Purity in Death

"I think we should give Mr. Snyder the benefit of the doubt. I think Dukes is too puffed up with his own importance to believe he needs to tell his lawyer everything. He likes being in charge too much."

"You think wearing that uniform makes you somebody," Dukes said under his breath.

"Yeah." Peabody edged closer. "It makes me a cop. It makes me somebody who's sworn to protect the public against people like you. It makes me," she said, slapping her palms on the table and pushing her face close to his, "one of the people who walked through the blood you spilled."

"You will not speak directly to my client." Snyder shoved to his feet, and to Eve's delight, Peabody shifted and got up in his face.

"Your client spoke directly to me, on record. He does that, I'm free to respond, on record."

"Now, now, class." Eve clapped her hands once, made a sit-down gesture. "Let's not let our tempers override our ma

"Maybe we should just toss him to the P.A. Let them sink."

"Peabody, that's very harsh."

"If the two of you think you can run the good cop/bad cop routine on me," Snyder began.

"Wouldn't think of it." Eve gri

"Bitch," Dukes muttered.

"See, he knows. To respond to the bitch comment," Eve continued, "let me just say, you ain't seen nothing yet, Don. We ID'd your brainchild. We duped it, and we tracked it back to the source. Your little workshop unit. Your fingerprints, your voice prints, your personal code. You and nobody else. Didn't think we could pull it out, did you?"

Now Eve leaned forward. "I've got a couple of techs at my disposal that make you look like a first-year hacker."

"That's bullshit."

"Infected e-mail transmitted from your unit, by you, to Louis K. Cogburn, eight July 2059, at fourteen hundred hours. Infected e-mail transmitted to Chadwick Fitzhugh, eight July, at twenty-three fourteen."

With her eyes on his, she recited every transmission she'd committed to memory. She saw the disbelief wash over his face, then the anger flood it.

She wanted the anger.

"We've got you nailed. They knew we'd hang you when we busted this open. You're not a general, Don. You're not even a soldier to the ones ru

"You don't know squat. You're nothing but some dried-up female trying to pass for a man."

"Think so? I'll show you my balls, Don, you show me yours."

"I wish to consult with my client," Snyder interrupted. "Privately. I wish to terminate this interview until I've consulted with my client."

"You terminated them, didn't you?" Eve demanded.

"We executed them." Dukes spat it at her, then swiped out an arm, nearly knocking Snyder out of his chair when the lawyer tried to interrupt. "Shut up. Shut the hell up. You're part of the problem. Just like she is. Enough money and you'd defend Satan. You help put garbage back on the street. I don't need you. I don't need anyone."

"Are you dismissing your legal representation at this time, Mr. Dukes?" Eve asked.

"I insist on consulting with-"

"Fuck you." Dukes surged to his feet. His chair shot out, slammed into the wall. "Fuck all of you. We did something great. You think I'm afraid to go to prison for it? I served my country. I served my community."

"How did you serve your community?"

His mouth twisted. "By exterminating cockroaches."

"Mr. Dukes." With admirable calm, Snyder rose. "I'll ask you one more time to afford yourself of your right to remain silent. Lieutenant Dallas will terminate this interview and we'll go to a consult room to discuss-"

"Get the hell out," Dukes ordered without looking at him. "You and your cockroach brothers are fired."

"Let the record show that Snyder and Associates are no longer attorneys of record for Donald Dukes." Snyder picked up his briefcase, signaled to his two associates. "Lieutenant Dallas."

"On the door," she said, and Peabody walked over to open it and let the lawyers out.

"Donald Dukes, did you conspire to murder Louis K. Cogburn?"

His shoulders were back, his head high. And the hate pumped like sweat out of his pores. "You're damn right, I did."

"Did you conspire to murder Chadwick Fitzhugh?"

"I created the virus. Did most of the work myself. She's a beauty. I shot it into him. Into all of them."

"By your conspiracy to cause these deaths, did you in turn cause the death of Detective Kevin Halloway?"

"Yes. What's another dead cop? We took out that bitch George, Greene-along with the whore in training, whatever her name was, and Geller. That cover it?"

"Who gives you your orders?"

"I don't take orders."

"Did you conspire with Mayor Steven Peachtree to murder the individuals named on record?"

"Figure it out."

"I have," she told him. "You're done. I don't need you. Get him out of here, Peabody. Take him down so he can start living the rest of his life in a cage."

He came at her. A silent, panther leap. Her fist shot out, rammed into his chin. As his head snapped back, she drew her weapon. But Peabody flipped out her stu

"Damn it." Eve, slapped her hands on her hips when he lay sprawled at her feet. "I wanted to do that."

"So did I, and I beat you. Besides, you got to pop him first. Teamwork."

"Yeah." Eve smiled, but it still didn't reach her eyes. "Nice teamwork, Peabody."

Roarke corroborated the opinion when he met her in her office a few minutes later.

"The two of you played him like a violin. That's superior virtuosity when you figure you'd only met him once before."

"I knew him."

"You did, yes. Knew precisely what would get under his skin and push him to pontificate. Well done, Lieutenant."

"Not yet. It's not done yet." She heard the arguments, the raised voices coming through the bullpen toward her office. "But here comes the next stage. You want to hang in for this?"

"I wouldn't miss it for worlds."

"Of which you own several," she murmured before Chang burst into her office like a tsunami.

"You will issue a statement. I've written it. You'll issue this statementimmediately, taking full responsibility for passing misinformation to a media representative." He slapped both disc and hard copy down on her desk. His hair was wild; his eyes feral.

"Why would I do that?"

"Because I'm telling you to do it. Because this is the last time you'll undermine my work. The last time you'll make a mockery of what I do."

"What you do is a mockery, Chang."

He took a step toward her. She was fairly certain he envisioned clamping his hands around her throat and squeezing until her eyes popped out. But whether it was the dare in her eyes or Roarke's presence, he resisted.

"You leak a story to the media before its time. You use your influence with an on-air reporter to push forward your own agenda. You create a storm to distract from the fact that you've mishandled your own work. To-to plump and preen yourself before the public while leaving me to clean up the mess behind you. Mayor Peachtree has not been charged. He has not yet been interviewed, yet you've seen to it that he's guilty in the eyes of the public."

"Sure looks that way, doesn't it? One small correction, though. I didn't leak the story."

"You think you can save yourself by lying to me?"

She shifted her body weight, and fascinated, Roarke eased back. He wondered if Chang knew how close he was to a

"Don't call me a liar, Chang. You of all people."