“Welcome! We’ve begun our visualization exercise. Please, join us. Share your first name if you feel comfortable doing so.”
“That would be Lieutenant,” Eve said, and took out her badge. “And you can visualize taking a trip down to Cop Central.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Isaac McQueen’s a big one. You arranging his auditions for a new partner while collecting a fee from the State’s another big one for you.”
Stibble folded his hands at his waist. “It sounds as if you have inaccurate information. We’ll need to straighten this out. I have another forty minutes in this session, so if you’d come back—”
“Would you like to stand up voluntarily?” Eve asked pleasantly, “or would you like me to help you? Class is dismissed,” she said to the trio on the floor.
“Hey, I paid for the hour.”
She studied the man who’d objected, the scruff of beard, the exhausted eyes.
“What’s the damage?”
“Charge is seventy-five. Special introductory fee.”
“Buddy, you’re so getting hosed. Peabody, give this gentleman the address for the closest Get Straight location. It’s free,” she said to the man. “They don’t make you sit on the floor or look at pyramids. And they serve halfway decent coffee and cookies.”
“I really object to you insinuating I—”
“Button it,” she advised Stibble. “I apologize for the inconvenience,” she told everyone else. “Your counselor’s required elsewhere.”
“I’m happy to reschedule.” As his group filed out, Stibble hurried after them. “Please don’t let this minor problem cause you to stumble on your journey to health and well-being!”
“Close it up, Stibble.”
“I have other patients due in—”
“His rights, Peabody.”
“Wait, wait!” He waved his hands in the air, danced on his toes, did a couple of agitated circles while Peabody recited the Revised Miranda.
“Do you understand your rights and obligations, Mr. Stibble?”
“You can’t arrest me! I haven’t done anything.”
“Answer the question,” Eve ordered.
“Yes, I understand my rights, but I don’t understand what this is all about. Isaac McQueen attended a number of my sessions. I’ve conducted them at the prison for years. I know he’s escaped, and that’s terrible. But it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Deb Bracken. Ring a bell?”
“I-I—I’m not sure.”
“She didn’t have any problem remembering you, or the hundred dollars a visit you gave her after she agreed to meet McQueen. I’ve got a whole list of names, and I bet every one of them points a finger at you.”
“Human contact and talk therapy are essential tools in rehabilitation counseling. It’s not illegal.”
“Taking a bribe from an inmate to set him up with women is. You didn’t shell out a hundred out of compassion and generosity, Stibble. How did McQueen pay you?”
“That’s ridiculous.” Behind the rose-colored glasses his eyes jittered with panic. “I’m afraid Ms. Bracken was under the influence of her addiction at the time. She’s misremembering, that’s all.”
“I’m about to charge you with accessory in the forced imprisonment of two people, the assault and rape of one of them.”
“You can’t possibly be serious.” Panic morphed into fear as he backed up several steps. “I’ve never laid a hand on another human being in my life.”
“McQueen has. You’ve been aiding and abetting him for years.”
“This is a big misunderstanding. I feel very upset to be threatened in this way. I think we should all take several deep, cleansing breaths.”
“Cuff him, Peabody.”
“Now wait, just wait.” He waved his hands around again. “I did arrange for a few women to visit Isaac. For therapeutic purposes, and with full approval. Naturally, they—the women—needed to be compensated for their time. Rehabilitation requires many tools.”
“Cut the bullshit. How much did he pay you?”
“A small fee. Barely worth mentioning. Just to cover my own expenses.”
“A thousand a pop’s a lot of expenses. We found your account, Stibble.”
“Donation.” It squeaked out of him. “He donated to my center. It’s perfectly legal.”
“How did you find the women? They’re not all local.”
“I, ah, I’ve counseled many troubled people.”
“Who did he pick, out of those troubled people, to work with him?”
His eyes darted left and right, and Eve concluded she’d barely have to flex her fingers to squeeze the juice out of him.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. I see it all over you.” She moved forward just enough to infringe on his space, kept her face hard, her voice flat and grim. “You knew exactly what he was up to, and you didn’t give a shit as long as you collected your fee. He settled on one. I want a name.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
Eve moved fast, had him against the wall, arms behind his back. She slapped restraints on him.
“No! What are you doing? You can’t! I’m cooperating.”
“Not by my gauge. You’re under arrest for taking a bribe while in the employ of the State of New York, for aiding and abetting a convicted felon, for accessory to that felon’s escape, for murder, for—”
“Murder!”
“Nathan Rigby. McQueen slit his throat in the escape, and you’re going down for it.”
“I didn’t know. How could I know?”
“Give me a name.” Eve perp-walked him to the door. “I want his partner.”
“Sister Suzan! It’s Sister Suzan. Let me go.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I swear to God.”
She paused, just inside the door, slightly loosened her grip. “How do you know he picked her?”
“I took messages in and out for them, after she told me he wanted to stop the visits. Memo cubes and discs. I don’t know what was on them. He’d tell me where to send hers, different mail drops. That’s all I know.”
“Oh, I doubt it, but it’s a start.”
She muscled him out the door.
“I cooperated. You can’t arrest me for anything.”
“Watch me.”
Eve planned to move him through processing, let him sweat, then hit him again. He had more to give, and she had little doubt he’d give it. While she worked him, Peabody could do a deeper search on and for Sister Suzan Devon.
But as she pulled into the garage at Central her communicator signaled.
“Dallas.”
“You’re to report to Commander Whitney’s office immediately, Lieutenant.”
“On my way.”
“Do you think something broke?” Peabody wondered.
“I’ll find out when I get up there. Can you handle this asshole?”
Peabody glanced back at Stibble, who’d sobbed the entire way in. “I think I can manage him.”
“Pass him off, then have him put in a box until I get there.”
He sobbed on the elevator, too. With absolute relief, Eve jumped off at the first opportunity, shifted to the
