The bell rang, saved him from dwelling deeper. Andi went downstairs, knowing George would use his keys to come in if he didn’t react to the bell fast enough. It was another fail-safe Andi had created, using George like the miners had canaries. Not pondering about how he used his partner was another thing Andi was getting better and better at. He needed George at the moment, George was willing to help, he got a shiny solving statistic out of it, end of story.
When Andi opened the front door, George was already searching for the keys in his pocket.
“Ah, you’re up and about. Good morning, Andi.”
“Good morning, George. I’m not only up and about, I’m also ready to dive back into this wretched case. Let’s see how far Shireen has gotten.”
“Yeah, let’s.” In the car, George wordlessly handed Andi his cup of herbal tea and his plain bagel, which smelled even better when he remembered the stench of the dead mouse the burying beetles had found earlier.
After their arrival at the precinct, they went straight to Shireen. “If you guys had troubled yourself with checking your emails, you’d know I’ve found something interesting.”
“A good morning to you, too, Shireen. Perhaps we just wanted to see your beautiful smile.” George could be snarky with the best of them. “And you know we love hearing good news directly from you.” He winked, which made Shireen actually blush a little. The man was also a charmer.
“Fine. You win. Just as you asked me, I dug a little deeper into the victims’ pasts, and there’s two things standing out. The first are bills indicating each of them had had at least two affairs in their life which, to be frank, doesn’t surprise me. Harry Alexander McHill seems to have been the busiest. So far I’ve found four mistresses over the years. David Hector Portius II was more of a one-night stand man and premium member of a high-class escort service here in Charleston. I can’t tell how many of his escorts he slept with, though I guess it’s fair to assume he didn’t let any opportunity go to waste. Lawrence Miller had had two affairs I could find, one while he was still married to his ex-wife, Angelica Worthington. The other is still going strong as far as I can tell. The juicy bit is his mistresses are misters.” Shireen pulled up the pictures of two men, both in their late thirties. “The hunky Latino on the right is Juan Alvarez, personal trainer and ex-boyfriend of Lawrence Miller. Before you ask, he lives in Spain at the moment, with another man, dare I say sugar daddy?” A smile flitted across Shireen’s features. “Anyway, the yummy dark stud on his way to hot silver fox is Jeremy Fisher, professor of chemistry at the University of Charleston, Virginia, currently working in a private lab here in our wonderful city. The topic of his research is strictly confidential, but rumors have it he’s part of a team that tries to find a way to dispose of plastic in environmentally safe ways.”
At the mention of chemistry, Andi and George shared a look. This was good news. Not just the thing with the plastic. The chemistry was a lead.
“Before you go chasing the man down, I found something else. It was hidden very well, and I would have missed it if theCambridge Gazettehadn’t decided to digitalize all its issues, starting in 1910.” The flat-screen changed pictures and they were staring at an old newspaper page with the picture of a young man who looked into the camera with huge soulful eyes. The title read “Student in Wheelchair after Fraternity Prank.” “Meet Gideon Gartner. He was a freshman at Harvard and wanted into the fraternity Miller, Portius, and McHill were in. They set the usual ridiculous tests, one of them going into an abandoned house that was supposedly haunted as a dare. Apparently Miller, Portius, and McHill had prepared the house to make it spookier. Because of their tampering, the structure of the stairs was affected, and Gartner fell from the second floor down. He broke his back and has been in a wheelchair ever since. The fathers of Miller, Portius, and McHill made it all go away, though how, you have to ask Gartner, because financial transactions from that time are hard to track. Not everybody believes in digitalizing.” Shireen sounded so sad Andi felt compelled to pat her on the back.
“It’s fine, Shireen. You found us something, and we’ll take it from here.”
“I wish you good hunting.” She smiled at them. “I’ll keep digging.”
“You’re the queen.” Andi waved before he turned to follow George out of Shireen’s domain. He felt energized and ready to tackle the two new suspects, so it was only natural for Chief Norris to choose this moment to summon them to her office with an imperious gesture of her head. Andi sighed and trotted after George, who had already assumed his position as Andi’s shield against whatever the chief would spew. Andi was perfectly capable of defending himself, but he did acknowledge that, thanks to George, he hadn’t yet said something to the chief which could not be taken back or forgotten.
“Detectives, please tell me you’ve made some progress with the case. The mayor has been asking. She wants to have something to tell the media once this gets out, which, as you’re hopefully well aware, is only a question of time.”
Andi kept his mouth firmly shut, leaving the explanations to George. Of course the chief was only asking because the mayor needed something to look good in the public eye. Next year was the election. While George made nice with the chief, Andi thought about the case and the ever-growing pool of suspects. It wasn’t surprising, really, with men as old and rich as they were. It would have surprised Andi a lot more if they’d had no enemies and no secrets. Still, so far, none of the suspects made sense once he thought more closely about them. The sons and wives were automatically suspicious simply because murder, especially when money was involved, often happened among family members. As much as Andi would have loved to put his hopes on Jeremy Fisher or Gideon Gartner, his common sense already told him it was unlikely. For Fisher the same reasoning applied as did for the sons and the wives—even if he had a grudge against Lawrence Miller, why would he murder the other two men as well? As for Gideon Gartner, he was in a wheelchair. It was impossible for him to haul three men, even when they were drugged, along Swamp Fox Trail and into the water. If anything, he might be complicit, but before he had even met the man, it was pure speculation on his part. They would follow those leads nevertheless, because anything that shed a light on the life of the three victims could help them unravel the case.
“Am I boring you, Detective Hayes?” Norris’s voice cut through his thoughts like the wailing of a foghorn. Andi looked up to see George and the chief staring at him.
“No, of course not, Chief Norris. I’m just eager to get back to the case.” Andi didn’t try to hide the sarcasm in his voice, knowing full well the chief wouldn’t buy his bullshit either way. Her gaze turned dark, and she opened her mouth, no doubt to say something sharp, when George interrupted her. His tone was way more genuine and conciliatory than Andi would have ever managed.
“My partner is right, Chief Norris. As I said, we’re looking at an uncomfortably large number of possible suspects, and time is of the essence if we want any hope to solve this murder.”
For a moment the chief seemed to contemplate her options. Andi could almost see the gears turning in her head, weighing if she should indulge herself and pick on Andi some more or let them get back to the case so she could tell the mayor things were progressing. The chief’s need to strengthen her position with the mayor won out, and she sent them away with a dismissive gesture. On their way back out to the car, George scolded Andi in that mild-mannered way that made Andi’s fingers itch to clock his partner.
“You really should try to play a little nicer with the chief, Andi. She’s not perfect, but also not the devil you make her out to be.”
“That’s what you think. I’m not sold on the not-devil part.” George snorted but thankfully stopped harping about how things would be easier if Andi were more amiable toward the insufferable chief. They got into the car, and Andi leaned back, enjoying the relative quiet inside the vehicle. The thrumming and scratching and trilling of the insects was slightly dulled in this metal box into which none of them had found their way yet.
“Where to first? Gartner or Fisher?” George’s hand hovered over the middle console, ready to type in the address of either man.
“I think Fisher. We should be able to get him on campus. If he has anything to hide, apprehending him at his place of work could rattle him enough to slip.”
“You’re a calculating bastard. I like that.”
Andi just huffed. When George was done feeding the GPS, he pulled into traffic. The drive to Bluebird Road where the private lab—Earthlabs Inc.—was located, was blissfully quick, Maybank Highway for once being empty enough to drive at a reasonable speed and not having to move at a snail’s pace. After they parked directly in front of the main building, they went inside, looking for Jeremy Fisher’s office. It was on the second floor at the end of a long hallway, and luckily for them, the professor was in. He asked them to enter, and Andi—
—sadness heavy in the air, oppressing, down, the sweat not tantalizing, too saturated with grief, new blood bags, better food, the need to find an opening, belly heavy with eggs, nourishment needed, laying would happen soon—
—was immediately bombarded by Fisher’s grief. Even before George could introduce them, the professor spoke.
“I assume you’re here because of Lawrence?”
George quickly glanced at Andi, who decided this was one of the rare occasions where he should be taking the lead in talking to a suspect.
“You already know?”
