Jay is now mumbling in Spanish. Carl smirks. “Always the smartass.”
“Who’s the detective in charge?”
“Rollins.”
It’s a familiar name, a detective who worked on one of the recent murder cases I was handling right before my wedding. I shut him out then. He’s shutting me out now. I can respect a little tit for tat for about two seconds, and then I’m done. He’s had his two seconds. “Who’s dead?”
“You know Rollins,” he assumes. “And you’re going to keep your mouth shut about it?”
“I have nothing against Rollins. Yet. I haven’t worked with him.”
“He’s particular about things.”
“Okay. Who’s dead?”
“The victim’s name is Nathan Allen, Jr. He was twenty-one. He had a rich daddy who bought him this place several years back. His rich daddy is an engineer who invented something, I don’t know what the hell it was, but it made him lots of moolah. I don’t know how he knows any other potential victims. I don’t know anything about his mother, aside from she’s not married to his father. That’s it. That’s all I know so far. Oh, and apparently, he has at least a connection to NYU. We haven’t confirmed he’s enrolled yet.”
That means New York University around these parts, otherwise known as NYU because whoever comes up with abbreviations for colleges keeps it simple and not cunning. I’m already looking for connections. “And the other victims?”
“Depends on who you call the other victims.”
“You tell me?”
“We haven’t officially connected any case to another.”
“Who were the other victims?” I press.
His lips thin. “Assuming I know the cases you’re talking about, the victims are white and under thirty-five. Two were having sex with each other. Two, counting this one, were alone. Forced entry in one case. None in the other two, including this one, unless we find something that hasn’t been found yet to suggest otherwise. It’s a mish-mosh. It doesn’t piece together.”
“Damn how I hate a mish-mosh,” I say, “almost as much as I hate a tit for a tat.”
He blinks. “Did I tit for tat?”
“We all tit for tat.” And as for his mish-mosh, it’s not so mish-mosh. Jack Cox was right on his horror movie copycat, but I leave Jack out of the story for now. “Where’s the body?”
“Bedroom,” he says pointing down the hallway. “Why do they always have to kill them in the bedroom? It’s so damn personal.”
Which is the point, and we both know it, but I follow along. I can do that sometimes, no matter what most people say about me. “I know, right? There should be a murder book that tells these perverted killers the appropriate etiquette for such things. They obviously have none of their own.”
He chuckles. “Exactly.”
Someone calls his name from the back patio. He grunts and says, “I’ll be around if you need me.” His name is shouted out again and he backs up and walks through the dining room and outside, to what appears to be another garden.
“He seems nice,” Jay murmurs.
Nice.
He seems nice?
He is so not cut out for this world. I glance over at him. “This is a good time to talk to the voice in your head.”
“I don’t have voices in my head,” he objects.
“I do,” I say seriously. “Let them talk.”
I glance around the room and look for clues one more time, but everything is just so damn perfect, too perfect. I walk down the hallway, assuming Jay will follow because that’s what he does. Follow me around. Once I’m at the end of the hallway, there’s an entryway. I step under the archway. I take a moment to digest more black leather and extreme cleanliness and home in on one John Nguyen. He’s the ME on the case obviously and presently squatted over a body sprawled in the middle of the floor. John is a geeky, Opie-kind of character, with red hair, freckles, and a great-great-grandfather who gave him the Nguyen name. I gave him a hard time about the name thing, and he bristled all bullishly, and I respect that shit. I do. Embrace your family. Unless they’re mine. Or Kane’s. He seems to know his job too and avoids conflict. That works for me.
Jay steps to my side, looking at the victim. “And he’s naked.”
“As the day he was born,” I murmur, assuming there’s a message in his present state, one that eludes me, but niggles at my mind.
One of the forensics guys exits another room, the bathroom, I assume, his identity easily labeled by the “Forensics” imprint on his jumpsuit and baseball hat pulled down tight and low. John stands, huddling up with this newcomer who, like himself, is tall and thin. They chat a moment and then kneel beside the body, just outside the line of pooling blood, the forensics guy pointing at the victim’s body, acting like a detective not a tech.