusing me. You’re mixing me up on purpose. I want a lawyer. I want a lawyer, and I’m not talking to you.”

“That’s your right.” Eve began to box up the evidence again. “Peabody, have him taken back to holding.”

“I am
not
going back there.” Shouting, he gripped the edge of the table as if to secure himself in place. “I want a lawyer now. I’ve got plenty of money. I can hire the best lawyer there is, and he’ll make you sorry.”

“You don’t have any money, Jerry,” Eve corrected.

“I have millions!”

She sighed. “Jerry, Jerry, you moron. The money was stolen in the commission of various crimes. None of it’s yours.”

“Everything my parents had is mine. That’s the law.”

“Not if you killed them.”

“She’s right about that, Jerry. You can’t use any of that money.” Peabody rose, too. “I’ll notify the Public Defender’s office. With the holiday, though, it could be Monday before they assign anyone.”

“I’m not waiting until Monday.”

“If you want a lawyer.” Eve shrugged. “It could take a while to get you a PD.”

“I want one
now
!” His eyes went wild, spittle flew. “I want to use
my
money to hire a lawyer, you bitch.”

“Tough shit, Jerry. We’ll work on getting you a public defender, as is your right.”

“Don’t you walk out of here! You come back here, you stupid bitch. You come back here right now.”

“You’ve exercised your right, requested a lawyer. This interview is done until you are represented. Get the door, will you, Peabody?”

“Fuck a bunch of lawyers. I don’t want a lawyer. I want you to get back here. I want to go home.”

Calm as a lake on the outside, Eve turned back to him. “You’re waiving your right to representation at this time?”

“Fuck you, yes. I’m telling you, Joe killed all of them, and you’re trying to pin it on me. You’re just pissed because I was smarter than you.”

“Oh yeah, I can promise if you were smarter than me, I’d be pissed.” Eve set down the box, sat again. “Here’s another little”—what had Roarke called it?—“spanner in the works. Joe’s alibied for the time of your mother’s death, the time of your father’s death, your ex’s death, and Ms. Farnsworth’s death. Do you think we don’t check these things, Jerry?”

“He’s lying. You’re lying. I want another cop.”

“That’s not one of your rights. You killed them, Jerry, every one of them. You liked it. You found what you were missing in life, didn’t you? And you got rich doing it, you got everything you ever wanted, everything you deserved. All those assholes screwing with you? You got them back for it. And you were good at it. You fucking excelled.”

“You’re damn right!”

“It came to you when you were sticking that knife in your mother, didn’t it?”

Eve kept her eyes trained on his, kept her tone quiet and smooth. Praise and threaten, she thought. Juggle both the praise, the threats, and toss in the facts.

“She’s bugging the shit out of you. Get a job, get out, get off your ass. Nagging bitch, you’d had enough. Who wouldn’t? So you picked up the knife, right there in the kitchen where she was making you a sandwich, and you carved her up. And you knew, right then, you’d found your calling.”

“She wouldn’t get off my back. They were going to kick me out. Just kick me out. What was I supposed to do?”

Get a job, Eve thought. “So you killed them. Your mother with the knife. And you waited until your father came home from work and you beat him to death with your old baseball bat.”

“It was self-defense. I had to protect myself, didn’t I? They made me crazy. It’s their fault. I did what I had to do to protect myself.”

“What you had to do,” Eve said with a nod. “Then you took their money, their valuables. You stayed in the apartment with their bodies from Friday night until Saturday night.”

“I couldn’t stay there forever, could I?”

“Right. Of course. But you needed some time to do the whole transfer with the accounts, find all the money they had, open your own accounts, wire the money out and over using their passcodes.”

“My money,” he reminded her. “My parents, my inheritance. They owed me.”

“It was pretty smart,” Peabody said, and worked some admiration into her tone. “I mean, the way you transferred the money, then withdrew it so fast on Monday, spent some time in that nice hotel figuring out your next move.”

“People underestimate me. That’s their problem. I figured it out,
and I did everything right. You had my name and face all over the screen, but you couldn’t find me. I’ve got skills.”

“And you used those skills on Lori Monday night.”

“That bitch didn’t respect me. Another nag, nag, nag. She humiliated me, so I humiliated her right back. She deserved it.”

“Stripped her, cut her hair,” Eve said. “Tore up her new stuff. You got off when you strangled her, didn’t you, Jerry? They’re powerful, those skills of yours. You found your power.”