"Not exactly. I finished up a few smaller investigations, but I'm still working on that case with the missing man. The bank is only about an hour and a half from here, so when I needed a break, I decided to take you up on your offer," he says.
"The same case? You mean the guy with the strange bank account? He disappeared, and then you found out he's married to some woman who nobody knew existed?" I ask.
"That's the one."
"That's a long investigation. Have you found out anything?"
"Not for a while. It was just the same information, the same video feeds. Nothing new. We haven't been able to track anything or get any clue what might have happened. But then it started getting more complicated."
"What happened?" I ask.
"His wife showed up at the bank," he explains.
That wasn't what I was expecting when he said it was getting more complicated.
"His wife? She just walked into the bank? Where was he?" I ask.
"No one knows. She went up to a teller and asked to check the balance. Then she spent less than three minutes with a safe deposit box and left."
"What was she doing with the safe deposit box?" I ask.
Dean shrugs. "They don't know. There are cameras outside the vault that monitor who actually goes in to access the boxes, but none in the room with them. It's considered a privacy issue. They are personal boxes, so they don't monitor the contents."
"That seems bizarrely trusting."
"One thing you would learn quickly if you became a private investigator is that the world becomes extremely trusting when you have money," he says.
"The Bureau taught me that just fine," I assure him. "Money has an annoying habit of making some people shady as hell, yet no one wants to question them. It makes for some bad stuff. Anyway, what else? Have you been able to contact him or anything?"
"No. Everybody is still trying to get in touch with him. They even called his wife, but she didn't answer. No surprise there, though. She has no documentation, no history, nothing I can find. I would have thought she was fictional after all if she hadn’t actually shown up in person and produced ID."
"And no one thought to ask her about her missing husband? This previously unseen woman just comes wandering into the bank on an apparent checkup mission, and it doesn't cross anyone's mind to beckon her off to the side and ask where the hell her husband has been for the last several months?"
"What do you think she was going to say? 'I'm sorry he hasn't been around recently; he's just been too busy living his secret double life'?"
"Unless she killed him," I point out.
"Is that always where your mind goes first?" he asks.
I scoff. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. It's just my personal experience with you that your mind goes to murder a little faster than it might for other people," he says.
"Well, considering you and I met on a train studded with corpses while I was still trying to escape a serial killer trying to destroy me and everyone around me, I think your perception might be skewed."
"That's a fair point. But in this situation, you might be jumping to conclusions. There is no evidence to point to her murdering him,” Dean says.
“Except for the fact that nobody has heard from him or seen him in months and months now. And she just randomly shows up for a couple of suspicious bank errands?” I ask.
“That doesn't mean she killed him,” he argues.
“I mean, think about it,” I point out. “If Sam goes mysteriously missing one day, and I show up a few weeks later and clean out all his bank accounts and then go off the grid, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to presume I probably killed him.”
“It could be blackmail, couldn’t it?”
“It could be. But if I had to go to all that trouble to blackmail Sam, wouldn’t it make more sense to just kill him?”
Just at that moment, the door opens, and Sam walks in, an inscrutable expression on his face.
Chapter Five
“I wish I could say it surprises me that this is the kind of conversation I would walk in on the two of you having, but it doesn't,” he sighs with a bemused grin. “You Griffins are the worst.”
“Hey, honey,” I say. “I promise I won’t kill you. There's another pizza for you in the kitchen. Mushrooms, onions, and bacon.”
“My favorites,” he smiles, leaning down and dropping a kiss to the top of my head. “Hey, Dean.”
Dean stands up, and they clasp hands and pound each other on the back.
“Good to see you,” Dean says. “I decided to surprise my cousin here with a visit.”
"Good to see you, too. You going to be hanging out for a while?" Sam asks.
"I haven't decided for sure how long, but it should be for a few days. Emma hasn't told me when she'll kick me out."
"Well, as of right now, I'm not working on a case actively. Eric has me consulting for one of his minor investigations, but it isn't much. So, I'm kind of floating with the wind right now. "
"I'm going to grab some pizza," Sam announces. “Can you at least wait to murder-slash-blackmail me until I’ve eaten?” He heads into the kitchen, barely hiding his laughter.
"So, that's why you're looking for murder," Dean turns to me.
"I'm not looking for murder," I insist.
It's not the first time I've had someone accuse me of that recently, and unfortunately, I'm certain it's not the last time it's going to happen. Some people search for love or fortune. Apparently, I search for brutal crimes. At least, that's how the people closest to me perceive me. In some contexts, they seem to think it's a compliment about my devotion to my career. But no matter what
