“I could get behind that. I could seriously get behind that.”
“A date then.”
He walked out with her, continued on while she stopped at Peabody’s desk. “We’ve got more.”
“McNab gave me a quick rundown. I passed it on to Mira.”
Eve glanced over where Mira, at Jenkinson’s empty desk, slid the PPC she’d been working on into her jacket pocket.
“It’s going to add weight,” Eve said. “Peabody, if they get more that does the same, McNab will text you. You pick the time to step out, get the information, bring it back in.”
She heard someone stomping their way toward Homicide, and turned as Dick Berenski barreled in.
“What the fuck, Dallas! You have Peabody try to tell me you’ve dragged Dawber in here on some nutball charge. Then you send your storm troopers in to clear out his lab. And I don’t find out all this bullshit about the storm troopers until lab security lets me know. What the fuck!”
“I’ll tell you what the fuck. Andrew Dawber’s charged with three abductions, three counts of involuntary imprisonment, multiple charges of forcibly injecting or otherwise inducing controlled substances, and two counts of murder in the first.”
Berenski slammed his fisted hands on his hips. “This is batshit bullshit! Have you met Andy?”
“Yeah, and the last time we met, I tackled him during his attempt to escape while two of my detectives secured the safety of the woman being forcibly held and restrained and drugged in the basement of his house. And I need the contents of the syringes found in his van, the contents of his home lab analyzed, and now.”
“I put somebody on the lab work. You think you can threaten me like that?”
He moved up, got in her face, and tempted her to punch the anemic caterpillar over his sneering top lip.
“Screw all that. And screw this bullshit. Andy doesn’t have a house. He lives in a damn apartment a spitball away from the lab.”
“Not since September, when his bio mother left him a three-story brownstone—with full basement—and six million in the bank. Don’t tell me it’s bullshit,” she snapped before he could. “I’ve got two bodies, I’ve got the statement from the third woman he held. I’ve got his own records, the evidence from his home lab, the loaded syringes and zip ties in his van.”
“He … he doesn’t have a van.”
“Didn’t have.”
Berenski dragged his hands over the slicked-down hair on his egg-shaped head. “I’ve known Andy more than twenty damn years. Sure he can be a little weird, but…” He looked toward Mira. “Are you saying what she’s saying?”
“Yes, and we have more than she’s told you. I’m very sorry, but there’s no question of his guilt.”
“Lemme talk to him.”
“No.”
At Eve’s flat refusal, he swung back to her. “I want to hear his side. For Christ’s sake. He’s one of mine. How would you feel if all this was coming down on one of yours?”
“Pissed and shitty, which is why instead of escorting you the hell out of here, Peabody’s going to set you up in Observation. I can’t let you talk to him now. That’s our job. At some point down the road, I can arrange it, but not until we close this. Peabody.”
Peabody rose, crossed to the doorway.
“You’ve got the wrong guy,” Berenski claimed as he followed Peabody out. “That’s on you. You got the wrong guy.”
“It’s difficult.” Mira rose, walked over to Eve. “Brutal, I’d think, to know someone, work with them for so many years, then learn they’re not who and what you believed.”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m cutting him some slack. That, and the fact he came in here to stand up for one of his people. That counts.”
“Some of the brass will want to know how the lab chief didn’t see the psychopath in his house.”
“Hell.” She hadn’t thought of that, and now she had to. “They’re going to make me stand up for Dickhead.”
“As will I.”
Peabody came back. “It’s starting to hit him this isn’t a mistake. And he looks a little sick.”
“It’s about to hit harder. Let’s go have a chat with Andy.”
He sat quietly, hands folded on the table in front of him. Eve wondered how he felt feeling the cuffs at his wrists and ankles.
“Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve; Peabody, Detective Delia; Mira, Dr. Charlotte entering Interview with Dawber, Andrew.”