Andi felt Geena’s gaze drilling into him, her curiosity sharp and tangible in the air. George simply put his hand on Andi’s lower back in silent praise and backup.
“Can you tell us which area the pollen is from?” The hope in George’s voice was clear as day.
Evangeline sighed. “Yes, but it will take some time, and it’s not something that will have much clout in court. We have to compare DNA samples to place the plants in a certain area. The bitch is, those are common plants, nothing rare or fancy you only see in a few spots. Every lawyer worth their salt will point this out. Sorry.”
“Not your fault. Any idea how the pollen got there?” By his tone, Andi knew George already suspected the answer.
“The way the pollen is cramped together makes it highly likely it’s from a beehive. So my guess is a beekeeper.”
“They have bees at House Cusabo.” Geena was still staring at Andi. “And Tina said her sister, Izzy, thought the bees were hiding death. She wasontosomething.”
“Don’t forget that in Greek mythology, bees were associated with the underworld and the souls of the dead,” Evangeline chimed in. “Probably because the hives of wild bees are often found in cracks in rock walls or caves.”
“If the killer sees bees as a connection to the underworld….” George trailed off. It was important information. Something they needed to add to their whiteboard and tell Luke about.
“Anything else, Evangeline?”
“Leai. I’ll call you when I find something new.”
“Thank you. This was great work.” George waved at her, already on the way to the door.
“Thank Andi. He told me what to look for.” She winked at Andi. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it look good in my report.”
He nodded, conveying his gratitude with a look before he followed George upstairs, Geena directly behind them. In the bullpen, Luke was still standing in front of the whiteboards, his brows furrowed.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t come up with anything that could lure the killer to the victims besides their mental illnesses,” he said instead of a greeting.
“We can probably help you there. Evangeline said she found pollen on the victims—and the shape suggests it’s from a beehive.” George hung his jacket over the back of his desk chair. Luke turned to him.
“A beekeeper? The killer could be a beekeeper?”
Geena nodded.
“Bees are associated with the underworld….” Luke went back to staring at the whiteboard. Andi wasn’t surprised he knew the Greek myths. Luke might not be his favorite person at the moment, but he was no idiot. After some pondering he opened a black marker and wrotebeekeeperunder the wordkiller. “It’s a plausible theory. If the killer is a beekeeper and knows his lore, the bees might be the other thing connecting the victims. In what capacity remains to be seen, but it could be the link we’ve been looking for. Would make sense as well. If the killer is delusional, he might think the bees are leading him to the victims. Or pointing them out in a particular way.”
“By buzzing differently?” Geena didn’t sound convinced.
“Could be.” Luke rubbed his eyes for a moment. “In Europe, during the witch trials, one proof of being in league with the devil was when flies sat down on your skin. All the inquisitors did was put the accused out in the open, waiting for the flies to sit down. With personal hygiene being what it was back then, they usually didn’t have to wait too long until they could speak the death sentence.”
“How sick. What if the flies settled on the inquisitor?”
“That, Geena, was proof how powerful the witch was—getting Satan’s minions to overcome their fear of the holy and dare put their tiny legs on men of God.”
“I hate the patriarchy.” It was so heartfelt, Andi went to pat her on the back.
“I think everybody does. At least anybody with a compassionate bone in their bodies and a few brain cells to rub together.” He started for his desk, but a sudden spike in George’s stress levels had Andi turning to his partner before he reached his destination. “Seems like Timothy Cervill is off the hook.”
Andi stepped around George’s desk to look at his computer. The screen showed an email from Shireen, stating that she had found video proof of Timothy Cervill visiting a fetish bar on the outskirts of Walterboro about an hour and a half from Charleston on several occasions. One of them being the time of death of Marco Flores. She had video footage from the parking lot and the inside of the bar attached, complete with a time stamp. Andi had to admit he would have never pegged Cervill to be into public humiliation, which just showed what a bad idea it was to judge books by their covers. Even though kink wasn’t Andi’s cup of tea, he could appreciate the beauty of Timothy Cervill’s submission, albeit in a theoretical capacity.
To him, the endless varieties of sexual games were like a language he didn’t understand. He felt a connection to them, in a distant, non-involved way, because it was something blobs did to and with each other. For Andi, it was mostly meaningless because it didn’t serve procreation, the only reasontheydid it. In an abstract way, Andi understood that this was something else he missed out on because of thegeschenk, and only since he’d met George had he started to register this lack on a more primal level he could actually associate with himself. They made him uneasy, these feelings of lust that were, at the same time, more and less than the sense of belonging and safety he experienced with George daily and in growing intensity. It was too much, too complicated to ponder on top of everything else.
“Our pool of suspects is rapidly dwindling. Damn, he fit the bill so perfectly.” Geena was looking over George’s other shoulder. “I’m heading out to talk to Izzy’s parents. You try to nail LeClerk. He’s the last on our list.” She glanced at the whiteboard, where Luke was helpfully erasing Timothy Cervill from the list.
George saluted in his chair. “Yes, ma’am.”
She hit him on the shoulder, not gently either. “Be grateful I’m leaving the only remaining suspect to you.”
“You just don’t want to be the one to clear him and throw us back to square one.” George was mainly teasing, with only a hint of wariness Andi understood too well. If LeClerk turned out to be innocent, they had nobody left on their list. With the media closing in and Tyler now in their sights, that simply wasn’t an option. Andi sat down at his own PC to pull up the work schedule somebody at House Cusabo had sent them. Thomas LeClerk would be on shift starting at noon, which left him the entire morning to get his reports up-to-date and ponder the possible angles of the case.
