“Everett Larkin, Cold Cases.”
“I don’t care.”
“Mr. Hunt,” Doyle quickly interjected. “What is it exactly that you do for a living?”
“I’m an entrepreneur. A designer. An artist.”
“Hm-hm.” Doyle made a point of staring at Roger’s stained hands.
Roger rolled his eyes, and Larkin could see where Brian’s habit must have originated from. “For God’s sake. Amoronwould belittle my talents with the overly simplistic label of goldsmith.” He held up his hands and added, “It’s polish.”
“Have you worked with iron?” Doyle continued.
“That’sblacksmithing,” Brian spoke up.
“Brian, please,” Roger said, but his tone was placating. To Doyle, he said, “Yes, of course. I’ve worked with all kinds of materials, although I’ve favored gold these past few years. Did you honestly come all the way out here to inquire about the ethics of using gold in jewelry or the sustainability of my designs? Again, I don’t have time for this. You know where the door is.”
“We’re here to speak with you about Andrew Gorman,” Larkin said.
Roger had already turned toward the stairs but then stopped. He looked over his shoulder, his brow creased in apparent befuddlement before the lightbulb went off. “Andrew… oh,Andy? I haven’t spoken to him in twenty years.”
“Twenty-two,” Larkin corrected.
Roger shrugged. “What difference does it make? Is he in some sort of trouble?”
Larkin watched Roger’s face carefully as he stated, without any kind of emotional inflection, “Andrew Gorman is dead.”
Roger’s eyebrows rose and his jaw slackened slightly, an indicator of sincere surprise at the news and not a feigned expression, but what followed was nothing. Roger’s face was blank of emotion. There was no anger, no fear, no disgust—nothing that would have indicated to Larkin that this man had something to hide regarding Andrew’s murder. And Larkin was… not expecting that. Of course, a common trait shared among those with psychopathic and sociopathic behavior was the inability to feel empathy. And given the methodical planning that went into all of the murders, Larkin was certain they were looking at psychopathic tendencies, which included the ability to pretend, as well as maintain functioning “normal lives” in order to hide dangerous inclinations.
So either Roger truly didn’t care about Andrew’s death, or he was pretending not to care. Either way, Larkin didn’t like it.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Roger said in a detached, WASP-y tone.
“He died in 1998,” Larkin added.Nowhe had Roger’s attention. “In fact, he disappeared on March 28, 1998, after telling his roommate he was going to visit you.”
Roger looked at Brian. He smiled lightly, patted the kid’s cheek with the back of his hand, in a manner that suggested some kind of serious age-gap intimacy, and said, “Why don’t you make sure Marge has all the champagne she needs for the party? God knows we’ll need it.” Once Brian had departed, Roger motioned with a stiff nod. “Follow me, gentlemen.”
Roger led the way upstairs, the floorplan an echo of the downstairs portion—open, industrial, and white. Although, this area was clearly off-limits to any sort of staff or clientele, as it appeared to house all of Roger’s gear and projects. From an expensive Mac computer and 3-D printer setup, to several worktables cluttered with various gizmos and gadgets that Larkin had very little understanding as to their usage in the creation of jewelry, to a pegboard that took up nearly an entire wall, all carefully organized with the tools of Roger’s various trades. Lots of hammers, lots of saws, lots of plyers, lots of tongs. Along the opposite wall were a number of retro metal signs, carefully curated so as to imply more than just care in the workplace: Men at Work, Teach Him Safety, Don’t Get Wet, and Ask Your Supervisor! The suggestive notices created a rectangle around a number of otherwise entirely innocent and vintage photographs of local baseball teams and events.
Roger leaned back against a worktable and took a defensive posture by crossing his arms. “How did Andy die?”
“He was murdered,” Larkin answered.
Roger frowned, took off his ball cap, and scrubbed his going-silver-fox hair with one hand. “I had no idea.”
“Jessica Lopez approached you about going to the police with her to fill out a missing person report.”
“Who? Oh… his roommate, right? Maybe she did.”
“I wasn’t suggesting,” Larkin answered. “I’m telling you she did.”
Roger narrowed his eyes. “All right, well, if she did, I don’t remember—”
“That’s because you didn’t want to be involved. In fact, no one even knew who you were until yesterday.” Larkin added after a pause, “That you were Andrew’s boyfriend.”
Roger offered a dry laugh. “No way. Andy and I weren’t dating. It was a casual thing.”
“Jessica said Andrew was pretty into you.”
