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“That’s great, then.” Why are you bothering me with it? he almost asked. But he had a feeling the man would tell him anyway. Some people just had to talk. That’s what confessionals were for, but sometimes the nearest CSI would do just as well.

  “I just figured, you know, you’re investigating it too. So you ought to know.”

  “I’m a crime scene investigator, Mr. Easton. The detective is the one who’s trying to find Mr. Dunwood’s killer.”

  “Okay, understood,” Jamal said, nodding his big head. “I just wanted everyone to be in the same loop.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “I’ll wish you a good night then, sir. You let me know if you need anything else.”

  “I’ll do that.” Jamal Easton wandered off into the darkness beyond the hangar, and Greg went back to work, wondering if Jamal had some unstated motive for telling him all that.

  He started with an ultraviolet light, beaming it this way and that over the muffler. A couple of faint prints showed up, but nothing very clear beyond the patent prints he’d already found. Which meant getting out the dust. He picked a rich carbon black powder, to show up against the gray steel of the muffler. The wand he used was no brush at all, but a magnetic device that never actually touched the surface he was dusting. He concentrated his efforts around the hole that had been bored into the muffler, and on the black plastic tubing near the point of insertion, figuring that the killer would have had his hands all over them in those places.

  He was playing loud music in his head, trying to drown out the hum of Riley’s vacuum, when the drum part fell out of syncopation and he realized someone was knocking on the hangar door. He looked over and saw Patti Van Dyke smiling hesitantly at him.

  “Please don’t come in here,” Greg said. Another one? He shouldn’t have let Morston go on a lunch break, but he hadn’t thought the officer would be needed for a while.

  “Okay, but can I talk to you a minute, though? Can you come here?”

  Greg put down his supplies and walked over toward her. She still wore an uneasy smile. It looked like something she’d picked up at a discount store that didn’t quite fit on her face. “What is it, ma’am?”

  “If you don’t hang around airports, you don’t know the kind of drama we got going on in a place like this. Between pilots and ground crew and couch rats, we got a TV soap opera going on seven days a week. Even the TV soaps get weekends off, but weekends are when ours get really juicy.”

  “Are you saying that you think one of the airport people might have killed Jesse Dunwood?”

  “All I’m saying is that some of them aren’t too sorry he’s dead.”

  “I thought he was well liked.”

  “Well, in public that’s what we all say. We don’t like to air our dirty laundry. But it’s there just the same.”

  “If there’s something specific you know—”

  Patti barely let him get the words out. “Jesse and Jamal, they fought all the time.”

  It hadn’t sounded that way just minutes ago, when Jamal Easton was expressing his admiration for Dunwood. “You mean they argued?”

  “Well, usually. To put it mildly, I’d say. They got into real hollering matches sometimes. Ugly, vicious ones. Jesse made some racial comments about Jamal that we all thought were over the line, but he was a customer—one of the airport’s best customers—so there wasn’t much anybody felt like they could do about it. Then last week, or maybe, no, eight or ten days ago, I guess, they got into it for real.”

  “Physically?”

  “That’s what I’m saying. It started with shouting, then pushing. Finally they were all over each other and throwing punches. Jesse ended up knocking Jamal down. He kicked him a couple of times in the ribs, and said something like ‘You’re lucky I don’t kill you right here.’ He was kind of a bully, Jesse was. I had my hand on the phone, ready to call the cops if he tried to do anything more to Jamal. He backed off and we helped Jamal up, but he didn’t ever go to the hospital or anything. The bad blood passed after that, but they were never going to be friendly again, you could just tell.”

  As he had with Jamal, Greg asked if she had told Detective Williams her story. She assured him that she had, in great detail. Hearing that, Greg talked her into leaving so he could finish his work.

  The night was slipping away from him while he listened to airport gossip. He went back to the SUV to get a jacket, since the air was finally turning cool, and then returned to the airplane.

  While he worked, almost on autopilot, Greg had to keep reminding himself not to let his mind drift to the animal bones at the Empire construction site and the missing woman from the Palermo. Catherine was right, after all—Jesse Dunwood had been murdered and deserved his full attention. He wouldn’t do anybody any favors by letting his thoughts be scattered.

  His fingerprint powder revealed more faint impressions, but just a few. He photographed and lifted these as well, then started in on the engine canopy, where anyone would have to touch it to open it. He hoped Jamal Easton’s gloved hands hadn’t obscured anything important when he went inside the canopy and found the rigged muffler. Detective Williams had made sure that fingerprints had been taken from all the airport personnel on duty tonight. As always, those people were told they were bring printed for purposes of elimination. Sometimes it was even true, but the hope was always that they would all be used for elimination except the one set that wasn’t.

  “Hey, pal,” a scratchy voice called. Greg tried not to sigh audibly. Oh my God, please give me a break tonight. He turned and saw the disabled janitor, Benny Kracsinski, a few steps in from the doorway, leaning on a worn, chipped wooden cane. Hard for a janitor to get around with a cane, Greg guessed, since brooms and other cleaning tools often worked best with two hands.

  “Stay right there,” Greg said. Riley’s vacuum was still running. How was it that she never heard these interruptions? “I’ll come to you.”

  He did. Benny cocked his head, looking up at Greg with hooded eyes. His jaw was thick with silvery stubble. “I hope you find the bastard who did that to Jesse.”

  “I’m working on it,” Greg said. The hint was utterly lost on Benny.

  “Good, good. You find him, you put him away for a long time, okay?”

  “That’s the idea. Can I ask you—did you like Dunwood? A lot of people seem to have had some sort of difficulty with him.”

  “I got no problems with him myself. He was a rich guy, right? But he was always nice enough to those of us who aren’t so lucky. He always gave me a present at Christmas, you know, a bottle of something or maybe some kind of gadget. Most pilots fly out of here don’t know the cleaning staff exists, but Jesse, he paid attention to everyone.”

  “Was there anybody with a particular grudge against him, that you knew of?” Greg found himself asking, even though he knew the detective had covered this ground.

  Benny considered this for a moment. His fingers rubbing his chin made a sandpaper sound. “Lately, I’d have to say Stan Johnston.”

  “The tower controller?”

  “Yeah, Stan. He had borrowed some money from Jesse. I guess a lot of it, over the years. People don’t pay any attention to a guy cleaning toilets or sweeping floors, so I heard stuff. Jesse had reached the point where he didn’t think Stan ever meant to pay him back. He was trying to collect, even threatened to sue Stan. There were—well, let’s just say there were some angry words tossed back and forth.”

  “I see,” Greg said. “Did you tell all this to the detective?”

  “Maybe not in quite such detail,” Benny said.

  “It would be a good idea to call him up and fill him in,” Greg suggested. “I appreciate the tip, but you can’t hold back when you’re questioned.”

  “I understand. I ain’t saying it was Stan who did it, mind you. I just thought you oughtta know.”

  “I get it, Mr. Kracsinski. Thanks again.”

  Benny touched his forehead in a casual salute, then hobbled off into the dark, his c
ane tapping the ground every few paces.

  Greg waited until he was gone, then crossed the hangar and shut the door. He turned back toward the plane, thought better of it, and locked the door.

  Now, he thought, maybe I can get some work done.

  14

  THE INTERVIEW ROOM WAS nobody’s idea of a pleasant place to while away the hours. The walls and floor were all shades of gray and black; the table and chairs were gray. Nick supposed there were names for all the different shades—charcoal, slate, things like that—but at a certain point, gray was just gray, period. Everybody who walked in knew the big mirror on one wall was really a window, and anybody might be watching, unseen, from the other side. It was, to put it mildly, one of the most institutional-looking rooms Nick had ever spent time in. Even the designers of mental hospitals tried harder to lighten the mood.

  Which was precisely the point. The room was meant to make suspects uncomfortable, to keep them unsettled. Like right now. Nick sat across from Will Penfold, who fidgeted and squirmed as if his chair had been set on fire. Penfold had deeply tanned skin, his left arm a veritable skin cancer petri dish, thanks to what appeared to be a lifelong habit of hanging it out the window as he drove his beer truck. His hair was cropped short and tattoos spilled from his neck and across his shoulders. He scratched at his goatee from time to time, as if insects had settled there. He hadn’t been charged with anything, and he hadn’t called, or asked for, an attorney. Nick was happy to leave it that way, for now.

  “I understand you hired Deke Freeson to do some investigative work,” Nick began.

  “That’s right. Biggest waste of money in my life.” He chuckled dryly. “And believe me, I’ve got a lot of competition for that. I tried to stop payment on my retainer check, but he’d already cashed it.”

  “I hear you,” Nick said. “What was your problem with him? If you don’t mind me asking.” It couldn’t hurt to act like Penfold’s friend, to try to work gently through his natural defenses.

  Penfold put his hands flat on the smooth tabletop and pressed, as if trying to push the table legs through the floor. “Unless I missed something, when you hire a private detective, that guy is supposed to work for you, right?”

  “That’s generally the case,” Nick said. “Is that not what happened?”

  “No-oo,” Penfold said. He was clearly still angry about his experience with Freeson. “That is not what happened,” he said, imitating Nick. Maybe he’s lucky Freeson didn’t shoot him, if this is his usual way of relating to other people. Then again, maybe he’s just a better shot than Freeson.

  “Tell me about it, then.”

  “Okay, whatever. I had this brilliant idea. Once in a lifetime brilliant, you feel me?”

  Nick managed to hide his laugh with a forced cough. “This is the beer underpants idea?”

  “Beer-flavored underwear,” Penfold corrected. “For men or women, and not just underpants. Thongs, bras, boxers, briefs, everything.”

  “I… I guess I’m missing something. Why?”

  “Who doesn’t love beer, dawg? Right? And face facts—you know how much women love it when a guy rips their pants off with his teeth?”

  Penfold paused. He really did expect an answer.

  “I guess maybe I’ve heard that.”

  “Trust me, man. They do. Start ‘em off like that and you really get ’em revved up.”

  “Okay.”

  “And plus while you’re at it, maybe you’ll give them some attention, right? They like that, too. And if everything tastes like beer, what dude’s not gonna dive right in? It works the other way, too, because chicks like beer as much as some dudes do.”

  “And you know this because of your professional experience in the malt beverage industry.”

  “Because I drive a beer truck, yeah. You wouldn’t believe how many chicks honk and wave. Some of ‘em even flash me on the highway. They love the suds, bro.”

  “Okay, so you had this idea.” Nick still didn’t think much of the idea, even after the impassioned description of it. “Then what happened?”

  “I drive a beer truck, dude. I don’t know jack about product development and marketing and all that crap. But I know this guy, Abner Klein.”

  “And Abner knows about those things?”

  “I thought he did. He’s this screen printer, right, does apparel for some of the big casinos and other clients. I mean big national clients. You see a T-shirt or hoodie with the Lucky Dragon or the Romanov logo on it, Abner made that. So I figure, dude knows the apparel business. He’ll know who to pitch the beer underwear idea to and how to go about it. Someone will buy it and then we’ll both be set for life. Sweet, huh?”

  “Sweet,” Nick agreed. “So what happened?”

  “What happened was that Abner screwed me.”

  “Screwed you how? Hey, you want a soda or something?”

  “You got a brew?”

  “I’ll get you a soda. Hang tight.” Nick let himself out of the interview room and went to fetch a bottled soda and a straw. Most people didn’t use a straw for a bottle or a can, and as a beer connoisseur, he doubted that Penfold would. But he might be more likely to use one with a bottle than a can. If he did use the straw, he would leave DNA on it, which maybe could be matched to DNA found in the motel room. Even if he didn’t, he might leave some on the bottle, and he would definitely leave fingerprints all over both the bottle and the table. Since Nick was trying to get his cooperation, acquiring prints and DNA surreptitiously might help advance his cause more than asking for them outright.

  Returning to the gray-on-gray room, Nick set the bottle down on the table, just far enough away that Penfold had to rise up out of his seat and reach for it. Just to make him a little more off balance. He had been the guy’s pal and all he got was an extended riff about beer underwear. Time to turn things up a notch. He had also carried in a field kit, which he put on the floor beside his own chair, where Penfold couldn’t get a good look at it. “Let’s get real here, Penfold,” he said. “You went to this guy Abner because you didn’t know squat about how to develop your idea. And Abner cheated you, right?”

  “I thought he was cheating me, man.” Penfold sat back down, took a sip through the straw, then left the bottle on the table and placed his hands in his lap. His whole demeanor was different now, his shoulders slumped, his gaze downcast. He moved his eyes to look up at Nick, but not his head. “I thought he was going to partner with me, but instead I heard back from a couple of buddies that he was taking the idea to apparel manufacturers and claiming it as his own. I had put up half the dough to get some prototypes made, and if he was ripping me off, I had to know.”

  “So you hired Freeson.”

  “That’s right. He was supposed to find out if Abner was straight up or not.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I heard from these same buddies that Freeson had probably gone into business with Abner. He kept not being able to find anything out, he said. He talked to some of the people Abner did, but he claimed Abner was making people sign those, whatever, nondisclosive agreements before he would tell them the idea, so without a court order they wouldn’t talk to him. Seemed suspicious as hell to me.”

  “Nondisclosure,” Nick said.

  “What?”

  “It’s called a nondisclosure agreement, not nondisclosive. And it’s a standard business practice.”

  “It is?”

  “Absolutely. Freeson was telling you the truth.”

  “He was?”

  “Sounds like it to me. The conversations Abner was having were legally proprietary. If people had described their conversations with Abner to Freeson, they would have been breaking binding legal contracts.”

  “No way.”

  “That’s right. Did you ever just ask Abner?”

  “My buddies told me he would just lie to me if he was really pulling something.”

  “Sounds like your buddies are idiots.”

  “Some of ’em, yeah.”


  “But you listened to them.”

  “Dawg, that’s what bros are for. To have each other’s backs.”

  “Right. Did these bros have any way of knowing that what they were claiming was true?”

  “Just… you know, they’re dudes who have been around. Maybe they were just telling me what they thought Abner was up to. But they said it like they knew.”

  “Right,” Nick said again. “So they were guessing, and you believed them.”

  Penfold looked like someone had killed his dog. “You think Abner was on the up-and-up?”

  “I don’t see any reason not to.”

  “Even though he never brought in an offer?”

  “I’d be more surprised to hear that he did get an offer.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “That’s harsh, dawg.”

  “Just being honest with you, Will.” Nick opened his field kit, took out a color glossy, and dropped it on the table. Freeson could be recognized in the photo in spite of the hole in his face, but Nick was pretty sure the hole would make the biggest impression. He dropped it faceup on the table in front of Penfold. “You killed Deke Freeson for no reason.”

  Penfold grabbed the edge of the table in both hands, his eyes suddenly the size of small balloons. He turned away from the photograph. “Killed? No way, dude. No way.”

  “You didn’t break into a motel room and shoot him, that what you’re telling me?”

  “Man… okay, fine. I tried to hit him once, at his office. I landed a punch and just about pissed myself. That girl, Camille, his secretary or whatever, she saw it happen. I thought I would die of shame.”

  “She thought you were pretty mad.”

  “I was. I was goddamned furious. But I couldn’t even get in a decent shot. My fist hit his, I don’t know, his shoulder or something. I felt it all the way up my arm. That night I had to drink myself to sleep. No way could I cap a guy.”

  “Where were you earlier tonight?”

  “Making deliveries. I was in the truck until nine.”

  “Plenty of people see you?”

  “People at every store I stopped at. Plus it’s all in my log, and stored on the GPS in my truck.”