"Violent?
I doubt it. But he's worth being afraid of. He was at the top of his class, so he's plenty brainy. He has a scientific mind, which means he'll think in patterns and subsets, very linear and logical. He's always two or three steps ahead-in his thoughts, in his surgery, in his life. He's likely to be obsessive-very few hobbies or distractions to take him away from his work.
He's a control freak. Millingsford said he used to intimidate the nurses, that they were afraid of him, and that fits with what I'm thinking. He still intimidates his coworkers. He's Likely to be exceptionally strong-minded, strongwilled. But psychologically speaking, his strengths are his weaknesses. They can be exploited."
The lieutenant nodded and looked up at Boldt. "Okay?" he asked.
"Any questions?"
"Okay with me." She grabbed Shoswitz by the arm. it was the wrong thing to do. "We have to bypass the red tape, Lieutenant. We have to go straight at this guy. And fast." Shoswitz pulled his arm free, reached down, and punched the Emergency Stop button. The doors slid open. Unexpectedly, they were showered in a blinding array of camera flashes and a dozen questions being shouted at them simultaneously. Shoswitz and Boldt contained Daphne between them, and the three of them, arms raised fending off the lights, surged through the throng of reporters. "No comment," Shoswitz kept shouting back.
As they pushed into Homicide, the press was kept at bay.
Shoswitz issued orders to the first patrolman he encountered, "I want them kept in the press room, understand? Not up here." To Boldt he said, "I gotta leave you two now." To Daphne he said, "This is where you earn your meal ticket, Matthews. We need to break this guy. We need for him to give us Tegg in a handbasket. You're the one who said it: Your friend Sharon is running out of time."
She wanted to hit him for saying that. Where had he been this last week? "Don't worry about him," Boldt said as Shoswitz hurried out of earshot. "I'm not worried about him," she said. They reached the one-way glass that looked in on Interrogation Room A. "It's him I'm wondering about."
On the other side of the glass sat Donald Monroe Maybeck.
Boldt had never seen teeth like that. He and Daphne studied Maybeck through the one-way glass. Boldt said, "As far as he knows, all we have him on is the gaming charge, the pit bulls. But the other arrests were allowed to post bail immediately, so he's got to be wondering why he's still here." Teeth like a junkyard dog, a grotesque gray brown. Despite the no-smoking sign he smoked a nonfilter cigarette, holding the smoke in so long that when he finally exhaled it left as a thin gray ghost. "We can book him on a list of charges, but none of them except this pit bull fight is going to stick, and it's a misdemeanor. The laptop was out of his possession-we, a bunch of cops witnessed it being stolen. He or an attorney can use that to his advantage. Even with the password, he can claim someone put that database onto the laptop while it was out of his possession. Things like that are tricky to prove. Proctor won't go for it, I promise you. I'm betting he killed Connie Chi, but we have yet to connect him to it. ID has that condom has the sperm. We can make like we're going to run a DNA typing. We can humiliate him: Make him jack-off for the lab boys. But proof? A match? Maybe, maybe not. What I'd like to do is wear him down, crack him open, and get a full confession on his involvement with Tegg and his murdering Connie Chi. Slam-dunk him."
"And we both do the questioning?" she asked.
He nodded. A vague smile flickered across her lips. "What do you say I get to play tough?" She unbuttoned the top button of her blouse.
Boldt thought: So she's breaking out the serious hardware.
"Sounds good to me."
She waited for him to open the door for her. He did so and said, "After you."
"Put out the cigarette," she ordered as she and Boldt came through the door. "You?" Maybeck let slip, recognizing Boldt from the pawn shop encounter.
This was the fun part for her. This was where it became interesting. It wasn't quite a game, but it was close. Maybeck looked up at her, drank in every curve of her body, and left his eyes boring a hole in her crotch, so she would feel it. So he knew how to play the game too. So what? He smiled; his teeth looked like a rusted garden rake. You hit guys like this. You hit them head on. "Nice teeth," she said. She turned to set her case down, turned to prevent him from trying to vent his anger by communicating with his eyes, turned, as she did, unbuttoned two more buttons so that by the time she swung back around, her blouse sagged open revealing enough cleavage to get lost in. She knew the Maybecks of this world; she worked with them. If men wanted to use her sex against her, then she would use it right back. When Lou's eyes fell for the trick as well, producing a momentary flash of embarrassment in him when their eyes met, she knew she had scored a direct hit. Maybeck wouldn't be able to resist the distraction.
it was a cheap stunt. Nothing more. Who cared? Maybeck was punk trash. She'd seen a photo of Connie Chi taken on her last day on earth. It was enough motivation. "One thing good about correctional institutions," she said, looking him directly in the eye, "they have free dental service." He didn't flinch stronger than she had expected. Test and probe. He kept his lips pinched tightly shut. Good-embarrassed. Ashamed, even. Nothing as strong as shame to turn the vise. His eyes strayed to her chest again, so she leaned forward to allow her blouse to hang open, giving him a nice long look. "Nice tits for a cop," he said, striking back. "You fuck your way to the top or what?"
It knocked her back a step. When her eyes met his again she introduced Boldt with, "You guys never officially met, I don't think. This is Sergeant Lou Boldt. Homicide," leaning on the word as well as the table. Then she saw in him what she had wanted to see, more than a flicker of panic. She buttoned herself back up. "You want to tell us about Bloodlines?" Boldt asked, clearly knocking the wind out of Maybeck, "Or do you want to do the dance?"
"You look a little old for dancing," Maybeck said. "Her ... she's okay. Have you fucked her yet?"
Boldt raised his hand to strike the man, but caught himself.
That was what Maybeck wanted: a way to beat the legal system.
She said quickly, "Yeah, the dental work is free in the big house, but so are the condoms. It's kind of a tradeoff. Depends how keen you are on HIV. Some people say AIDS was invented just to keep the prison populations down."
"Come on, man. Hit me," he baited.
Boldt warned him, "We're the front line, pal. We're the ones who will listen. The next line of defense is the attorneys. Then come the judges and the jurors, the witnesses-"
"Maybe Connie Chi's sister would make a good witness," she threw in just to catch his reaction. "Real shame about Connie."
Boldt edged closer. "In-mate. Nice ring to it," Daphne said, worried Boldt might hit him anyway. Boldt was supposed to play "nice guy"; she would play tough-the exact opposite of what Maybeck might expect. Toy with his sensibilities. Turn him upside down and shake.
Boldt looked over at her and rolled his eyes. He was back in control now, she hoped. He was good at this, better than most because he didn't believe he was any good at it, and that made him work harder. Something Daphne appreciated. He listened. He learned. He knew to meet the suspect in the middle, to establish a rapport, to mimic body language, and avoid any outward display of judgment. '/you face a very important decision," Boldt cautioned him, "because the way you play this can mean a difference of years for you. Years, Maybeck. Got it? You may want to think about that."
"Maybe I want to call me an attorney."
"You were given your phone call. Don't hose me, friend. I'm telling you: We're the best chance you're going to get."
Maybeck said to her, "You sure don't look like no cop. if Daphne answered, "And you don't look very smart, Mr. Maybeck, but I hope I'm wrong about that. We can connect you to Bloodlines. We can connect you to Connie Chi. We can connect you to that database. Twenty-seven harvests. Three of them are dead-did you know that? Chew on that with those pretty teeth of yours." "I think I'm through talking," he said, suddenly restless. A good sign. His veneer was cracking. "You stop talking, and you're through all right," she said quickly.