He hesitated and then gave her the name of a local legal counsel that she was familiar with.
“Your own personal lawyer?”
“My family’s.”
His pompous tone made her eyebrows go up. “Perfect. I’ll give him a call. Thank you.” And, with that, she hung up. Rodney happened to look over at her. She shrugged. “He pulled the lawyer card.”
“Interesting. You bringing him in for questioning?”
“We’ll see. He gave the same answers to the same questions as before. Thus, so far, nothing necessarily to get antsy about, but he’s definitely hiding something.”
“He’s a kid. He’s in college, away from the folks. Who the hell knows what shit he’s up to?”
“Exactly, and it is what it is.”
“It’s probably more than that, but it’s probably not criminal.”
“Maybe. You know what? The quiet young woman was the weakest link.” She thought about that for a moment. “I think I’ll go to the university and talk to her myself.”
“Not call?”
“No, if anything’s there, she’s the one who’ll spit it out.”
“Do you want me to come?”
She laughed. “No, it’s all good. I’ll go take a look. I want to return to that scene anyway.” He frowned at that. “You can come if you want. It’s really not a big deal. I just want to double-check something.”
“You’re trying to catch her in a lie?”
“I want to find out what the hell she’s hiding. That’s the part that bugs me. And I want to do a search on this other guy and see what the hell’s going on in his world that requires lawyers primed for his phone calls.”
“What do you want to bet the kid’s got a record?”
“You’re right. That’s something else I need to do—pull all these names, everybody on that witness list. We need to run their names through the database and see if anything pops.”
“Why don’t you run up to the university and talk to her, and, while you’re doing that, I’ll input everything here and see if we can come up with anything interesting.”
“That would be great. Thank you. And add that kid who came in and confessed.”
He nodded and added Matt Powell’s name to the list. “Okay, give me an hour and check back in,” he said.
With that, she walked out of the station and headed for the university. At least she had something concrete to do, and sometimes getting away from the computer and talking to people through legwork, the good old-fashioned style of police work, was still the best way to go. She hoped it made something pop. No guarantee, but she was running out of time.
*
Simon made itthrough most of the rest of his day with absolutely none of the enhanced sense of smell symptoms he had experienced the day before. He even stood at the harbor and spent a long time just inhaling the sea air, wondering at the absolute lack of saltiness. It made no sense that yesterday he would be so hypersensitive and that today it would be so bland. Not really caring either way, he was just a little perturbed at the quirkiness of his “gift” when so much else was going on in his world. Still, he was grateful to not be connected with the crazy psychic scenarios he’d been through twice with Kate and her cases.
He walked to the market, picked up an apple, and, since they had fresh coffee, grabbed one of those too. Back outside he wandered along until he found a bench, where he sat down and just watched the world go by, as he enjoyed a snack. He rotated his shoulders, gently easing back the stress. It was one of those days where he was dealing with multiple people, usually with problems associated with his rehabs. As much as Simon could be a people person, he also found that it used up a lot of his energy.
The psychologists had a million names for it, but Simon considered himself more of a social introvert. That didn’t quite fit either though; it wasn’t totally correct. He knew people who fed on crowds and just got louder and lighter and brighter. While Simon could be social in a crowd, the interaction with too many people drained him. Then he had to leave and go recharge somewhere else. That was just the way he was built, and it worked for him.
He wasn’t an introvert. He could socialize if he needed to, but he didn’t want to be around people all the time. Maybe that had something to do with his upbringing. He’d been hidden away for so long and had traveled such a rough road that it was hard to learn to trust.
He had encountered people who gave this superficial public appearance to everybody that seemed normal but hid everything that was real about them, and that was exhausting to Simon, sifting through the masks. It had to be equally draining for those to be fake all the time, to deny who they really were. For him, he was who he was in any setting, but periodically he needed time to get away and to recharge—mostly to just be alone and relax. Still, relaxing as he was right now, wasn’t hard to deal with either.
He pulled out his phone, while he ate the apple, and ran through his emails, wincing at a few of them. A couple invoices had come in. One in particular was a good 20 percent over what was expected. He quickly sent off a terse message about that one. He only employed people who kept their invoices within 10 percent. If they couldn’t manage costs properly, then that was their fault, and he would not be working with them in the future. When people gave him estimates, he expected quotes that mattered. True professionals could meet that standard, and anyone who couldn’t wasn’t someone he would do business with.
Sure, as a businessman, he understood that supplies went up and that shipyard workers went on strike. That meant there would be extra expenses at various times, but Simon didn’t expect to pay all those costs himself. These guys were in business for a reason, and they charged enough to cover a lot of it themselves. By the time Simon finished going through his emails, the apple was gone, and so was the coffee.