“Either way, your so-called friends at Dover were lying to you, Ziggy. And when you called Wil to ask him, he kept that lie going!”
“Maybe he’s just trying to protect Mint’s privacy.”
“Or maybe they know it’s the best way to suck you in—Mint’s one of us—and now you’ll come running, which is exactly what you did, isn’t it? Then all you had to do was spot Nola, which—no surprise—you did that, too. I love that you’re one of the kindest people on the planet, Ziggy, but I’ve seen teenagers in horror movies who’re less predictable . . . car washes that were less predictable . . .”
“I get the point, Waggs.”
“Ferris wheels that were less predictable!”
“Now you’re rubbing it in. And being overdramatic.”
“No. I’m being smart. I know what getting that phone call meant to you. I know the past few years haven’t exactly been packed with excitement—”
“You didn’t see the look on Nola’s face, Waggs. She knew she was being followed. Whoever’s chasing her . . .”
“。 . . is now potentially focusing on you! Is that your grand plan—put the bull’s-eye on yourself?”
Zig stayed quiet, making a left on Citrine Avenue, a narrow street dotted with beat-up birch trees. Within half a block, houses started popping up—most of them one-story bungalows—with little front porches that people actually sat on, rather than just used for ornamentation.
“Ziggy, if you think there’s something fishy with Mint’s death—”
“He was shot in his own driveway—of course it’s fishy.”
“Then call in help!”
“And tell them what? That the head of Dover didn’t tell me everything about his private investigation? That’s not a crime, that’s a—” Zig’s mouth stayed open as he turned onto his own block.
Halfway down, a police car had pulled diagonally into the street, blocking Zig’s way.
“Ziggy, you okay?” Waggs asked in his ear.
“Unclear,” Zig said, slowing down and bucking to a stop.
The door to the cop car swung wide. A short man in a dark blue police uniform stepped out.
“Mr. Zigarowski, nice to see you again,” said Nola’s brother Roddy as he flashed a broken smile. “You got a few moments to chat?”
10
For the rest of his short life, Conrad Benn would regret this moment.
“He’s in, yeah?” Conrad called out, rushing past the secretary, a middle-aged Asian woman with smoker’s lips and Velcro carpal-tunnel wrist braces that everyone knew were just for show.
“Don’t,” Ms. Li warned, barely looking up.
Conrad was still moving, his squatty legs pumping, his square face sweaty, his fist about to knock on Mr. Vess’s cherrywood door. “Mr. Vess said if I found something—he said to interrupt.”
“Young man, I’m trying to help you here,” Ms. Li said. She called everyone young man since employee retention wasn’t exactly Mr. Vess’s strong suit. “Perhaps you should start again and ask me who Mr. Vess is in there with.”
Conrad froze, his knuckles now inches from the door. He knew that tone. “His daughter?”
“His daughter,” Ms. Li said, undoing her Velcro straps—zzzt. zzzzt—then redoing them.
Born in a spotty Armenian neighborhood outside of Cleveland, Conrad was a big guy, but never a bright guy. As a high school football player, he’d earned the nickname Volcano when, during a steroid rage in the school parking lot, he punched his fist through someone’s driver’s-side window, and of course required surgery. Definitely not bright. But that didn’t mean he was dumb.