Free Mystery: Satan's Road - Suspense Thriller Mystery (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Crime Thriller) by Theo Cage Page A

largest flat screen TV I had ever seen. She stared at me with red eyes, looking completely wrung out for someone so young.
    “I’m so relieved you’re here, Detective. Somehow I need to convince you that there is absolutely no way that Henry would end his life. You have to believe me. Henry was murdered. You need to find his killer.”
    “Mrs. Gridley, I don’t want to get your hopes up. I’m here to add my perspective to this case. That’s all. We really don’t have any evidence of foul play.”
    She leaned into me. “I know people who are depressed, Detective. I’ve had a close friend kill herself, but I’ve known Henry since he was a teenager. He wasn’t depressed a day in his life” Clearly more than I could say for myself. Just looking at her house depressed me.
    “Anything unusual in the last few weeks? Anything he did? People he worked with? Travel?” I asked.
    “He teaches. He writes. Does some lecturing. Or did.” She paused then and gently blew her nose on a monogrammed handkerchief. “That was his life. He had a new book coming out on the history of the Jesuit Commandos. He was very excited about making personal appearances to support the book.”
    “Jesuit Commandos?”
    “You’ve never heard of them? Sometimes they’re called the Pope’s Soldiers.” I couldn’t for the life of me see why the Pope would need soldiers. But if he did, and this wasn’t suicide, could it be possible that the publication of this book could have created enough animosity to get someone killed? Was that a potential motive? Or was it just her expensive perfume scrambling my senses.
    “Did Professor Gridley have any enemies?” I asked.
    “Professional jealousies perhaps. But he was a very likeable teacher. His students loved him.”
    “When you say jealousies, any names come to mind?”
    She thought about that for a moment. “There are always campus politics – people fighting for tenure or to get published. I’d really hate to send you out into the world with a hit list of cotton-headed eccentrics though.”
    She stopped to rub her nose and I couldn’t help but notice how perfectly it was shaped. Natural or surgical?
    “I would be very careful with any information you volunteered. Like I said, we haven’t even decided if this is a homicide.”
    She ignored that possibility. “Then I could probably provide you with names of professors – and not just ones teaching here at Georgetown. Henry was working with a committee of professors from Universities all across the states for example. They were working on Revelations . One of his favorite topics.”
    “ Revelations … as in the end of the world book from the Bible?”
    “Yes. The Apocalypse.” Sitting in a bright and very modern room with a beautiful woman talking about the end of the world was a jarring experience. Even for me. I stared at her for a moment, which I could tell, made her uncomfortable. I’m six foot four and some people say I have a head like an anvil. I wasn’t built for heart-to-hearts over tea.
    “I’m sorry Mrs. Gridley, but I don’t often talk to people about Armageddon – especially in such fashionable surroundings. It threw me off a bit.” She smiled for the first time and then lightly touched my knee.
    “Detective, my husband lived in a strange world. One foot in the twenty-first century, the other in the Old Testament.”
    I stood up to stretch, happy to change the subject and asked to see the garage.
    We walked through a monstrous kitchen that could easily feed our entire precinct and through a back door into a spotless garage. There were two vehicles. A black Range Rover I assumed was the professors and a lime green Kia Soul. She then explained the Soul was her husbands. All evidence of the suicide was cleaned up.
    “He was found lying just beside his car. The door was open, and the car was running,” she explained. “The medical examiner said she thought he might have changed his mind at the last minute and tried