Bloody Genius (Virgil Flowers, #12)(48)

“We don’t know. We need to know about what happened to Foster. He’s part of that clusterfuck going on at the U, between Quill and Katherine Green.”

“I know, the culture professor. We asked him about that and came up empty,” Bryan said. “Right now, we’re treating it as a strong-arm robbery attempt, but there are some problems.”

“Like what?”

“Probably nothing you haven’t thought of. Ambush in a remote spot in a well-lit neighborhood. Unless he was scouting Foster, the asshole could have stood behind the garage all night and not seen anyone go by. And he was serious about this thing. If the guy in the backyard hadn’t yelled at him, I think Foster might be dead. But, you get all sorts. We pushed Foster on who might have it in for him. He couldn’t think of anyone, and he looked to me like he was telling the truth. Said there was no reason any of Professor Quill’s people would come after him, none he could think of. That’s the only recent hassle he’d been involved in, and he wasn’t much involved.”

“Drugs?”

“They did the whole bloodwork drill at the hospital and he was absolutely clean.”

“Women?”

“He says no. An on-and-off thing, nothing serious.”

“Money? Gambling?”

Bryan was shaking his head. “None of that—at least, not that he’d admit to. We talked to friends of his and they said he’s a quiet, routine guy. Likes a beer or two, or three, but doesn’t need it. Not yet anyway. That’s why we still have it as a strong-arm job—there doesn’t seem to be any other motive. We even asked if it might go back to his military service, but he doesn’t think so. He was an intelligence officer, got shot once, but he wasn’t a guy ordering anyone into combat or kicking anyone’s ass. He spent most of his time in an office. He got wounded sitting in a truck.”

Virgil said, “Wait a minute . . . He was an intelligence officer? I got the impression that he was an enlisted man . . . a sergeant or something.”

“Nope. He was a captain. You think that might be important?”

“I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Odd that he didn’t say something. I was a captain myself, and I mentioned that when I talked to him. That’ll usually bring on a few minutes of Old Home Week. You know, where were you, what’d you do, who’d you know, all of that.”

“He’s a quiet guy,” Bryan said. “He was over there for a quite a while . . . Maybe a little PTSD? Doesn’t like to talk about it?”

Trane asked, “That aside, you got anything?”

“We got zip,” Bryan said.

“Exactly what we got on the Quill case,” Trane said. “There’s an uninteresting coincidence.”



* * *



—

Outside again, Trane said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m gonna go poke around Foster again,” Virgil said. “There’s something there. Best case, I find out who killed Quill. Average case, I catch a mugger. Worst case, I get what Bryan got.”

“Which is zip.”



* * *



—

Trane was parked in a no-parking zone a block in front of Virgil. Virgil got to his car before Trane got to hers and he watched her walking away, down the street, now talking on her cell phone, her free arm waving over her head. She was arguing with someone, and the argument looked hot. He started his car, rolled up the street, and Trane turned, saw him, and flagged him down. A moment later, she was off her phone and had walked back to him. Virgil rolled down his window.

“You won’t believe what just happened,” she said.

“Green confessed?”

“Worse. Fifty-four days ago I busted a guy for an assault for a fight, the details not being important because we had him, cold, with a bar full of witnesses. Guess how I know it was exactly fifty-four days ago?”

“Ah, maybe because of the sixty-day speedy trial law?”

“You got it. He filed for a speedy trial the day we arrested him, and the paperwork got lost. Somebody finally woke up in the county attorney’s office and asked what happened with the Logan trial,” she said. “After some major clusterfuckery, they managed to schedule a trial on day fifty-nine out of sixty, royally pissing off the judge, but I’ve had no prep at all. I didn’t even know about the speedy trial request. Anyway, I’m getting prepped for the next couple days, and then I’ve got to be there for the trial.”

“You’re telling me that I’m on my own,” Virgil said.

Trane tipped back her head and closed her eyes. “Yeah, goddamnit. You could probably ask for more help, but you’re doing pretty good, and you know the Cities. Keep your nose to the grindstone and your feet on the fence and your ears to the ground. I’ll be back in a couple of days. Maybe three. Or four.”

“That’s so—” Virgil said.

“What can I tell you?”

“You’d think—”

“Yeah. You would,” Trane said. “Anyway . . .”

“I’ll try to make you proud.”

“Do that, cowboy.”





CHAPTER





TWELVE