The Poet (Samantha Jazz)

“Can you tell me about the event?” I ask as I have each interviewee.

“Of course.” She sits up primly, her red dress a bold choice for a police interview, one that is almost too confident to suit me. “I hate that the man was murdered,” she offers, sounding mortified. She reads like a woman above such things as death. “I want to help,” she continues. “I’m afraid I don’t have much to tell that I didn’t tell Detective Roberts.”

“It helps me to hear it firsthand,” I assure her.

“Okay then. I was on a blind date that night. I didn’t connect well with the guy.”

“Who was your blind date?”

“Ted Bloom.”

I don’t check my notes. I’ve already interviewed Ted, who didn’t mention her. “Are you still seeing him?”

“Oh gosh no. Ted is into poetry and mathematics and lives on zero carbs. The man was fit enough and all, but not enough to make me live like that. I don’t like poetry. I hate math and I live for carbs. I declined another date.”

I’ve read Roberts’s notes. He not only checked out Ted, he seemed to feel he was too scared of his shadow to be a killer. I agree. Additionally, he placed Ted at his mother’s place after dropping off Debra. Debra, in turn, called her ex-boyfriend. Debra the player. Two men, one night.

“Go on,” I urge, leaving her personal life alone. She’s clear. It’s not my business.

“Ted loved the event that night, but it was just odd to me. It was like we were in church.”

Something about that word church resonates with me. “Explain what you mean, please.”

“You know how they keep the bibles behind the seats in church and everyone reaches for a book and reads a verse? That’s how it started. The poetry books were treated like bibles. Except the books were under the seats, on the floor. We all had to read random poems together, in between the solo readers. I hated it.”

Bible.

Church.

Under the seat.

I start to piece together those thoughts. Any religious person knows that you never put a bible on the ground. It’s disrespectful to God. The Poet believes he’s a god. What if he believes placing a book of poetry on the floor was no different? It was disrespecting him? And as the person running the event, had he held Summer responsible for that disrespect? Of course, it’s only a theory, but it feels like I might be onto something.

I finish the interview with Debra and meet Lang, who’s just finished an interview of his own in the hallway. “I have one more,” he says, “and nothing worth hearing to tell you so far. How about you?”

“I’m done with mine for tonight. I might have a few ideas the last interview sparked, but I’m not sure yet. I need to process and go by the forensics lab before they’re gone. I want to see if I can clear one of the poetry books used for the guests at the Summer reading for my review.”

“Definitely your kind of reading, not mine. You want to meet up after?”

“I think I need to spend some time lost in poetry tonight.”

“I’ll come over.”

“I don’t need you to come over,” I amend. “Wade set up a camera at my front door and I have my trusted friend right here, should I need her.” I pat my weapon. She’s a “her” and a badass, just like me. Except for last night. I failed the badass test last night for sure.

He looks like he wants to argue, but he settles on, “Call me when you’re headed home.”

“I don’t need a phone check-in, Dad. I have a patrol by my place, remember? And yes, I know to call in and let patrol know when I head home.”

“Just freaking call me,” he snaps.

“Okay. Okay.”

He gives me one of his best glares and then stalks away to deal with his next interview. I take that as my cue to head for the door, and I do so relieved that I’ve gotten free of Lang for the moment. I have a few investigative steps left to take tonight, and at least one is best handled without him. For his own good, but probably not mine.

Chapter 51

I can almost hear, in my mind, a clock ticking off the minutes until someone else dies, but I can’t allow that pressure to get to me the way it did this morning with Newman.

It’s exactly why I don’t dive into trouble that I know I will later when I leave Lang at the station. I start out by doing just what the captain ordered: I work the case in the expected, safe way. In fact, my first solo investigations of the evening are perfectly acceptable and without recourse.

Mostly.

After discovering that I’ve missed Hazel at the ME’s office, I swing a few miles away from the precinct to the crime lab to drop off the sample I took from Newman’s tire. While I’m there, I’ll do a little begging and bartering to move us up to the front of the testing line.