"They managed to scrape off enough to get type, DNA." His already gloomy face sagged. "It matches our boy. It's David Angelini's blood, Dallas. Lab says it's old, six months minimum. From the fibers they got, it looks like he used it to open packages, probably nicked himself somewhere along the line. It's not our weapon."
"Screw it." She heaved a breath, refused to be discouraged. "If he had one knife, he could have had two. We'll wait to hear from the other sweepers." Taking a moment, she scrubbed her face with her hands. "Listen to me, Feeney, if we go with Marco's confession as bogus, we have to ask why. He's not a crank or a loony calling in trying to take credit. He's saving his son's ass is what he's doing. So we work on him, and we work hard. I'll bring him in to interview, try to crack him."
"I'm with you there."
"I've got a session with Mira in a couple hours. We'll just let our main boy stew for awhile."
"While we pray one of the teams turns up something."
"Praying can't hurt. Here's the big one, Feeney, our boy's lawyers get a hold of Marco's confession, it's going to corrupt the hearing on the minor charges. We'll whistle for an indictment."
"With that, and without physical evidence, he's going back out, Dallas. "
"Yeah. Son of a bitch."
Marco Angelini was like a boulder cemented to concrete. He wasn't going to budge. Two hours of intense interrogation didn't shake his story. Though, Eve consoled herself, he hadn't shored up any of the holes in it, either. At the moment, she had little choice but to pin her hopes on Mira's report.
"I can tell you," Mira said in her usual unruffled fashion, "that David Angelini is a troubled young man with a highly developed sense of self-indulgence and protection."
"Tell me he's capable of slicing his mother's throat."
"Ah." Mira sat back and folded her neat hands. "What I can tell you is, in my opinion, he is more capable of running from trouble than confronting it, on any level. When combining and averaging his placements on the Murdock-Lowell and the Synergy Evaluations – "
"Can we skip over the psych buzz, Doctor? I can read that in the report. "
"All right." Mira shifted away from the screen where she had been about to bring up the evaluations. "We'll keep this in simple terms for the time being. Your man is a liar, one who convinces himself with little effort that his lies are truth in order to maintain his self-esteem. He requires good opinion, even praise, and is accustomed to having it. And having his own way."
"And if he doesn't get his own way?"
"He casts blame elsewhere. It is not his fault, nor his responsibility. His world is insular, Lieutenant, comprised for the most part of himself alone. He considers himself successful and talented, and when he fails, it's because someone else made a mistake. He gambles because he doesn't believe he can lose, and he enjoys the thrill of risk. He loses because he believes himself above the game."
"How would he react at the risk of having his bones snapped over gambling debts?"
"He would run and he would hide, and being abnormally dependent on his parents, he would expect them to clean up the mess."
"And if they refused?"
Mira was silent for a moment. "You want me to tell you that he would strike out, react violently, even murderously. I can't do that. It is, of course, a possibility that can't be ruled out in any of us. No test, no evaluation can absolutely conclude the reaction of an individual under certain circumstances. But in those tests and those evaluations, the subject reacted consistently by covering, by running, by shifting blame rather than by attacking the source of his problem."
"And he could be covering his reaction, to skew the evaluation."
"It's possible, but unlikely. I'm sorry."
Eve stopped pacing and sank into a chair. "You're saying that in your opinion, the murderer may still be out there."
"I'm afraid so. It makes your job more difficult."
"If I'm looking in the wrong place," Eve said to herself, "where's the right place? And who's next?"
"Unfortunately, neither science nor technology is yet able to forecast the future. You can program possibilities, even probabilities, but they can't take into account impulse or emotion. Do you have Nadine Furst under protection?"
"As much as possible." Eve tapped a finger on her knee. "She's difficult, and she's torn up about Louise Kirski."
"And so are you."
Eve slid her gaze over, nodded stiffly. "Yeah, you could say that."
"Yet you look uncommonly rested this morning."
"I got a good night's sleep."
"Untroubled?"
Eve moved a shoulder, tucked Angelini and the case into a corner of her mind where she hoped it would simmer into something fresh. "What would you say about a woman who can't seem to sleep well unless this man's in bed with her?"
"I'd say she may be in love with him, is certainly growing used to him. "
"You wouldn't say she's overly dependent?"
"Can you function without him? Do you feel able to make a decision without asking his advice, opinion, or direction?"
"Well, sure, but…" She trailed off, feeling foolish. Well, if one was to feel foolish, what better place than a shrink's office? "The other day, when he was off planet, I wore one of his shirts to work. That's – "
"Lovely," Mira said with a slow, easy smile. "Romantic. Why does romance worry you?"
"It doesn't. I – Okay, it scares the shit out of me, and I don't know why. I'm not used to having someone there, having someone look at me like – the way he does. Sometimes it's unnerving."
"Why is that?"
"Because I haven't done anything to make him care about me as much as he does. I know he does."
"Eve, your self-worth has always been focused on your job. Now a relationship has forced you to begin evaluating yourself as a woman. Are you afraid of what you'll find?"
"I haven't figured that out. It's always been the job. The highs and lows, the rush, the monotony. Everything I needed to be was there. I busted my ass to make lieutenant, and I figure I can sweat my way up to captain, maybe more. Doing the job was it, all of it. It was important to be the best, to make a mark. It's still important, but it's not all anymore."
"I would say, Eve, that you'll be a better cop, and a better woman because of it. Single focus limits us, and can too often obsess us. A healthy life needs more than one goal, one passion."
"Then I guess my life's getting healthier."
Eve's communicator beeped, reminding her that she was on the clock, a cop first. "Dallas."
"You're going to want to switch over to public broadcast, Channel 75," Feeney announced. "Then get your butt back here to the Tower. The new chief wants to fry our asses."
Eve cut him off, and Mira had already opened her viewing screen. They came in on C. J. Morse's noon update.
"… continuing problems with the investigation of the murders. A Cop Central source has confirmed that while David Angelini has been charged with obstruction of justice, and remains prime suspect for the three murders, Marco Angelini, the accused's father, has confessed to those murders. The senior Angelini, president of Angelini Exports and former husband of the first victim, Prosecuting Attorney Cicely Towers, surrendered to the police yesterday. Though he has confessed to all three murders, he has not been charged, and the police continue to hold David Angelini."
Morse paused, shifted slightly to face a new camera angle. His pleasant, youthful face radiated concern. "In other developments, a knife taken from the Angelini home during a police search has proven through testing not to be the murder weapon. Mirina Angelini, daughter of the late Cicely Towers, spoke to this reporter in an exclusive interview this morning."
The screen snapped to a new video and filled with Mirina's lovely, outraged face. "The police are persecuting my family. It isn't enough that my mother is dead, murdered on the street. Now, in a desperate attempt to cover their own ineptitude, they've arrested my brother and they're holding my father. It wouldn't surprise me to find myself taken away in restraints at any moment."