Free Dust Up: A Thriller by Jon McGoran Page B

same as before except the table was bare, Miriam Hartwell’s shopping bags now locked in an evidence locker.
    Royce and Divock looked around the room, then at each other, then at me.
    “Okay, so what happened in here?” Royce asked, folding his arms.
    I sat in the wooden chair next to the table and waved them toward the bed. “Have a seat,” I said, waiting as they slowly settled their butts onto the filthy bed.
    I left out more than I kept in. I said she was scared and that she said she was innocent. When I added in that she thought someone was following her, Divock glanced at Royce. “Before she could tell me anything else, company showed up.”
    “And how did that go down?”
    I told them the basics.
    “So how did you fuck up with the cuffs?” Divock asked. I think it was the first time he’d spoken. “Forget to click them or something?”
    I had no idea how he got out of the cuffs. I was about to tell him there were a variety of ways he could have got out of them, with or without a key. Instead, I said, “Click them? I didn’t know you had to click them. What I do is swing them gently almost shut and make him promise to hold his wrists together.”
    I could hear Gerald snickering down the hallway.
    “Don’t be an asshole,” Royce snapped, although I couldn’t be sure if it was directed at me or at Divock. “Obviously you fucked something up. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten away, right?”
    I looked at my watch, thinking I should go before I made the transition from smartass to dumbass and said something I’d regret. “We done here?”

 
    24
    Royce and Divock were ready to quit at five o’clock. I was ready, too, but I wasn’t done yet. I hadn’t learned anything much from them—certainly nothing to make me discount Miriam’s suspicions about Energene. I confirmed they were assholes, but I’d known that already.
    The plan was to pick Nola’s brain a little more about Energene over a quick dinner, then do a little more background work on the case.
    But as I pulled up outside the house, I sensed something wrong. The windows were open, and as I walked up the front steps, I heard laughter. Tipsy laughter.
    I opened the door and saw Nola sitting on the sofa with Laura Tennison, an almost empty bottle of wine in front of them. That’s when I remembered the horrible truth.
    We had a houseguest.
    My heart sank, but Nola seemed relaxed, like she was having fun.
    I said hi and sat across from them. Nola asked me about my day, and I told her a little more about Miriam Hartwell and the Liberty Motel. I played up the part about the dog, added the part about going back there with Royce and Divock, and left out the part about the shooting. I could feel my stress sucking some of the levity out of the room, so I was relieved when Laura launched into a story about something vaguely similar that had happened to Danny. I knew the story, and she left out the funny, relevant, and important parts, but the two of them laughed uproariously at what was left.
    They were drunker than I was. Everything was funnier.
    They laughed their way through another bottle of wine over dinner, and afterward, I brought the laptop into the bedroom and researched Energene, the drought in Haiti, allergenicity issues with genetically modified food, and which federal agencies could be responsible for whatever vague crime might be related to Ron Hartwell’s murder.
    When I turned the light out at midnight, Nola and Laura were still laughing in the living room. I was glad Nola was having so much fun, but I wondered if she was going to pay for it in the morning.

 
    25
    When I left for work, Nola was snoring hard, and so was Laura in the guest room. When I kissed Nola’s forehead, her brows furrowed. She was still asleep, but I was pretty sure her hangover had already gone for a run, showered, and had a full breakfast.
    I was feeling almost self-righteous, but as I approached the station, I felt the beginnings of a tiny headache of my