Free Side Effects: An FBI Psychological Thriller by Jeff Menapace

anymore scotch and he’d be snoozing right here at the table…
    Which made me suddenly lean into the table, eager for Morris’ ear.
    “He drugged him,” I said. “Our guy drugged the victim.”
    Now Morris leaned in. We looked like we were planning a heist of some kind. “Drugged him how?”
    “It’s going to sound like a cliché—homeless guy helpless to alcohol—but I think our guy offered the victim booze. The booze was drugged.”
    “Why?”
    “Reggie smelled like whiskey. And when we let him go, he immediately tucked into a pint of booze. Reggie and the victim were best friends. The victim was too afraid of fire to smoke—and who can blame him—but who’s to say he stayed away from booze?”
    “So the victim gets in the car and our guy offers him a drink?” Morris said.
    “Why not? It’s like an icebreaker of sorts.”
    “Would a cagey man like the victim accept booze from a stranger?”
    “Perhaps. What if the victim was a drinker? I mean a big drinker. It’s his vice. We know Reggie had a bottle at the ready…”
    “All right, I’ll buy this,” Morris said. “So our guy offers the victim a drink or two during the drive and the victim accepts, not knowing that our guy slipped him a big mickey.”
    I nodded. “The victim passes out in the passenger seat, and now our guy is free to take him anywhere he wants without bother.”
    “So he takes him to the abandoned mill in Newark and shackles him by the ankle.”
    “Right.”
    “Then what?”
    I frowned. “Then what?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well, if we knew that we wouldn’t be—”
    “No, I don’t mean that ‘then what?’ I mean…then what?”
    I splayed a hand. “You lost me, Tim.”
    “I mean did he burn him then whack him? Whack him then burn him? Both? What about trophies? You still thinking he took photos or maybe filmed it? What about the right palm?”
    My splayed hand became a stop hand. “Whoa, slow it down a little, please.”
    He cocked his head and eyed me curiously. “Having trouble keeping up?”
    “When you become Alex Trebek on Red Bull I do. Give me one at a time.”
    Morris crunched some ice. “Still think he’s doing trophies in the way of photos or videos?”
    “Probably,” I said.
    “Think he burned him to scare him, or to get rid of evidence?”
    “Probably both,” I said.
    “Think he did something to the right palm, even though we couldn’t find it because of the extensive burning?”
    “Probably.”
    He frowned. “What are you, a skipped record?”
    “Well, you’re asking me silly yes or no questions. If you want me to hypothesize, fine-tune your queries, please.”
    He crunched a big hunk of ice this time, probably wishing it was my head. “Okay…the victim wakes up in the concrete room we found him in. He’s shackled and disoriented. Did anyone see our guy taking the victim inside the mill? Inside the concrete room? If the victim was unconscious, our guy had to be carrying or dragging him.”
    “Homeless squatting in the mill smelled the burning body; it’s what got them curious,” I said.
    Morris made an unpleasant face. “Right— barbecue .”
    “Point is they only checked it out after smelling barbecue,” I said. “If they’d seen something shady prior to that, they probably would have fled. Their whole existence relies on self-preservation, looking the other way.”
    “They did try and save the victim, putting out the fire,” he said.
    “They did, yes.”
    “So, maybe they didn’t look the other way this time.”
    “Except Newark PD questioned them and got nothing,” I said.
    “Right…” Morris took a big sip and began sucking on a piece of ice this time, no crunch.
    We were stuck. Everything up until now had strong retail value, but from here on out we were struggling to sell anything.
    “Shackled in the concrete room,” I said.
    “Yeah.”
    “He’s unconscious from the drugged booze,” I said.
    “Assuming that’s what he did.”
    “Why not cuff him then? Why