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“Whoa.You okay?”
“Sorry,” she said, feeling a foul taste in her mouth.“It’s those pills – giving me trippy dreams.”
“You shoulda got Effy themassoosto take a look at your shoulder.”
“I think Effy only specializes in one muscle.”
Marcus gazed at her, open-mouthed.“Vee.I’m shocked.”
“I told you.It’s the pills.”
“Maybe let me do the talking at the crime scene, huh?”
“Might be wise.Oh.I never told you what name he used.Sullivan.”
“Go on.”
“Donald Reagan.”
Marcus laughed.
“I like your laugh,” Kate said.“Cheryl is lucky to have found someone who laughs as much as you do.”
There was an odd pause.“Thanks,” said Marcus.
“That came out a bit weird,” Kate said.“Sorry, it’s-”
“Those pills,” Marcus finished off the sentence.But he didn’t say anything else.Kate sat in silence, too, and cursed herself.
What’s the matter with me?
Two huge trucks thundered past in the rain.After they’d roared and hissed out of sight, Kate realized the navy-blue night was growing lighter at the horizon.
“How much do we know about the victim?”Marcus asked suddenly.
“Professor Alan Benedict Paul Whitman,” Kate summoned the file on her tablet, gladly accepting his rescue attempt.“Born in Boston in 1977, making him forty-eight.Married to Laura Nardone, two daughters together, eight and eleven.He became a Professor of Religion when he was twenty-nine, making him one of the world’s youngest.”
“Isn’t it usually some ten-year-old from China?”
“In Math, yeah.Not so common in the Humanities.He’s studied at Yale, Harvard, and Oxford.A transatlantic celebrity academic.He’s good-looking.Cosmopolitanmagazine called him ‘Doctor Fox.’He’s great value on podcasts and TV: breaks it all down to bitesize, jokes a lot.”
“I hate him already.”
“Well, someone really did.”
They were silent for a while.
“His latest book’s called Fundamental Folly: The Danger of Religion’s Renewal.”
“Sounds like one for the beach,” Marcus said, sardonically.He spotted the turn for Brantley and pulled left with ease.
Shivering the cold early morning air, they suited up in the parking lot, alarming a couple of students returning, unsteadily, from an all-nighter.Manning the block in which the murder had taken place, meanwhile, was a portly campus security guard, who’d either retired from the local PD, or tried several times, unsuccessfully, to join it.He eyed both agents suspiciously, examining their IDs with excessive thoroughness.
“Elevator’s out of action,” he said, with a certain degree of satisfaction.“Can’t open the doors.Waiting for an engineer.”
Kate nodded in thanks.“When the engineer comes, make sure they’re suited and gloved, and they make minimal contact with the interior of the car.The killer could have used it, so it’s a part of the crime scene.”
“Ten-four,” said the guard.“Fourth floor,” he called after them, as they went up the stairs.
