“Mixing pepperoni with pineapple is a sin against nature,” Octavian said with a frown.
“No way, dude. It’s, like, diversity.”
“Segregation was wrong, but I might make an exception for such a travesty of the taste buds.”
Albert plopped down a class schedule.
“After we eat, I need to ask you what I should take next term.”
I picked up the list of classes and leafed through it. Besides the typical ones I was familiar with like economics and biology, there were strange ones I had never heard of, like Exobiology and Intersectional Justice Studies. I had no idea what exobiology was. Justice Studies was probably something to do with law enforcement, but what did “intersectional” mean? Maybe bringing all the forces together to cooperate? That would be good. The FBI, CIA, DoD, ATF, and all the other acronyms were too territorial, not wanting to share intelligence with each other in case another bureau nabbed the bad guys and got all the credit.
I put the class catalog down and decided to get down to business.
“I heard you work at SerMart.”
Albert rolled his eyes in a good imitation of my grandson, who was ten years younger.
“Way boring place. Totally corporate. Except yesterday! Some dead dude fell off the shelves and straight into some little old lady’s shopping cart. She screamed so loud everyone thought she was getting murdered. She even peed herself.” Albert looked at me. “Oh wait… didn’t you say you had a body in your shopping cart? Wait. That was you?”
Albert may have been off pot, but he was still a bit slow on the uptake.
“Young man, I did not pee myself.”
“Glad to hear it,” Octavian said.
Albert looked from me to Octavian and back again.
“So… um, this pizza isn’t free, is it?”
“Not exactly, no.” I admitted. “Can you tell me if you’ve seen anything unusual going on at SerMart?”
“Besides the flying drones that never shut up and all the weird rules?”
“Yes, besides those.”
Albert shrugged. “Nothing that I’ve seen. I mean, everyone hates it there, but why kill a dude? I heard he was up on the shelves and came falling down. I sure didn’t see any dead bodies when I was up there, and I had the late shift, midnight to six a.m.”
I put down my coffee. “Wait, you were there the night of the murder?”
“Totally.”
“I reviewed the camera footage for that shift and looked closely at every face. I didn’t see you there.”
“Really? Maybe you need to get your prescription checked.”
“My prescription is just fine. Did you go up to the catwalk from the door in the back room?”
“Yeah. That’s the only way to get up there, except for the freight elevator, but mostly the loading dock crew just fills the elevator with stuff and we take it out up top.”
Octavian scratched his head, which was still attractively covered with a full mop of hair. Gray, of course, but at least not bald.
“And you’re not on the video? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does if someone altered the video,” I said.
“It looks like we have a very clever murderer to find,” Octavian said.
“What do you mean ‘we’?”
Octavian grinned, showing a set of well-preserved teeth. “Well, I can’t let my life get boring, can I?”
Seven
Police Chief Arnold Grimal did not look happy to see me. That was normal. If he ever looked happy to see me, I knew to be on my guard because he was cooking something up in that little pea brain of his.
His desk was strewn with paperwork and Chinese takeaway boxes. As I came in, he was just finishing off some lemon chicken, wielding his chopsticks with the dexterity of a Shaolin monk.
At least he was good at something.
“Crack the case yet?” I asked. That was me cracking a joke.
His eyes hooded, and he looked into the depths of his takeaway box.
“We’re following several leads,” he mumbled.
“Such as?” I asked, sitting down. He hadn’t invited me to sit, which is why I sat. It was good to remind him who was boss.
“The servants. He had several, and two of them, the cook and the butler, slept at his house in the servants’ quarters. They had opportunity and motive. We had his accountant come in and go through his collection. One of his prize gemstones is missing.”
“Which one?”
“Something called the Volcano Stone of Panama. Apparently it’s worth a cool million bucks. I knew robbery was the motive.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Grimal tossed his chopsticks into the takeaway box with an angry gesture, making some lemon sauce fly out and hit his lapel. It blended with the yellow suit and was barely noticeable. Maybe that’s why he wore yellow suits.
“Oh, come on! Someone takes a million-dollar opal, and you say robbery wasn’t the motive?”
“A fire opal,” I corrected, “and robbery obviously wasn’t the motive, or at least not the primary motive. You didn’t mention anything else missing.”
Pause. “No. That was the only thing that was stolen.”
“Where was the fire opal kept?”
“In a display case. Bulletproof glass, security alarm. Someone obviously had the key.”
Or knew how to hack a security system, like I did.
“Anything else in the display case?”
“A bunch of other gemstones.”
“Bingo. And they were all still there, weren’t they?”
“Well, yes, but they were less valuable. Maybe someone was commissioned to steal only that stone. It happens with art thieves.”
“Art is easier to trace. Unscrupulous collectors who want a particular work of art will commission thieves to steal it and then keep it hidden in their private residence. You can always cut gemstones to make them impossible to recognize. I doubt a thief would pass by some valuable stones when they would only take a few seconds to grab. Even if they were commissioned to take the fire opal, why not steal some more stones to add to their profits and make it less obvious that the Volcano Stone was the target? Any signs of violence in the house?”
“Yes, we found traces of blood in his bathroom. It’s a private bathroom off the master bedroom. The
