“Wouldn’t you feel better knowing exactly what I was doing instead of me sneaking around?”
“Nice try.”
“Come on.”
“You’re not a cop.”
“No, but I am a busybody who gets lucky now and then.”
Calvin rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
I stood, looking down at him. “Let me at least stay long enough to see who the victim is.”
I HADto admit, I was surprised when Calvin agreed to let me stay.
The Sackler Wing was shut down and soon had a number of officers, a medical examiner, and—surprise, surprise—my ex-favorite CSU detective. Neil saw me, we made awkward eye contact, and then he set his kit down and busied himself rifling through the contents. I pushed away from the wall I was standing at and came up behind Quinn and Calvin, who were watching as the body was being removed from the reflection pool and laid on the floor to be photographed.
“What do you think?” Quinn murmured.
“Didn’t drown,” Calvin replied as he stepped forward to speak with the examiner.
I moved to stand where he had been. “How do you know he didn’t drown?” I asked Quinn.
“See how his head was turned to the side? Even in something this shallow, if the person dies in the water, the body tends to lay on its stomach, head and arms down. If they died on land and rigor begins to set in, you can see the unnatural position even after the body is removed from the water.”
“I bet he was shot,” I muttered. “Why he’d be tossed in the pool after, who knows.”
“Maybe our suspect wanted to be sure you found him,” Quinn replied. She looked away when a uniformed officer called her from the temple display.
“Quinn—”
“Hold that thought,” she said before walking up the stairs and leaving me.
They’d probably found where the victim had been killed. If rigor had set in, there was likely at leastsomeblood at the scene of the crime. What a bitch it would be to clean those ancient stones of some poor bastard’s arterial spray.
I remained where I was, watching everyone around me go about their job in a sort of detached, professional manner. Calvin always said motive wasn’t what was most important. It was his job to gather the facts and make an arrest based on what was available to him. I tended to disagree. This wasn’t a crime of passion or opportunity. This was methodical, planned, and staged. There was reason behind these deaths, even if it were ghastly and made no sense to someone of a sane mind. I firmly believed that if we didn’t at least try to understand the motive the killer found to be a rational reason to off people, we were only looking at half of the picture.
And yet, even as I racked my brain, I couldn’t understand what anyone would gain from this. The antiques involved were bizarre, yes, but they definitely had monetary value. And yet, the suspect was giving them to me as a job well done for solving a cold case. So they weren’t looking for cash, and they weren’t even trying to keep the items for themselves.
What remained? What was constant?
Me. I was always in the thick of it.
And why? Because I wanted to be here. I wanted to be smart and clever and piece together real-life puzzles. I justcouldn’twalk away from something only partially solved.
Of course, our mystery killer knew this about me. Everything was so carefully organized and addressed to me. Perhaps I was a scapegoat? What if sooner or later I was going to find myself in a situation where I had to kill or be killed—what if I were playing right into what somebody wanted from the start?
I am not a smart man….
I swallowed hard and tried to calm the nervous flipping that my gut was beginning to do.
Okay, so whether or not that was the motive or reason or plan behind all this, it still didn’t confirm who was behind it.
Someone who knew me.
Someone who clearly didn’t like me.
Luther North was still Grade-A prime suspect to me. The shithead had keys to my shop, had already admitted to breaking in to plant the mermaid—who’s to say he hadn’t planted the bricks? He knew where I lived too. And he definitely wasn’t a BFF. At most he tolerated me. He had to. I was under lease and followed the rules. He may not have liked me, but trying to kick me out of the shop because he thought gay guys were icky was grounds for a lawsuit, and Luther wasn’tthatstupid. He could have made up that shit about the cop that threatens via text.
