Free Dead of Night by Randy Wayne White

finger at Solaris, inviting him to follow her into the barn, he was so grateful that his voice broke when he said to her, “After the last time, I thought you were so disappointed in me that you would never—”
    “Shut your mouth, fool. If your body wasn’t attached to a brain, we’d get along much better.”
    Even with her bad Spanish, the woman could joke with him. That’s the way Solaris took it: This is how close we’ve become.
    There was something different in her manner. She was rushed, a critical woman more critical than usual. And the hairy Russian shadowed her movements, but from a distance, his attention swiveling from Dasha to the Chinaman who was now sitting in the backseat of the limo with Mr. Sweet.
    There was an energy in the air, volatile.
    More than once, he heard the name Applebee mentioned—the disgusting little man who’d cried like a baby because he had to ride in the helicopter.
    “I would spit on such a man!” Solaris had once bragged to Dasha. “Why bring such a person to Cuba? What use could he be?”
    He was testing. Wanted to see how she reacted. He could picture the blond woman and Applebee off by themselves, whispering. The Chinaman had told him Applebee was there to confirm there were tiny creatures in the South African crates the doctor was buying, and also to test the local water supply.
    The woman didn’t discuss business with Solaris, so she surprised him, replying, “He’s going to make me rich; that’s his use. He’s finding a cure for a parasite. A sort of worm.”
    “What kind of worm?”
    “The kind of worm people will pay anything to get rid of.”
    That peculiar little guy with a microscope. It was impossible for Solaris to compete. “A man who cries isn’t a man. He’s worthless!”
    “Worthless?” The woman’s tone was cutting—yes, her way of joking, he decided. “You’d be an expert on that”
    Later, as he died, Solaris realized he’d misread more than just her sense of humor.
    Never saw it coming.

7
    By 11:30, I’d finished giving my edited statement to detectives. During the interview I told them that, because I’d left my cell phone with Applebee, I’d checked the log. The last two numbers dialed were unfamiliar. They’d been made while I was chasing the bad guys.
    “It was either Applebee or whoever killed him.”
    The cops were not pleased that I’d retrieved the phone. They said I’d maybe screwed up any chance of fingerprints. They copied the numbers, letting me see they were pissed off.
    So maybe that’s the reason they told me I couldn’t leave: a mild punishment.
    At twenty minutes before midnight, and with nothing else to do, I took aside an investigator from the Bartram County Medical Examiner’s Office to ask if she’d come to any conclusions about Jobe’s death. I’d assumed murder, but realized there was another possibility.
    The investigator, whose ironic name was Rona Graves, replied, “Are you a relative? A close friend?”
    “No. His sister’s a friend. I’d never met him.”
    “Are you wondering suicide or murder? It’s really impossible to say right now. Too soon. Too much to sort out.”
    We were standing outside, Applebee’s porch light casting tree shadows on sand, stars beyond the tree canopy, the two of us separated from a handful of curious neighbors by yellow crime scene tape. Ms. Graves, in jeans and a blue blouse with rolled-up sleeves, was an interesting-looking woman, with her Appalachian face, Latina cocoa skin, wild black surfer-boy hair cropped short. She had all the professional mannerisms, didn’t have to think about it: the voice, the wording, body language that served as a barrier. She’d been in the business for a while. But she could also wrinkle her nose to show you how hard she was thinking, or brush an elbow. Ways of letting you know there was a human in there.
    She was wrinkling her nose now, tapping thoughtfully on a clipboard. “I probably shouldn’t discuss this any more than