Forgotten in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “And did Delgato somehow create the set of books, clearly showing —in detail—what you stole, how you did so, and when, on the passcoded computer locked in your home office?”

  “It’s not unheard of for the police to manipulate such matters. I know this, my uncle knows it well.”

  “Really?” She looked back at Ilyin. “That’s the line you’re going to take? Did your counsel mention what’s going to happen when we check with your uncle regarding these extremely generous cash bonuses you claim? Is he going to back you up there?”

  “Why would he not? It’s truth.”

  “And, of course, he’d have records of those bonuses in his personal or company’s accounts.”

  Hadn’t thought of that, she noted.

  “He’ll also testify that he issued those cash bonuses without reporting them. So, anyway, you’re stating that the money you used—unreported income of over a million dollars just in the past two years— Oh, and we’re going back to previous years as we speak. You’re stating the money you used to support two women and three children, another woman who is currently pregnant in what many would call a lavish lifestyle is all from cash bonuses earned through your work with Bardov Construction?”

  “I have made that clear.”

  “And that someone—likely Delgato—forged your signature to sign off on fraudulent invoices, on material that was substandard rather than what was originally listed, and on amended inventories as material and equipment went missing. In addition, someone—the police, in your opinion—manipulated your records, created records that document the fraud and thievery—that somehow come out to the same amounts deposited in your fake accounts over the same twenty-four-month period.”

  When Tovinski said nothing, Eve just smiled.

  “Yeah, when you hear it spelled out like that, it just defies logic, doesn’t it? What’s logical is you and Delgato worked together to do all of the above. He didn’t get the lion’s share, but enough to keep him playing the horses, sure he’d hit that long shot and everything would be fine again.

  “But he knew too much. He had to go.”

  Tovinski spread his hands, appealed directly to Peabody. “A man has loyalty to his family. Didn’t my uncle bring me to this country, to this city, give me a home, give me food, give me education and work? Loyalty and gratitude in my heart.”

  Sympathetic tears shined in Peabody’s eyes as Tovinski laid a hand on his heart.

  “He is a father to me. You understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “This Delgato, I say again, I barely know him. And he killed himself, which is a sin. I’m sorry for him. But he is the cheat, the thief. I think the guilt drove him to take his life.”

  “If you barely knew him,” Peabody asked, timidly, “why do you think he used your name? Just yours?”

  “He would know I’m important. No one would question my signature.”

  “That makes sense. Plus, you never went to his apartment.”

  “No, I was never there. I have pity in my heart for a man so desperate and lost he would take his own life.”

  “Mr. Tovinski,” Eve continued. “Can you explain why you withdrew ten thousand yesterday morning, in cash, from the fraudulent account you have in New York under the name of New York Opportunities, the shell company you created for same?”

  “A man needs cash.”

  “That’s a lot of cash. Did you make a specific purchase?”

  “I have expenses.” He executed the shrug and dismissive hand wave of an important man. “I tip generously. My wife and my children, they have expenses.”

  “So this wasn’t for a specific purchase, such as a syringe full of Dexachlorine?”

  Nothing showed in his eyes, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. “I don’t know what this is. A medication? I take no medication.”

  “It’s the paralytic found in Delgato’s system—as we found him seconds before he died and the chief medical examiner of New York performed an autopsy, including a tox screen, immediately and expediently.”

  Eve pressed a finger to her throat. “The neck bruising didn’t quite hide the pressure mark. Homicide,” she told Ilyin. “Not suicide. Your boy here broke into the apartment. He installed a hook in the ceiling. You should’ve left the tool behind, Alexei. Delgato didn’t have one in the apartment that could have drilled that hole, and the paint and drywall flaked. Fresh flakes on the floor.”

  “Lies, lies. Desperate lies now.”

  “And all yours.” Eve rose at the knock on the door. She took the suit from Officer Shelby. “Thank you, Officer. Freshly back from the lab,” she said as she held the suit up in its sealed bag.

  “Is this your suit, Tovinski?”

  “How do I know? I have many suits.”

  “Well, it was taken from your closet, in your home, hung in the section you use for garments to be dry-cleaned. Plus, it’s custom—bet it fits like a glove. And you have your name monogrammed inside the jacket.”

  She broke the seal, removed it, opened the jacket to show the name embroidered on the black silk lining. “Again, is this your suit?”

  “Yes, so what?”

  Eve took a small evidence vial out of her files. “See this?” She showed the tiny fabric traces. “This came off the suit—right here.” Now she showed the portion on the inside upper leg marked by the lab. “The slight snag, the tiny bits of fabric. Too bad. It’s terrific material. You snagged it when, after you jimmied the window on Delgato’s flop, you climbed in to lie in wait.”

  “These are lies.”

  “This is science. You broke in, installed the hook, waited for him. And when he got there, you jabbed the paralytic into him so he couldn’t fight back. He’d be aware and, oh, he’d feel, but he couldn’t fight back when you put the noose around his neck. When you stood on the chair and pulled him up.

  “You didn’t wait for him to die. Nobody cared about him, that’s what you figured. You climbed back out the window, but only seconds, I’m thinking, before his landlord started pounding on his door. Maybe a minute or two before I walked to his door, hoping to question him.”

  “It’s threads, threads in a bottle.” Though he let out a short, hard laugh, a single line of sweat ran down his left temple. “It proves nothing! The plumber, he did the stealing. Why would I kill him for what I didn’t do?”

  “You did it—and there’s ample evidence, which is why your lawyer’s quiet. But you didn’t kill him over that. Hell, he was useful there.”

  Rising, Eve circled around the table, leaned in over Tovinski’s shoulder.

  “You killed him because you couldn’t trust him to keep quiet. Not after Alva Quirk saw the two of you up there, taking materials from the site. Not after she told you to stop, started writing in her book. Not after you went into the storage shed, got a crowbar, and slammed it into her head. Not after you killed her, and, with Delgato’s help, because he was terrified, wrapped her in plastic and tossed her in the dumpster.”

  She circled around again and looked back at the lawyer, whose face showed nothing.

  “He killed two people to cover up the fact he’s a thief, one who’ll steal from his own family. And we’ve got him cold.”

  Tovinski must have sensed it, in the silence, in the cold look in Ilyin’s eyes.

  “You would let them do this to me?”

  “I will speak with my client alone, please.”

  “No, no, no. You think I can’t see? You think I don’t know? You’re not my lawyer now. Get out. Get out.”

  “We’ll talk. Alone.”

  “No. You don’t stand for me. You don’t represent me. He’s not my lawyer now,” he said to Eve. “He must leave.”

  “Sir, Mr. Tovinski has terminated your services, on record. This is his right. I have to ask you to leave the room.”

  “This is a mistake, Alexei. Take some time,” he said as he rose. “Tell them you want time to think, to calm. Do this for yourself. If you contact me, I’ll come back.”

&nbs
p; “Former counsel for Alexei Tovinski exiting Interview. Mr. Tovinski, do you wish to contact different counsel at this time?”

  He leaned forward. “We will make a deal. I want a deal.”

  “Are you waiving your right to legal representation at this time?”

  “Fuck the lawyers. We will make a deal. And you will be head of the whole police with what I give you with this deal.”

  “Well, wow. You must have something really big to offer.”

  Eve glanced over as Reo came into the room. “And here’s handy Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Cher Reo entering Interview. Reo, Tovinski wants to play Let’s Make a Deal.”

  Reo sat, set her briefcase aside. And smiled. “All right, Mr. Tovinski, let’s play.”

  15

  “I can offer you anything you could want.”

  As if fascinated, Reo propped her chin on her fist. “You’re going to offer me a villa in Sorrento?”

  His lip curled. “You think this is a joke? What I have in here?” He tapped his temple. “With this, you could buy a dozen villas. Now you’re only an assistant, but with what I can give comes power, and with power comes money and fame.”

  He shifted to Peabody. “A young, pretty woman such as yourself has dreams. I can help you reach them. You’re three attractive women. You want more than to work all day, every day, taking orders from someone else.”

  “Goodness, it’s like he can see inside our souls.” Reo tossed her hair. “Or, no, that’s not it, is it, Dallas?”

  “No. More like a mirror. Is that how this started, Tovinski? You got tired of taking orders from Uncle Yuri?”

  “You don’t make the deals.” Dismissing Eve, he turned his body toward Reo. “You do. I can give you Yuri Bardov. Think of that.”

  “Okay, I’m thinking of it. And what do you want in return?”

  “I want immunity, full immunity. And I want—”

  “No. Do you have a second option?”

  “You think we’ll play games here?” Voice rising, he banged his fist on the table. “You’ll give me what I want, and I’ll give you enough for you to take down my uncle and his organization. You’re an underling. Your boss will want this.”

  “The prosecutor’s office isn’t much interested in Yuri Bardov at this time. While we believe he’s a very bad actor, his influence and activities have waned, considerably, over the last several years. He’s an old mobster, Mr. Tovinski, who’s been more interested in his gardens and fruit trees than expanding his network for quite some time now. We prefer leaving him to the feds.”

  “Must’ve been frustrating for you,” Eve said. “Always believing you’d inherit this wide, organized criminal enterprise, only to find your uncle slowly getting out of the game. Why take orders from an old man when you could pay him lip service and steal from him?”

  “Add the women,” Reo put in.

  “Oh yeah, the women. Yuri Bardov once may have been a criminal kingpin, but he’s remained married—and faithful, according to all agency reports—to his Marta for nearly sixty years. He brought you to America, into his business, treated you like a son because she asked him to. And…”

  Eve shuffled through her file until she slid out a media photo of Tovinski’s wife, his aunt, and another woman in formal dress beaming at the camera. “Your wife is the daughter of your aunt’s oldest, closest friend.”

  “Cheating, stealing, lying?” Reo sighed, then ticked a finger back and forth in the air. “And against family? Uncle Yuri’s going to be very upset.”

  “He knows nothing. He’s become a fool. A weak man who forgets what made him great. But there’s money, much money in what I know.”

  Eve glanced at her wrist unit. “By this time, I’m confident in saying he knows everything. Who sent his top mouthpiece to represent you, Alexei? Buy a couple clues.”

  “He would be disbarred if—”

  “They’ll both deny it,” Reo cut in. “And how are you going to prove Ilyin broke privilege?”

  “That’d be a tough one,” Eve agreed. “Especially since you’ll be dead before the sun comes up tomorrow. He may have stepped back, but he’s still Bardov, and you insulted him, betrayed him and your family. You betrayed your wife.”

  “You can’t let him have me killed. You must put me in witness protection.”

  “You’re not a witness,” Reo reminded him.

  Quickly, he turned to Peabody, held out his hands in appeal.

  “He will pay someone to murder me. My own uncle will do this. He’s heartless, ruthless. He’ll do this because I have too much heart, and I gave it to women not my wife—a wife he chose for me. He’ll do this because I wanted to give all my children a good life, and a good life takes money. It was only money, and he has so much. It was for my children, and he’ll kill me, and they’ll have no father.

  “You understand. I can see you have a heart. You have to help me.”

  “You want me to help you?”

  Peabody started to reach her hands toward his. Then she slammed her palms on the table as she lurched up. “You want me to help you? You spineless prick of a slug stain. You greedy, brainless ball of pus. You smashed a harmless, helpless woman’s skull in, exploited a desperate addict, then pumped a drug into him so you could string him up without getting your pampered hands dirty.”

  While Eve watched with pride swelling in her heart, Peabody rounded the table to push her face in his. “How many others have you killed so you could buy your fancy suits and screw around on your wife? You’re going down, you whiny asshole fuckwit. We’ve got you cold, and you’re going down. Help you? You bet your miserable murdering ass I’m going to help put you in a cage for the rest of your ugly worthless life.”

  Eve let the silence hang for a beat. “What she said.” Since Peabody’s outburst threw him off balance, Eve pushed hard.

  “We’ve got everything we need to put you away for Delgato. Everything we need to prove you used him to help you steal from your uncle’s company, Singer’s, others. We have what we need to take you down for the murder of Alva Quirk.”

  Eve leaned back as Peabody came around the table, dropped down in her own chair.

  “We know you killed Delgato because you were afraid he’d talk, he’d tell someone how you killed Alva Quirk.”

  Fear, genuine fear, flickered in Tovinski’s eyes before he cut them away.

  “You can’t prove it. Maybe he killed the old woman. Then himself.”

  “He couldn’t fricking hang himself pumped up with a paralytic, Alexei. Pay attention. You were there. You climbed in the window. Went up the fire escape, went in. Do you think nobody notices some guy in a custom-made suit climbing in a window of a flop?”

  She had nothing there, but he didn’t know that, she thought. And she watched the idea of a witness strike him.

  “We’ll be rounding up all your associates and accomplices on your skimming scams and we may be making some deals there, right, Reo?”

  “Absolutely. I believe I have the list the forensic accountant so kindly provided.” In turn, Reo shuffled through her file. “Yeah, here it is. Small change.” She beamed across the table at Tovinski. “I love making deals with small change to rake in the bigger bucks.”

  “But we don’t need them for Alva Quirk. We have her books.”

  Eve smiled when she said it, continued to improvise as she saw fear bloom.

  “Yeah, I figure you trashed the book you grabbed after you smashed Alva’s head in. The thing is, she’s been keeping those books since she was a kid. She had a hell of a collection. Do you really think the night you killed her was the only time she’d seen you on the Singer site? The only time she’d noted down you were there, where you had no business being?”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Test me,” Eve invited. “If you live to go to trial, manage to get another lawyer and risk a trial, picture me on the stand reading from one of this sweet, harmless woman’s notebooks. Imagine the chief medical examiner describing the killing wo
unds—back of the skull. Back of the skull, Alexei, and testifying when our APA here shows the crowbar you didn’t quite clean thoroughly so it still had traces of her blood and brain matter on it.”

  “If you put me in prison, I’ll be dead. You’ll be murderers, the three of you. I want a deal.”

  “He wants a deal,” Eve said to Reo, and Peabody snorted.

  “Here’s how I see it,” Reo began. “We go to trial with evidence so profound I expect the jury would come back with a guilty—all counts—in under an hour. Could be a record. You then spend whatever’s left of your life off-planet. We could keep you in isolation—from now and until.”

  “He’ll pay for my death, and my blood will be on your hands.”

  “How much blood’s on yours?” Peabody shot back. “You murdering shitbag.”

  “Or…” Reo let the single syllable sit a moment. “You make a full confession, a full and detailed confession, on both murders, and we immediately transfer you, under another name, to an on-planet facility. You’ll be provided with another identity, another background. Think of it as witness protection in prison.”

  “My children.”

  “Would Yuri Bardov harm or cause harm to be done to your wife, the women you’re supporting, or your children? Lies,” Eve added coolly, “cut back on the terms of any deal. Test me,” she invited again.

  He met Eve’s steady gaze for an instant, then shook his head. “No, I have no fear for them. He would never harm a child or the mother who tends them. But I provide for them. I visit them. Children need their father.”

  “You should’ve thought of that part before you screwed with your uncle, before you murdered two people to cover that up,” Eve said flatly. “You heard the deal. Take it or leave it. Either way, you’re spending the rest of your life in a cage. How long a life, and where that cage is, that’s up to you.”

  “I did it for my children. I want the best for my children. The best costs. My uncle, he knows about the oldest in Corfu. He was very angry. Nadia is his goddaughter. He said he would keep this secret as not to hurt her. I would continue to support the child and her mother. It would never happen again. If it happened again, I would no longer be welcomed in his home, I would no longer be part of his family, in any way.”