“Time’s a son of a bitch. You’ll find out.”
“Eventually.”
“You cops looked me over nine years ago. Now you’re back to do the same? Well, take a look.”
“When’s the last time you were out of bed?”
“I can get up whenever I damn well please.” There was frustrated insult in his voice as he shifted to sit up straighter. “Can’t get very far, but I can damn well get up. You thinking I got up and killed that girl. Grabbed myself a couple others?”
“You’re well informed, Mr. Pella.”
“What the hell else do I have to do all damn day but watch the screen.” He jerked his chin toward the one on the wall opposite the bed. “I know who you are. Roarke’s cop.”
“Is that a problem for you?”
He grinned, his teeth showing through the breather.
“How about him.” Eve pulled out the sketch. “Do you know who he is?”
He glanced toward the sketch in a way that told Eve he was ready to dismiss it all. Then she saw something come into his eyes, saw something pass in and out in that beat where he really looked at the face. “Who is he?”
“Guy who likes to kill women, be my guess.” That hard resistance was back on his face, the screw you expression. “From where I’m sitting, that would be your problem, not mine.”
“I can do a lot to make it your problem, too. Do you like brunettes, Mr. Pella?”
“I don’t have time for women. They don’t listen to you. Die on you.”
“You served on the Home Force during the Urbans.”
“Killed men, women, too. But they called it heroic. She was busy saving lives when they killed her. Somebody probably said that was heroic. None of it was. Killing’s killing, and you never get it out of your head.”
“Did you identify her body?”
“I’m not talking about that anymore. You don’t talk about Therese anymore.”
“Are you dying, Mr. Pella?”
“Everyone’s dying.” He grinned again. “Some of us are just closer to finishing it than others.”
“What’s finishing you?”
“Tumor. Beat it back, been beating it back for ten years. This time they say it’s going to beat me. We’ll see about that.”
“Any objection to my partner and me looking around while we’re here?”
“You want to run tame in my house?” He pushed himself up a little. “This isn’t the Urbans, Roarke’s Cop, where your kind can do as they damn please. And this is still the United States of goddamn America. You want to search my house? You get a warrant. Now get out.”
Eve stood outside, hands on hips, studying Pella’s house. In moments she saw the bedroom drapes twitch, then quickly settle.
“Tough son of a bitch,” Eve commented.
“Yeah, but is he tough enough?”
“I bet he is. If killing’s what he wanted, killing’s what he’d do. There’s the groom angle, the lost love. Why should these women live, be happy, young, when he lost his wife? Soldier during the Urbans. Knows how to kill, and he strikes me as a man with plenty of anger, and a lot of control—when he wants to use it.”
“The sick room, the breather,” Peabody considered. “Could be an act.”
“Could be, but he has to know we could find that out. Of course, if he is dying, that’s just one more check in the plus column. And no judge is going to give us a warrant with what we have to search the home of a dying, bedridden old man.