“And after that you met his wife at a bar.”
“No, we just ran into each other.”
“And you just had dinner with her.”
“Not a crime, at least that I’m aware of.”
“What exactly is your relationship with Valerie Messaline?”
“We were drawn together by a common love of a good Mojito.”
Ventris shoved a finger against Sean’s chest. “I am this far from arresting your ass.”
“Can I ask the charge?”
“I can lock you up for forty-eight hours no questions asked. In the meantime I can probably find something that’ll stick.”
“I’m down here working, just like you. Trying to find out who killed Monk Turing and Len Rivest. Remember the little competition I mentioned?”
“And I told you to stay out of my way.”
“I wasn’t aware that Valerie Messaline constituted being in your way.”
“She has no involvement in this case and neither does Ian Whitfield. The man has more important things to worry about than a dipshit PI poking around where he shouldn’t.”
Sean looked at him in disbelief. “Since when is the Bureau the CIA’s lapdog?”
“I’m telling you for your own good to back off. There are far more important issues here than a couple of murders.”
“Care to share?”
“Get out of my car. And if we have to meet again, you really won’t like it.”
Sean climbed out of the vehicle and then tapped on the window. “By the way, any news on the ‘gas leak’ at the morgue?”
Ventris almost ran over Sean’s foot as the car roared off.
Despite the smart-ass attitude he’d taken with Ventris, Sean wasn’t smiling as he trudged back to his car. He was getting in deeper by the second and so far nothing made any sense at all. As he drove back to Babbage Town Sean knew what he
had to do next.
“You can’t be serious, Sean,” Horatio said. The three of them were standing next to Michelle’s truck and Horatio’s Harley, which were parked along a dirt road about a mile from Babbage Town.
“Monk Turing went over the fence at Camp Peary and look what happened to him,” Horatio continued.
“Trust me, I don’t want to go over that fence, but I’m running out of options,” Sean replied evenly.
Michelle leaned back against her truck and studied her partner. “When do you propose we do it?”
Horatio gaped at her. “You’re planning on going with this nutcase?”
Sean looked at Michelle. “I go alone.”
“Don’t even bother. You go, I go.”
“If we get caught we are up shit’s creek,” he told her. “I mean really up.”
“You’re never boring; I have to give you that,” she replied.