I frowned, considered Max for a long moment, then said, “I need a favor.”
“Shoot.” He picked up his cup, mixed the whipped cream into the liquid cake with the straw, and took a sip.
“I need you to help me Face-stalk or Tweet-stalk or whatever it was you did back during the Bones case.”
Max snorted, choked, and took the straw from his mouth before thumping his chest and coughing. “I’m sorry, did you say Tweet-stalk?”
I raised my hands palms up and shrugged.
“This is why I run the Emporium’s social media presence,” Max said. “In case there was any question.” He took his phone from his jeans pocket. “What am I looking up?”
“Anything you can find on Madam Sandra.”
Max had his thumbs poised over the screen, but at my answer, he slowly set it on the counter and said, “I think I’m ethically obligated to report this transgression to a certain andseriouslyfinedetective.”
“One, I know you’ve got blue balls, but don’t call my husband fine. Two, please help me and I’ll explain afterward.”
Max arched an eyebrow. “Are you going to do something stupid?”
“No.”
He seemed dubious.
“Max.”
“It’s June. You can’t hang my Christmas bonus over my head.”
“How about a pay degrade?”
“I’ll quit.”
“Like hell you will,” I said.
He picked up his phone and shook it at me the way a grandmother might threaten a misbehaving child with a wooden spoon. “For three years, I’ve woken up at 7:00 a.m., five days a week, happy to be here. I don’t know what fucking sorcery you’re playing with, but… keep doing it, I guess…,” Max eventually concluded. He tapped one of the icons on the home screen and added, “I’ll check social media. You do a Google search.”
Then we were off—Max typing and swiping like he was a racehorse at the Kentucky Derby, and me like a dying turtle found on the side of the road. I wasn’t sleuthing, not exactly. The problem with consulting, even from the antiquing point-of-view, was that without the complete scope of the situation, I could inadvertently leave out an important detail that might help Calvin solve this murder in a timely manner. Case in point: the knucklebones. If I hadn’t pressed for more information, they wouldn’t have had the association made.
Okay, let me be a touch less egotistical with that comment—the correlation might not have been made as quickly or as easily.
Better.
So yes, I was going to snoop on a recently deceased woman’s online presence. Because guys like me, who’ve been trained in art history before going off script into the wonderful world of strange and bizarre—were the sort who’d perhaps more easily understand the significance of artifacts originating from an old and niche community.
Psychics. Mediums. Spiritualists. Con artists. Scammers.
Believe what you wanted, call them what you would, but groups like that were close-knit. It wasn’t merely a business or an industry, but a way of life, and they weren’t going to talk to the police. I saw this very thing in the antiquing and art world ad nauseam. In fact, illegal activity was so prevalent in my own community that the FBI had to create the Art Crime Team inpart to combat it.
A simple search of the victim’s professional name had brought up a business page for Readings by Madam Sandra, including the address, business hours, and reviews.
“She has sixty-four Yelp reviews.”
“Everyone has Yelp reviews,” Max murmured absently.
“Do we?”
“Sure.”
I glanced up. “Are they good?”
