“Peabody reentering Interview.”
Eve took the file Peabody gave her, listened as Peabody leaned close to her ear.
“McNab said they had to dig this out. He’d deleted it, but left enough markers for them to dig.”
With a nod, Eve opened the file. After she’d scanned it, gotten the gist, she passed it to Mira.
“You’re not getting a damn thing. If you want to keep playing this game, that’s just fine. What did Lauren Elder do that prompted you to take out the knife and slice it across her neck? I already know the bulk of it. She didn’t work out for you. She didn’t know how to play along. She kept begging you to let her go, and it just pissed you off. Pissed off the brat, and the scientist calculated that experiment a failure. You had the other two, and they looked more promising.
“You’d spent months setting it all up, getting the wardrobe, the makeup, the perfume, all of it. You set up your own lab, set up an HQ, invested in security.”
“I don’t like you.” He muttered it as he closed his eyes. “You’re mean and nasty.”
“You’d expected—a scientist, a precise sort of man—to have some failures. But one of them was going to work. One would be your mother, your slave. One would pay for years and years and years for what Lisa McKinney did. Never leave you, never leave that basement. Always be there. When you wanted to be a little boy, she’d play with you or sing songs, whatever. When you didn’t, you could look at her and know she paid and paid.”
Wearily, Dawber lifted his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think—I’m afraid—something’s wrong with me. I haven’t been myself.”
He appealed to Mira. “At work, it’s all as it should be. But when I leave, I … I don’t clearly remember. Not until I’m at work again. It’s like I step out of myself, or into something else. It’s all a blur. I need help. Can you help me?”
Mira studied him with her soft blue eyes. “I’d certainly try. If any of that were true. I see here you’ve done considerable and thorough research on MPD. Documented cases, debunked cases. And you added your own notes, I see.”
“Somebody who’s worked with the cops as long as you,” Peabody commented, “should know what EDD can do. You thought you were smarter. You’re not.”
“I researched it because I had concerns about my mental health.”
“Maybe.” Eve leaned back. “Maybe a grain of truth in there, but what you did was expand on it, calculate how you might use it if you ever ended up where you are now. You selected, stalked, abducted, chained, and emotionally tortured three women, killed two of them. You did that with a cold, clear mind. You killed them, dressed them like her because it was always her you needed to punish.
“Bad Mommy.”
“She was.”
Eve nodded. “No doubts here she fucked up and was fucked-up. Predisposed it seems to addiction, like her mother, her grandfather. Like you.”
“I am not an addict.”
“Yeah, you are. Lisa McKinney’s your addiction. Was she always? What about the mother who raised you?”
He looked away to stare at the wall. “She was not my mother. She was never my mother.”
“Why? Because she didn’t push you out of her vagina?”
“She wasn’t my mother!”
The anger came back, and Eve gauged it was time to push on it.
“Did she beat you, starve you?”
“I was a child, a frightened little boy, and they put me with strangers. Do you know what that’s like? Foster homes with social workers sniffing around, then they just give you away to someone. A fake family. And they were old! Already in their late forties, and took me as a substitute because they couldn’t make their own child. They changed my name, and then it was: No sweets before dinner, Andy. Wash your hands, Andy. Time for school, time for bed. Rules, rules, and rules.”
“You followed the rules,” Mira said. “You did what you were told, studied hard, did what was expected of you. You didn’t love this family, but you needed them. You didn’t want to be left alone again.”
“They were ordinary. My mother wasn’t ordinary. They tried to make me ordinary. My mother knew I was special. I got away from them as soon as I was of age. I looked for her for months and months. But I couldn’t find her. Nobody could find her. And she was right there the whole time.”
“Right there,” Eve repeated. “It made you mad when you found out she’d lived in a big house, had a big family, a happy life without you, all those years.”