Bloody Genius (Virgil Flowers, #12)(54)

“I detected a tiny bit of sarcasm there,” Virgil said. “Anyway, I want you to listen to a recording and tell me if you recognize any voices.”

“Hit me,” she said.

Virgil played the recording. She listened, gaped at Virgil, and said, “Let me hear it again.”

Virgil played it again, and when it was done she said, “Holy . . . shit . . .”

“Recognize anybody?”

“Only Dr. Quill. I don’t recognize the others,” she said.

“That’s Quill? Which one exactly?”

“The one that was pushing for the op. Man, that freaks me out. If they went ahead and did it, that’d be worth killing to cover up. I don’t care who they were, how big a shots. If they did it and that recording gets played, their careers are over.”

“If it doesn’t get out?”

“Well, then, nothing happened . . . And Dr. Quill is dead,” she said. “Has anybody else heard it?”

“Actually, we think it must be a rerecording. This could be a third-or fourth-generation recording.”

“Blackmail,” she said. “You know what? That could be years old. There’s no way to know what they’re talking about”—she looked over her shoulder as if she were frightened—“but if that recording gets out and it’s about something recent, the university will go through this lab with a flamethrower. There won’t be anybody left. I gotta get out of here. Before it’s too late.”

“Really?”

“Really. That’s some bad juju, fuckin’ Flowers. That’s a fuckin’ A-bomb.”



* * *



—

Virgil left the lab, walked down the hall to the elevators, took one down to the street, went outside, called Trane again. When she answered her phone, he said, “We got a problem.”

“Uh-oh. Did you screw something up?”

“Not exactly. I talked to one of the women in the lab about the recording. It scared her. She said that the bad guy was definitely Quill, which is too bad because I was beginning to like him. She seemed sure of it, but Nancy Quill said it wasn’t him.”

“Goddamnit. They’ve been rehearsing me all afternoon, treating me like a moron, and I was so frustrated and pissed that I was going to go home and eat an entire pie, but now I have to meet up with you and push Nancy Quill up against a wall.”

“You wanna be the bad cop?”

“If she lied to me, I’ll be the bad cop whether I want to be or not because I’ll be mondo pisso,” Trane said. “I’ll meet you there. Like, right now.”



* * *



—

Virgil found his way back to Nancy Quill’s condo, spotted Trane parked on the street in a no-parking zone. Virgil rolled up behind her, put his BCA sign in the window, and got out.

“One good thing about this: if she lied, we might be onto something,” Virgil said, as Trane got out of her car.

“I realized that on the way over,” Trane said. “It eased the pain. But I’m still going to eat that pie.”

“What kind?”

“Apple. I’ll warm it up.”

“Vanilla ice cream?”

“It ain’t warm apple pie if there’s no vanilla ice cream.”



* * *



—

Quill buzzed them through the entry door. They took the elevator up and found Quill waiting in the hall outside her condo.

“What’s going on?” Quill asked. “Did you get him?”

“No,” Trane said. “Let’s sit down.”

“What?” Quill asked, as she backed into her front room. Virgil pulled the door closed, and they sat in separate easy chairs facing one another.

Trane said, “Agent Flowers believes there’s a problem with the statement you gave to me about the recording I played for you.”

Quill had been lying all right, Virgil thought. When Trane made the comment, he could see the pupils of Quill’s eyes contract, the way they do when somebody’s lying to your face. Trane saw it, too.

Virgil said, “Several people who knew your husband quite well said there’s no doubt that it’s his voice on the recording. We’re wondering why you said it wasn’t.”

Quill recoiled, said, “I did not—”

Trane said, “Nancy, you can tell us you want a lawyer and kick us out or you can tell us the truth, but you can’t lie to us without serious consequences. You’re about to lie to us. Don’t lie. We can both see it because you’re no good at it.”

After a moment, and with considerable frost in her voice, Quill said, “I have to make a phone call.”

Virgil: “Go ahead.”



* * *



—

Quill went back to a bedroom and shut the door. After a moment of silence, Trane said, “If we hear a gunshot, I’m making a run for it.”

“You know her better than I do. She’s smart, right?”

“Yes. She’s an associate professor of linguistics.”

“When you played the recording for her, I’ll bet it meant something more than Barth Quill’s voice. Either she knew the other people on the recording or she knows the case they were talking about . . . or . . . something else that I can’t think of.”