„We went to the doors soon as communications went down,“ Feeney added. „Couldn’t get through them. Not even your man there with his magic fingers. Then all of a sudden, poof, corn’s back, locks open, and we’re in. Damned place.“ Feeney stared at Number twelve as they stood on the sidewalk. „Ought to be leveled, you ask me. Level the bastard and salt the ground.“
„Maeve Buchanan rigged it, that’s all. We’ll figure out how.“ That was her story, Eve told herself, and she was sticking with it. „I’m heading in, taking her into interview. She’s just whacked enough she may not lawyer up straight off.“
„Can I get a lift?“
Eve turned to Roarke. „Yeah, I’ll haul you in. Uniforms are transporting the suspect to Central. Peabody, you want to supervise that?“
„On it. Glad to get the hell away from this place.“
When he settled in the car beside Eve, Roarke said simply, „Tell me.“
„Maeve was probably already inside. We just missed her in the sweep. She had a jammer and a program hidden somewhere.“
„Eve.“
She huffed out a breath, cursed a little. „If you want to be fanciful or whatever, I had a conversation with a dead woman.“
She told him, working hard to be matter-of-fact.
„So it wasn’t Maeve who bruised and scratched your face.“
„I don’t know what it was, but I know this is going to be wrapped, and wrapped tight tonight. Buchanan’s being picked up now. We’ll see if he was in this, or if Maeve worked alone. But I’m damn sure she’s the one who fired the gun. She’s the one who lured Hopkins there. He had a weakness for young women. He’d never have felt threatened by her. Walked right in, alone, unarmed.“
„If she sticks with this story about being Bobbie Bray, she could end up in a psychiatric facility instead of prison.“
„A cage is a cage – the shape of it isn’t my call.“
At Central, Eve let Maeve stew a little while as she waited for Mira to be brought in and take a post in observation. So she took Buchanan first.
He was shaking when she went into interview room B, his face pale, his eyes glossy with distress.
„They said – they said you arrested my daughter. I don’t understand. She’ll need a lawyer. I want to get her a lawyer.“
„She’s an adult, Mr. Buchanan. She’ll request her own representation if she wants it.“
„She won’t be thinking straight. She’ll be upset.“
„Hasn’t been thinking straight for a while, has she?“
„She’s… she’s delicate.“
„Here.“ Peabody set a cup of water on the table for him. „Have a drink. Then you can help us help your daughter.“
„She needs help,“ Eve added. „Do you know she claims to be Bobbie Bray?“
„Oh God. Oh God.“ He put his face in his hands. „It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.“
„You are John Massey, grandson of Bobbie Bray and Radcliff Hopkins?“
„I got away from all that. I had to get away from it. It destroyed my mother. There was nothing I could do.“
„So during the Urbans, you saw your chance. Planted your ID after an explosion. Mostly body parts. All that confusion. You walked away.“
„I couldn’t take all the killing. I couldn’t go back home. I wanted peace. I just wanted some peace. I built a good life. Got married, had a child. When my wife died, I devoted myself to Maeve. She was the sweetest thing.“
„Then you told her where she’d come from, who she’d come from.“
He shook his head. „No. She told me. I don’t know how she came to suspect, but she tracked down Rad Hopkins. She said it was business, and I wanted to believe her. But I was afraid it was more. Then one day she told me she’d been to Number Twelve, and she understood. She was going to take care of everything, but I never thought she meant… Is this ruining her life now, too? Is this ruining her life?“
„You knew she went back out the night Hopkins was killed,“ Eve said. „You knew what she’d done. She’d have told you. You covered for her. That makes you an accessory.“
„No.“ Desperation was bright in his eyes as they darted around the room. „She was home all night. This is all a terrible mistake. She’s upset and she’s confused. That’s all.“
They let him sit, stepped out into the hall. „Impressions, Peabody?“
„I don’t think he had an active part in the murder. But he knew – maybe put his head in the sand about it, but he knew. We can get him on accessory after the fact. He’ll break once she has.“
„Agreed. So let’s go break her.“
Maeve sat quietly. Her hair was smoothed again, her face was placid. „Lieutenant, Detective.“
„Record on.“ Eve read the data into the recorder, recited the revised Miranda. „Do you understand your rights and obligations, Ms. Buchanan?“
„Of course.“
„So Maeve.“ Eve sat at the table across from her. „How long did you know Hopkins?“
A smirky little smile curved her lips. „Which one?“
„The one you shot nine times in Number Twelve.“
„Oh, that Hopkins. I met him right after he bought the building. I read about it, and thought it was time we resolved some matters.“
„What matters?“
„Him killing me.“
„You don’t look dead.“
„He shot me so I couldn’t leave him, so I wouldn’t be someone else’s money train. Then he covered it up. He covered me up. I’ve waited a long time to make him pay for it.“
„So you sent him the message so he’d come to Number Twelve. Then you killed him.“
„Yes, but we’d had a number of liaisons there before. We had to uncover my remains from that life.“
„Bobbie Bray’s remains.“
„Yes. She’s in me. I am Bobbie.“ She spoke calmly, as if they were once again sitting in the classy parlor in her brownstone. „I came back for justice. No one gave me any before.“
„How did you know where the remains were?“
„Who’d know better? Do you know what he wanted to do? He wanted to bring in the media, to make another fortune off me. He had it all worked out. He’d bring the media in, let them put my poor bones on-screen, give interviews – at a hefty fee, of course. Using me again, like he always did. Not this time.“
„You believed Rad Hopkins was Hop Hopkins reincarnated?“ Peabody asked.
„Of course. It’s obvious. Only this time I played him. Told him my father would pay and pay and pay for the letters I’d written. I told him where we had to open the wall. He didn’t believe that part, but he wanted under my skirt.“
She wrinkled her nose to show her mild distaste. „I could make him do what I wanted. We worked for hours cutting that brick. Then he believed.“
„You took the hair clips and the gun.“
„Later. We left them while he worked on his plan. While, basically, he dug his own grave. I cleaned them up. I really loved those hair clips. Oh, there were ammunition clips, too. I took them. I was there.“
Her face changed, hardened, and her voice went raw, went throaty. „In me, in the building. So sad, so cold, so lost. Singing, singing every night. Why should I sing for him? Murdering bastard. I gave him a child, and he didn’t want it.“
„Did you?“ Eve asked her.
„I was messed up. He got me hooked – the drugs, the life, the buzz, you know? Prime shit, always the prime shit for Hop. But I was going to get straight, give it up, go back for my kid. I was gonna – had my stuff packed up. I wrote and told my old lady, and I was walking on Hop. But he didn’t want that. Big ticket, that’s what I was. He never wanted the kid. Only me, only what I could bring in. Singing and singing.“
„You sent Rad a message, to get him to Number Twelve.“
„Sure. Public ‘link, easy and quick. I told him to come, and when to come. He liked when I used Bobbie’s voice – spliced from old recordings – in the messages I sent him. He thought it was sexy. Asshole. He stood there, grinning at me. I brought it, he said.“