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"I had no occasion to visit Brennen there at any time, as I was unaware he lived there."
He answered well, she thought, carefully, like a man who'd skimmed his way through Interview before. She spared a glance at Roarke, who sat silently. Summerset's official record would be clear as a baby's, she imagined. Roarke would have seen to it.
"Why would you leave by an unsecured exit on the day of his death?"
"I did not leave by an unsecured exit. I left the way I came in."
"The record shows otherwise. It clearly shows you coming in. There is no record of you exiting the elevator on the level where you claim Ms. Morrell lives."
Summerset waved one of his thin hands. "That's ridiculous."
"Peabody, please engage and display evidence disc one-BH, section twelve for subject's examination."
"Yes, sir." Peabody slipped the disc into a Play slot. The monitor in the wall flickered on.
"Note the time display at the bottom right of the recording," Eve continued as she watched Summerset walk in and through the attractive lobby of the Luxury Tower. "Stop disc," she ordered when the elevator doors shut behind him. "Continue play, section twenty-two. Note time display," she repeated, "and the security label that identifies this area as the twelfth floor of the Luxury Towers. That is the floor in question?"
"Yes." Summerset's brows drew together as he watched the recording. The elevator doors did not open, he did not walk out. A cool line of sweat dribbled down his spine as time passed. "You've doctored the disc. You tampered with it to implicate me."
Insulting son of a bitch. "Oh, sure. Peabody'll tell you I spend half my time on a case screwing with the evidence to suit myself." Temper just beginning to brew, Eve rose again, leaned on the table. "Trouble with that theory, pal, is this is the original, straight out of the security room. I worked with a copy. I've never had my hands on the original. Peabody collected the security discs."
"She's a cop." Summerset sneered it. "She'd do what you ordered her to do."
"So now it's a conspiracy. Peabody, hear that? You and I tampered with the evidence just to make Summerset's life tough for him."
"You'd like nothing better than to put me in a cage."
"At this particular moment, you couldn't be more right." She turned away then, until she was certain her rapidly rising temper wouldn't rule her head. "Peabody, disengage disc. You knew Thomas Brennen in Dublin. What was your relationship?"
"He was simply one of many young men and women I knew."
"And Shawn Conroy?"
"Again, he was one of many young people I knew in Dublin."
"When was the last time you were in the Green Shamrock?"
"I have never, to my knowledge, patronized that establishment."
"And I suppose you weren't aware that Shawn Conroy worked there."
"I was not. I wasn't aware that Shawn had left Ireland."
She hooked her thumbs in her pockets, waited a beat. "And naturally, you haven't seen or spoken to Shawn Conroy in a dozen years."
"That's correct, Lieutenant."
"You knew both victims, you were on the site of the first murder on the day of Brennen's death, you have, thus far, offered no alibi that can be substantiated for the time of either murder, yet you want me to believe there is no connection?''
His eyes locked coldly on hers. "I don't expect you to believe anything but what you choose to believe."
"You're not helping yourself." Furious, she snagged the token she'd found on Shawn Conroy's nightstand from her pocket, tossed it on the table. "What's the significance of this?"
"I have no idea."
"Are you Catholic?"
"What? No." Pure bafflement replaced the chill in his eyes. "Unitarian. Mildly."
