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He hesitated for a heartbeat. ‘This afternoon.’
‘After our interview? After I questioned you on the payments?’
‘That’s correct. I wanted to insure there was no mix-up of any kind before I answered your questions. On advice of counsel, I contacted Pandora’s people and discovered I’d been conned.’
‘Your timing is . . . very skillful. Do you have any hobbies, Mr. Redford?’
‘Hobbies?’
‘A man with your type of high-pressure job, your . . . assets, must need some sort of release. Stamp collecting, computer doodling, gardening.’
‘Lieutenant,’ the counselor said with weariness. ‘The relevance?’
‘I’m interested in your client’s leisure time. We’ve established how he spends his business time. Perhaps you speculate on investments as a release valve.’
‘No, Pandora was my first mistake and will be my last. I don’t have time for hobbies, or the inclination for them.’
‘I know what you mean. I had someone tell me today that more people should plant petunias. I can’t imagine spending time digging in dirt and fussing with flowers. Not that I don’t like them. You like flowers?’
‘They have their place. That’s why I have a staff to deal with them.’
‘But you’re a licensed horticulturist.’
‘I—’
‘You applied for a license and were granted one three months ago. Just about the time you made a payment to Jerry Fitzgerald in the amount of a hundred and twenty-five thousand. And two days before, you placed an order for an Immortal Blossom from the Eden Colony.’
‘My client’s interest in flora has no relevance in this matter.’
‘It has plenty,’ Eve shot back, ‘and this is an interview, not a trial. I don’t need relevance. Why did you want an Immortal?’
‘I - it was a gift. For Pandora.’
‘You went to the considerable time, trouble, and expense to secure a license, then purchased a controlled species at considerably more expense, as a gift for a woman you occasionally had sex with. A woman who over the last eighteen months bled you for over three hundred thousand dollars.’
‘That was an investment. This was a gift.’
‘This is bullshit. Save your objections, Counselor, they’re duly noted. Where’s the flower now?’
‘In New L.A.’
‘Officer Peabody, arrange to confiscate.’
‘Now, just a damn minute.’ Redford scraped back his chair. ‘That’s my property, paid for.’
‘You falsified data on your license. You illegally purchased a controlled species. It will be confiscated, and you will be charged appropriately. Peabody?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Smothering a smirk, Peabody took out her communicator and made the contact.
‘This is obvious harassment.’ The counselor scowled. ‘And these petty charges are ridiculous.’
‘Oh, I’m just getting started. You knew about the Immortal Blossom, knew it was a necessary element to create the drug. Pandora was going to make big money on that drug. Was she trying to cut you out?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Did she turn you on to it, give you enough tastes to addict? Maybe she held it back then, until you wanted to beg for it. Until you wanted to kill her.’
‘I never touched it,’ Redford exploded.
