“I know how that is. It’s brutal working with someone who’s pretty,” he stated. “Ethan gets hit on much of the day,” he stated. “It’s exhausting batting away the would-be-suitors.”
Both Will and Gene laughed.
Only, the man in question pointed at his crotch, and the bump in his pants.
Gene got it.
It didn’t matter who flirted with him. He belonged to someone else.
HIM.
That made him smile like an idiot, but he simply couldn’t help himself.
“Har-har. You guys are funny,” Corbin said. “But while I was looking pretty, I found something out. You’re not going to believe this,” he said.
Oh, they knew what he had found out. It was likely the same thing they had found out.
Ethan cut him off.
To save time, they went there.
“Is it that the Fed died working the cop case, and the cop worked the original victim’s case? Did you figure out that they’re all tied together?”
There was silence.
Then, Corbin was to the point.
“I hate when you do that. It kills the buildup. You know, the climax. Now, I feel let down that I didn’t get to tell you guys.”
Gene laughed.
Oh, he knew what that felt like. Ethan tended to figure things out well before him, and he did that to him all of the time.
Then again, you kind of wanted your profiler to be ahead of the game—not behind.
“You’ll get over it, Crotch Goblin. Did you get the reports?” he asked.
He clued them in.
“Yeah, and I found out something else. Apparently, and this is from the detective’s paperwork, and the new cop who has been working it, but there was an employee who was fired from the original victim’s restaurant for some reason. She opened a club, and guess what they do there?”
Gene went with what they encountered most. It was usually strippers, hookers, and ladies of the night.
“Strip?” Gene asked.
“Penuckle?” Ethan offered, being ridiculous because Corbin could have just told them.
The man laughed.
“No, it’s a dark club where they deal with Voodoo and all kinds of shit as they serve up drinks to the patrons. It’s calledDark Spirits. Plus, the ME, the one who liked me,” heoffered, “said that the victim’s clothes wereCOVEREDin trace of herbs.”
Gene wasn’t shocked.
The FBI ME had been thorough, too. There was one thing that befuddled him.
“Even after being in the water?”
“Yeah, even after that. Just from working other homicides before I got stuck with you two,” he began, “I know that means that he was heavily saturated or the herbs were in the greasy substance that was painted onto his body in symbols,” Corbin offered.
