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Jem nodded and opened the photos on his phone. John-Henry looked through the images first, then Emery, and then Tean.
“Well?” Emery asked.
“I don’t know,” Tean said. “This bird—” He indicated the one that was most visible. “—looks like an African gray parrot. They’re highly trafficked and quite valuable. I can’t tell about the rest, not from these photos.”
John-Henry was silent for a moment. “You said you grabbed some of the stuff in the van. Can you be more specific?”
“Um, some of the IDs,” Jem said. “Some of the animal stuff—a tiger penis, that kind of thing.”
“A tiger penis?” Emery asked.
“A dried tiger penis.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
“They’re a commonly trafficked object,” Tean said. “I read an excellent identification guide from the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory on distinguishing real tiger penises from fake.”
No one, it turned out, had anything to say to that.
“Anything else?” John-Henry finally asked. Then, dryly, “The drugs?”
Jem scratched his ear. “Um, no?”
“Uh huh.” John-Henry looked around, taking in the state of their room. “I’m guessing you didn’t do this yourselves.”
“Wait,” Tean said, “you think someone was looking for what Jem took?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Emery asked.
“Not to me,” Jem said. “Because I’m a moron, remember?”
The red in Emery’s cheeks deepened.
John-Henry looked a warning at Jem, but all he said was “Did they take anything?”
“Nope. I might be a moron, but I’m not stupid enough to hide a take in my own hotel room.”
“That’s a high bar to set for yourself,” Emery muttered.
“Is that really what we think is happening here?” Tean asked. “Those guys showed up in Yesenia’s room for reasons totally unconnected to her murder?”
“They were looking for me,” Jem said. “I saw them in the lobby that night; they must have followed us to her room.”
But Emery was already shaking his head. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“I told you—” Jem began.
“I heard your version of events. Yes, it’s possible that this man DeVoy, or someone connected to him, sent the Rangel brothers and their friends to bring you back. In fact, that seems to be correct, based on what happened tonight with John and Tean. But it would be a mistake to assume that these events are completely separate from the murder.”
“Yesenia had those photos of trafficked animals in her room,” John-Henry said. “That means we’ve got an overlap, not a coincidence.”
“They were at the cat sanctuary,” Tean said slowly, trying to think his way through events. “And they weren’t looking for us, I don’t think. They seemed as surprised as we were.”
“Slightly less surprised, I’d think,” Emery said, “since they managed to hold you at gunpoint.”
Jem rolled his eyes and shot Emery the bird, but he said, “But we talked to Rod. Yesenia’s death is bad for his business. I mean, we both thought he was, well, telling the truth, I guess.”
“How scientific.”
