“Get anything from the lab?” she asked.
“One of his lab employees thinks Quill was having a sexual relationship with somebody. She said he’d sometimes come in with—and I quote—‘the postcoital, empty prostate macho glow.’ And she said he was familiar with Tinder.”
“Ah, the well-known postcoital, empty prostate macho glow. I’mveryfamiliar with it,” Trane said. “Maybe a hooker emptied it for him?”
“That we don’t know. Yet. But I’m leaning in that direction. If I have time, I’m going to figure out how Tinder works, then I’m going to go sit by his house and stroke to the right. See who pops up.”
“You’re expecting something to pop up? I’m told you’re expecting children.”
“You have a dirty mind, Trane. I’m as faithful as the day is long.”
“Winter or summer?”
—
The desk cop walked Trane and Virgil back to Roger Bryan’s desk. Bryan was on the phone and waved them into chairs, ended the call, stuck out a hand to shake with Virgil, and said, “Virgil Fuckin’ Flowers, as I live and breathe. And how are you, Maggie? I haven’t seen you since when? Last summer on the jumper?”
“Yup. Poor kid.” She turned to Virgil, and said, “Kid jumped off the Lake Street Bridge because everybody at school unfriended him.”
“I read about it,” Virgil said. “I never know what to think when something like that happens.”
“The school held a memorial service for him, and they brought in a busload of shrinks to shrink the kids,” Bryan said. “What they should have done is taken the little assholes out to the soccer field, lined them up, and then beat the crap out of them one at a time.”
“I’ve always thought of you as the Gandhi type,” Virgil said.
“What’s going on with Terry Foster?” Bryan asked. “He’s hooked up with the Quill murder? Is that right?”
“We don’t know. We need to know about what happened to Foster. He’s part of that clusterfuck going on at the U, between Quill and Katherine Green.”
“I know, the culture professor. We asked him about that and came up empty,” Bryan said. “Right now, we’re treating it as a strong-arm robbery attempt, but there are some problems.”
“Like what?”
“Probably nothing you haven’t thought of. Ambush in a remote spot in a well-lit neighborhood. Unless he was scouting Foster, the asshole could have stood behind the garage all night and not seen anyone go by. And he was serious about this thing. If the guy in the backyard hadn’t yelled at him, I think Foster might be dead. But, you get all sorts. We pushed Foster on who might have it in for him. He couldn’t think of anyone, and he looked to me like he was telling the truth. Said there was no reason any of Professor Quill’s people would come after him, none he could think of. That’s the only recent hassle he’d been involved in, and he wasn’t much involved.”
“Drugs?”
“They did the whole bloodwork drill at the hospital and he was absolutely clean.”
“Women?”
“He says no. An on-and-off thing, nothing serious.”
“Money? Gambling?”
Bryan was shaking his head. “None of that—at least, not that he’d admit to. We talked to friends of his and they said he’s a quiet, routine guy. Likes a beer or two, or three, but doesn’t need it. Not yet anyway. That’s why we still have it as a strong-arm job—there doesn’t seem to be any other motive. We even asked if it might go back to his military service, but he doesn’t think so. He was an intelligence officer, got shot once, but he wasn’t a guy ordering anyone into combat or kicking anyone’s ass. He spent most of his time in an office. He got wounded sitting in a truck.”
Virgil said, “Wait a minute... He was an intelligence officer? I got the impression that he was an enlisted man... a sergeant or something.”
“Nope. He was a captain. You think that might be important?”
“I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Odd that he didn’t say something. I was a captain myself, and I mentioned that when I talked to him. That’ll usually bring on a few minutes of Old Home Week. You know, where were you, what’d you do, who’d you know, all of that.”
“He’s a quiet guy,” Bryan said. “He was over there for a quite a while... Maybe a little PTSD? Doesn’t like to talk about it?”
Trane asked, “That aside, you got anything?”
“We got zip,” Bryan said.
