“Her name is Violet.”
“I know her damn name—I put her baseball glove in her father’s coffin!”
“Lower your voice.”
“Then open your ears,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t be on this case if it weren’t for you, but they’re the ones who deserve our attention. Their father was murdered—people are still being murdered—and as far as I can tell, your name is on that same target list.”
Nola started to turn. Behind her, outside the bathroom, there was a noise. Someone was—
“Mr. Zig, we should get going!” Roddy called, hitting the door with a loud knock.
Nola froze. So did Zig. A swirl of steam twirled between them from the still-running shower.
“Almost done, Roddy! Sounds great!” Zig called back, his tongue touching his incisor. Definitely a lie.
“I’m out front when you’re ready!” Roddy replied.
Seconds later, a door slammed, then another, Roddy leaving the embalming room and heading back to the main sanctuary.
Taking no chances, Nola reached into the shower and turned on an old Sharper Image radio that hung from the shower nozzle and once seemed like it was from the future. Prince started singing about calling up a shrink in Beverly Hills—Dr. Everything’ll-Be-All-Right . . .
“Nola, if you’d just accept some help—”
“Stop talking,” she said. “I found his account. On Black House,” she explained. “I know who killed Colonel Mint.”
61
“Who the hell is Zion Lopez?” Zig asked.
“Drug dealer. Small time,” Nola explained, quickly telling Zig about her visit to Zion’s cousin, the Oscar the Grouch mask, and what she found on the Minion cam.
As the shower continued to run and Prince continued to sing about an elevator bringing us down, Zig stepped out, put on a shirt, and took a seat on the closed toilet. “I assume you don’t think this is about some petty drug deal?” he asked.
“Mint didn’t smoke, much less do drugs. More important, Zion was a runt,” Nola explained. “Kid like that doesn’t give orders; he takes them—from someone bigger, or at least smarter.”
“And you think that was the Reds?”
Nola shook her head. “The Reds show because someone pays them to show. They’re hired guns—specialty is cleanup.”
Zig thought about that. “At Grandma’s Pantry . . . all those sedatives and opioids . . . Could Zion—or his boss—be the one who—？”
“Who told you about Grandma’s Pantry?”
“Colonel Whatley.”
“Whatley’s a toolbag.”
“I’m sure he’d be thrilled to hear your assessment. Anyway, the opioids—”
“This isn’t about opioids. Stay with the Reds.”
“I told you. She kept asking me about Black House. Is that where Mint—？ You said you found his account?”
“When I logged in, two people were already there,” she said, mentally replaying the avatar of the Hispanic soldier with close-set eyes. “I think one might’ve been Zion.”
“And the other was the Reds?”
Nola made a face. She didn’t think so. But that was the question—and the reason she came here. “Whoever was in Mint’s account, they were using his avatar. The voice was robotic, impossible to ID.”
“So that second person . . . Either they were having their own private meeting with Zion—”