According to the information Officer Randy Kaustrowitz had sent them this morning after George had contacted him about what they would need, the house hadn’t been changed since Isabelle Hopper’s death. Since she hadn’t had a last will, her closest family was now squabbling over who would get what. As sad as it was seeing people fighting who were supposed to at least get along with each other because of their shared blood, it helped their investigation. The less upheaval between the event they wanted information on and now, the better. Deciphering a single point in time was always tricky for Andi. Murder was easy because the sudden entrance of a huge food source always left an impression. But Isabelle hadn’t been murdered, and her corpse had been taken away almost immediately because a neighbor had heard the crash when the veranda collapsed.
George parked in the house’s short driveway.
“We’re being watched.” Andi was already going under but was still present enough to have a normal conversation.
“According to you, dear, we’re always being watched.”
Andi snorted. “Blobs.”
Blobs. Andi was farther in than George would have thought and liked at this point. It was a bit too soon. He opened the car door to get out and used the time to glance around. There was movement behind a window across the street. An elderly man was staring at them from the garden two houses farther down. A woman around sixty was glaring at them from the sidewalk where her dog was doing its business on a short, rather sad patch of grass. She made no move to tidy it up. Instead, she kept on staring at them. Andi ignored her and went straight for the small gate at the side of the house, leading into the garden. George thought for a moment and then flashed the woman his badge. The very last thing they needed right now was somebody calling the cops on them. The woman scoffed then yanked a poo bag from her old-lady purse and turned her back on him. Crisis averted. For the time being.
George followed Andi through the gate, which was old and creaky and a perfect fit for the garden, which obviously needed some work and not just since Miss Hopper had died. There was something about the place that screamed neglect over an ongoing period of time. Be it the glimpses of chipped clay pots under a barrage of green on a bed of brown or the vines burrowing the bushes at the side of the broken veranda, with bits of timber sticking into the air like remnants of a long-gone city.
Well, for the termites, it was a city. The thought came suddenly like lightning across a dark sky. George found Andi a few feet away from the veranda, his posture stiff, his gaze glazed. When George reached him, he took his hands, ice-cold despite the sun beating down on them. Several butterflies were flying drunkenly around Andi, a red admiral landing on his head. A monarch was even bolder, choosing Andi’s nose as its perch. The vibrant orange, white, and black colors were even more stunning against the background of Andi’s rather pasty complexion.
“Evil, evil, bad lady, needs to be gone, meanie, she should have been nicer, destroy her, she can’t stay here, I don’t want it, she’s bad, bad, hate her, never smiles, evil, eat the porch, good wood, good for the colony, for the queen, yes, the beams, so delicious, evil lady, meanie.”
“Andi?” George gently squeezed Andi’s hands in an attempt to lure him back.
For a moment, there was no reaction at all, only another butterfly, this one with a bluish tint and unknown to George, landing on his partner’s shoulder. Then Andi heaved a sigh and the butterflies took flight, leaving them in order to dance around the daisies and petunias growing in happy abundance on the ground.
“Andi, everything all right?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” His partner was pale with a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. “We’ve got a problem.”
“Tell me something new.” George’s attempt at lightening the mood was met with a scoff.
“I meant an additional problem. Somebody was here and tampered with the termites. Somebody like me.”
“What?”
“Well, I’m not sure if the person is exactly like me, but they left an imprint on the butterflies. And I get the same vibe as with the hornets and the black widow. Another presence, meddling, directing. Somebody with thoughts that are foreign to arthropods. Blob concepts.”
“You didn’t get that ‘imprint’ at Thomasin’s house or at the lake?”
“Predators are different. And I was concentrating on them. Here I had to cast a wide net, so to speak. Should have done that sooner.”
George knew this kind of tone. “Hey, you were focused on the murderers. And casting a wide net when already knowing what happened and who the culprit is would have been a waste of energy.”
“Not a waste.”
“You couldn’t know that. Your health is the most important thing, Andi. Don’t forget that.”
“I don’t. It just pisses me off.”
This was such an Andi thing to say. “So, another person riding on the minds of arthropods?”
Andi nodded.
“Anything specific?”
A firm headshake.
“Well, that probably would have been too much of a break for us,” George muttered, which garnered him a brief grin from Andi. “Can we say that Isabelle, Jagger, and Judge Dunhill and his buddy are one case?”
“Yes. Definitely. The feeling was similar enough for me to be sure.”
“Anything else?”
