door. Samusaka had to find out what I knew.
I pushed through. My eyes took in the well-lit grounds. The walkways branched and merged into a meandering network of stone paths. Manicured hedges and fountains; stone walls and wrought iron railings; the air scented by flowers. I headed for the main house, my shoes clacking on stone.
The door was open, Miss Paulina standing guard, arms crossed over a blue dress, eyes staring down the length of her nose. “You again?”
I came up the steps. “Where is he?”
“In the study.” She held out a hand like an usher.
“I know the way.” I breezed past her into the foyer, got a few steps down the hall before turning back to face her. “I’ll take a brandy. Make it a twenty-year.” I was off before she could respond. Might as well act the part from the get-go.
I moved down the hall, then through the study’s entrance. He sat at the desk, white dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled up, eyes sharp like monitor claws. I strode to the desk and took the seat across from him. Opened with a bluff. “You’ve been a naughty boy.”
He bared teeth. “What did my son tell you?”
“Everything.” My face was straight like a piece of rebar. Time to beat him with it. “Kid found your dirty little secret right here in this study. He ransacked this room until he found it, then made it look like somebody broke in. Kid’s been naming his own allowance ever since.”
Color leaked from his cheeks and pooled into a flushing triangle between his collar points and under his Adam’s apple. “What do you want?”
Gotcha, asshole. “Truth.”
“Or else?”
“Or your dirty secret doesn’t stay secret.”
His shoulders rode high, like every muscle in his body was tensed. “You want money?”
I shook my head. “I want answers.”
He threw up his hands. “Ask your damn questions.” Bluffed into folding. Game over.
I kept signs of victory off my rebar face. “You know your eldest son was murdered, don’t you?”
He stayed silent, giving me a big spoonful of that hostile glare. I knew his type. Controlling. Domineering. I knew how he’d treated his wife the last time I was here, making her stand a step behind him. Prick was used to treating people like property.
A knock came on the door. Miss Paulina entered, brandy snifter in hand. She carried the glass to me and silently hurried out.
I sucked in a sip, swished it around in my mouth, tongue wrapped in flavor and the tingle of alcohol. I swallowed it down and set the glass on his desk. One sip was enough. Gave me a perverse satisfaction to know the busybody housekeeper would have to pour the rest down the drain.
“Murder. Killer cut your son’s dick off.”
He didn’t flinch. “I know what happened to my son.”
“Why did the police report it as an OD?”
“They wanted to save our family from the embarrassment.”
“Telling the public your son doped himself to death isn’t embarrassing?”
His granite face didn’t budge.
“Detectives Wu and Froelich handled your son’s case, correct?”
He nodded that rock on top of his neck.
“How much did you pay them?”
“Enough.”
“You know they’re both dead. They suffered the same fate as your son.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Did you know them before your son’s murder?”
“No.”
“But they knew your son.”
“They did.”
“How?”
“They were business partners.”
“What kind of business?”
“I stayed out of my son’s affairs.”
These bare-minimum answers were pissing me off. Didn’t he realize he’d lost? I’d bluffed him into folding, and now it was time he paid up. I wanted to crank up the pressure, use my leverage, but I still had no idea what his youngest son had found in this room, what he was dangling over his father’s head, what had turned this take- charge alpha dad into a whipped cash register. I didn’t know.
He moved up in his chair. “Are we done?”
I screwed up my face. “No, we’re not fucking done. Your son was murdered, and I’m trying to catch his killer. Now why won’t you help me?”
“I’ve told you everything I know.” He pushed a button on his desk. “Paulina will see you out.”
I stayed where I was, my brain struggling to comprehend why this blackmail angle wasn’t scoring shit. If it worked for his son, why didn’t it work for me?
Her voice came from the door. “Right this way, sir.” She’d shown up fast. Too fast. Damn woman must’ve been eavesdropping again.
I couldn’t make sense of why he was shutting me out. I looked into his eyes, closed windows staring back. I gave it one more incredulous shot. “What the hell is your problem? You telling me you’d rather I go public with what I know than help me catch your son’s killer?”
The lights went out behind his closed-window eyes. “Good-bye, sir.”
Twenty-four
Deluski came strutting up, a small grin on his face. Kid was feeling pretty good about himself, finally pinning down that lizard. He could be a detective one day. A good one.
“Any luck with Samusaka?”
I fell into step alongside him. “No. He didn’t say anything useful.”
“Did you threaten to expose his kid’s blackmail scheme?”
“He still didn’t talk.”
We turned left, into the university campus: boxy concrete structures, moss-covered walls, and rusted window frames.
Deluski pointed straight ahead. “Biology department should be up there. He’s hiding something, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, and whatever it is, it must be bigger than what his kid has on him. He tried to buy me off, but when I wouldn’t bite, he just shut down.”
We crossed a footbridge-foul-smelling canal water running underneath-and veered right, BIOLOGY painted over a door. Inside, we took the stairs up two flights, then down a short hall and in through a glass door to a lab with cages and terrariums, and white-coated techs with goggles.
A young man stepped forward. “Can I help you?”
Deluski flashed his shield. “We want to talk to whoever’s in charge.”
“That would be Dr. Stark. Wait here. I’ll see if I can locate her.”
We stayed put, eyes scanning across the glass enclosures, where iguanas-and tuataras and geckos, skinks and chameleons-perched on dead branches, and salamanders parked on leaves. It was feeding time, a lab tech moving down the line, pouring beetles from a coffee can.
“I’m Dr. Stark,” said a tall, ponytailed woman with a horsey smile. “How can I help you?”
“We’re interested in your stripe-faced man-eaters.”
