I pressed a kiss to her mouth. “I will.”
Twenty-Eight
I’m at the age when my back gives out more than I do.
—Odin to Constance
Odin
Being the medical examiner, showing up at a murder scene wasn’t exactly unheard of.
Nobody questioned my arrival with Black, and Gentry came up to us with a grim look on his face.
“What happened?”
Gentry gestured for us to follow him.
“Crime scene has already been processed,” he said. “Feel free to step anywhere.”
So we did, and I crouched down next to Dr. Pendelton’s body and gave him a quick once-over.
“It’s the same way that Errol was killed.”
“Not quite.” Gentry crouched down. “This one was done with a twenty-two. Errol was done with a forty-five. Pendelton doesn’t have any other guns but a twenty-two. His wife let us check the safe. And she gave us full permission to question her son in any way we saw fit.”
Speaking of his son, Eustace was in the kitchen handcuffed to the table with his mother crying her eyes out next to him.
When we got there, his mother got up and left. But she stopped at the door and said, “Answer all of their questions, Eustace.”
Eustace stayed stubbornly silent.
Gentry crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall.
I took up post on the other side, and Black took up the remaining seat that his mother had just vacated.
Black studied the kid for a long while before he said, “We have you tied to five murders.”
Eustace’s eyes widened, but he didn’t break.
“Your friends had some snake bites on them,” he said. “What’d they do? Hurt you?”
Silence.
“Then there was your dad,” Black said quietly. “Did he hurt you in some way? You can tell me.”
Eustace rolled his eyes. “My dad was Mr. Perfect.”
Definitely some resentment there.
“He had to have done something for you to hurt him,” Black said.
“I want a lawyer.”
“Your mother waived your right to a lawyer,” Gentry pointed out.
Eustace snorted. “I’ve taken political science and government. I know what my rights are. I want a lawyer.”
Black stood up and turned to Gentry. “You read him his rights?”
