Free Tina Whittle_Tai Randall Mystery 01 by The Dangerous Edge of Things Page B

brother’s place?”
    I tried to remember everyone I’d seen in Eric’s neighborhood. The woman next door walking her pug dog. The race walker with the exotic stride. The mother with the whiny toddler who pulled up people’s flowers. But not this guy. This guy made me think of pool halls and construction sites.
    “Has the manager ever seen him driving a dark blue pick-up?”
    Ryan’s eyes went even sharper. “You hear that from your brother?”
    “Yes.” I tapped the sketch. “Or maybe this guy sometimes wears a baseball cap and drives a black Explorer with the license plate D MAN?”
    “Now why do you ask that?”
    So I told that story, too, which got Trey dragged into the room to surrender his version. He told the story better than I did, knew things like exactly what time it happened and exactly what intersection we’d been at. Ryan nodded every now and then, like Trey’s story was utterly profound and fascinating. Then he thanked us for our time, told us he’d be in touch, and escorted us right out of there.
    I’d been expecting something different from the second official interview—the chair under a bare light bulb, maybe some trick questions. The whole episode felt more like a job interview than an interrogation.
    “That’s because it wasn’t an interrogation,” Trey explained afterward. “Detectives only interrogate people they think are guilty.”
    We were headed back to the Phoenix, the heart of the city behind us now. The sun was still out, but a chill remained. I blamed the pavement and concrete, the slick-walled buildings and glass and steel. Sometimes I tried to picture the whole city ablaze, as it had been during Sherman’s March. But even imaginary fire didn’t take.
    “So they think I’m innocent?” I said.
    “Probably not innocent. Just not a suspect. Unless they find a motive.”
    Which I didn’t have. Means and opportunity, however, were a different story. I’d found the corpse, after all, right after returning from my shop full of potential murder weapons.
    “They told me they were letting Eric finish his cruise,” I said. “Unless something else comes up.”
    “Unless he becomes a suspect.”
    The same refrain. “He told Landon to pull some strings. Do y’all really have that kind of power at Phoenix?”
    “I don’t. But Landon does.”
    Trey stuck to the back streets on our return to Dunwoody, avoiding 285 North, which looked like a clogged artery, surprising for 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon. The feeder roads weren’t much better, but at least traffic was moving. The apartment complexes and office buildings alternated in cookie-cutter rhythm, vernal and urban intermingling—Forest Hills, Concourse One, Summergrove, Centre Square.
    We’d stopped at the light, and were just about to make the left that would take us to the Phoenix parking garage when I saw it, just ahead, right beside the Phoenix main building.
    Beau Elan, Eliza’s apartment complex. She’d lived and worked right next door to Phoenix. I’d been looking for the connection between Eliza and my brother, and there it was, in brick and mortar.
    “Wait!” I pointed. “Take me there!”
    “Beau Elan? Why?”
    “Because I’m curious. I know you need a pass to get past the gate, but I figure you have one, right? Being that Phoenix works for the Beaumonts.”
    He neither confirmed nor denied my hypothesis.
    “And there’s a cybercafé on premises, right? So I can have a look around, get some coffee, check my e-mail. You can do…whatever it is you do.”
    The light remained red. Trey angled in the seat so that he was facing me. “Say it again.”
    I looked straight at him. “One coffee. Fifteen minutes.”
    The light changed. Trey faced front again, shifted into first.
    “You’re doing it again,” he said. “The technically true but deliberately evasive thing.”
    I didn’t deny it. But he took me there anyway.
    ***
    “Here,” I said. “Vanilla chai. No sugar. You’ll like.”
    He