The Poet (Samantha Jazz)

I glance over at Lang. “Did Roberts like poetry?”

He snorts. “I’d be shocked to find out Roberts liked poetry. He was a beer, bacon, and football guy.”

“Is there someone we can ask?”

“His ex-wife.”

“Call his ex-wife.”

“I need to talk to her anyway about Roberts, but I’d rather do that in person.”

“Just call her now and ask if he liked poetry. We need to know.”

“All right. I don’t have the number, but I can get it.” He idles at a stoplight and makes a few calls that finally catch up to Roberts’s ex-wife. “Susie,” he greets, and silently mouths, “ex-wife.” “Got a bet I’m trying to win. Does Roberts like poetry?” He glances over at me, and says, “She laughed. The answer is not even a little.”

“How long were they married?” I ask.

Lang relays the question and then says, “Twelve years.”

A long time, I think. “Why’d they divorce?” I ask.

Lang scowls at me, and I scowl right back.

“Ask her.”

He grimaces and says, “Why did you two divorce?”

He listens a moment and then looks at me. “He changed. He was gone all the time and when he was home he was moody and hard to handle.”

Moody and hard to handle. At least, he doesn’t fit the cool, calm calculation I’d expect from The Poet. And he doesn’t like poetry. Or so the ex-wife believes. Assuming that to be true, because I have no other option, my mind races with this bit of new information; Roberts didn’t like poetry. If The Poet did indeed kill both Summer and Roberts, then he killed a man who loved poetry and a man who hated poetry. What am I missing?

Chapter 25

We arrive at the campus while Newman is still teaching a class.

With twenty minutes left before dismissal, Lang and I enter a large auditorium on an upper level, where the lighting is dim and the students sit far below. We settle comfortably into the darkness, where we proceed to hold up a wall together. Teamwork. Occasionally Lang and I make it work.

Newman is, as expected, a tall, fit white man who, as per Chuck’s notes, is forty-two, with an apparent love for bow ties. He’s also standing center stage, discussing blood splatter.

“What if you aspired to outsmart law enforcement?” he asks his class. “Could you influence blood splatter to confuse the forensic science of a crime scene?”

The answer, I think, is yes, there are mechanisms a savvy killer might use to affect blood splatter intentionally, but there are cleaner ways to avoid detection. For instance, cyanide.

Students begin interjecting their thoughts while Lang leans over and whispers, “Better yet, why not just use cyanide?”

My lips quirk with that like-minded statement.

“Dude has a whole creepy thing going on,” he adds.

Lang has a colorful way of saying things, but he’s again proved our like minds with the same first impression. There is something off about Newman, something too perfectly pressed and put together, almost as if he’s wearing a costume.

I scan the hundreds of students dotting the stacked seating not so unlike that of the theater at Summer’s bookstore. Students who could well be the future of law enforcement. Students being taught by a man who may well be a killer, but on the bright side, there’s a lot to learn from a killer. There’s a reason why I’ve studied killers quite extensively, met with them, even. You can’t hunt and catch a killer you don’t understand.

What I learned was that you can’t fully know or trust anyone. Not your spouse. Not your best friend. Not your father. Everyone has secrets: secret fetishes, secret lovers, secret demons. Cheaters, liars, and killers lead the same double lives. I know too much to trust anyone completely.

And right now, listening to Newman lecture this class, I decide he, too, knows too much. At least, too much for our own good. Certainly, everything he needs to know to leave a murder scene squeaky clean and DNA-free. But is he the familiar evil I’ve felt from The Poet? We’re about to find out.

Chapter 26

Class ends and students leave in a scramble for the auditorium doors and with such speed, you’d think there’d been a fire alarm. The crowd blows like the wind, and with its thinning, Lang and I step into action. Side by side, we head down the stairs, neither of us looking at each other or anyone but our person of interest: Newman Smith. Some might think I’d feel nervous with the anticipation of meeting my potential stalker.

I do not.

There is no hesitation in me, no fear of a man who may well have been stalking me, and for good reason. I simply find it easier to look into the eyes of a killer than have him look from the shadows upon me. The moment you unmask your adversary, you begin to understand and defeat him.