The muscle in Dicky’s jaw spasmed. “By all means.”
“There was another business recently opened in a building under the Cockatrice Holdings umbrella.” He pretended to refer to the notes in his notebook. “It’s called the Happy Ending Massage Parlor.”
“And?” Dicky said. “We’re still waiting for a question.”
Morales’s eyebrow snapped up. “That’s an interesting reaction from you, Mr. Goldman. Wasn’t the proprietress one of your clients?”
Dicky sucked on his teeth. “I have a lot of clients.”
Morales slid across a picture of Krystal’s body from the crime scene. “Her name was Krystal LeMay. She was found murdered yesterday. In a building owned by Abe.”
Abe sat up straighter to stare at the picture. “Did you know this?” he asked Dicky.
Dicky leaned in to whisper something to Abe. I leaned forward fruitlessly, unable to hear from the distance.
Once Dicky finished saying his piece to Abe, the two men turned back to face Morales, who kept his expression neutral. “My client had not heard of Miss LeMay’s passing yet, Special Agent. Obviously, he’s willing to work with the homicide detective in any way he can.”
Morales smiled. “BPD’s not handling this one. We are.”
Abe’s face went stony.
“And,” Morales continued, “my question from before was—why wouldn’t Mr. Prospero try harder to hide his alliance with the Fangshi?”
“The who?” Dicky said, without missing a damned beat.
Abe, on the other hand, had gone very still.
I didn’t believe for a moment that Dicky didn’t know who the Fangshi were any more than I believed that Abe wasn’t wondering how in the hell his attorney managed to be so careless.
“We have Krystal to thank for helping us make the connection, actually.” Morales shook his head sadly. “In fact, the timing of her death is just awfully interesting. First her boyfriend dies in a horrible potion lab explosion, and now she’s killed right after we start investigating the Fangshi for Valentine’s death? Like I said, interesting.”
The cigarette between Abe’s fingers trembled. “You’re fishing.”
Morales laughed and leaned back. “Trust me, this hook is well baited.”
Dicky opened his hands in a magnanimous gesture. “If you have evidence, show it.”
“We’re not ready to formally charge anyone. Yet.” Morales paused, let it sink in. “Consider this a courtesy call.”
Abe’s head tilted. “How do you figure?”
“Well, first of all, you’ve got to get yourself a better lawyer.”
Dicky sputtered. “How dare—”
Morales talked over him. “And second, someone just murdered the head of your coven. You ask me, it’s time to reconsider your new friendship with the Chinese.”
At that, the mood shifted again. Abe’s posture relaxed and a wide smile spread across his face. “Krystal was the head, sure.”
He leaned back in his chair and swiveled until he faced the mirror. His shit-eating smirk made my skin crawl. “Excellent detective work, as usual, Katherine.”
“Shit,” I said to the empty viewing room.
I’d suspected that Krystal was a misdirection, but Abe’s smugness was worrisome. Someone else was calling the shots on the streets. But who?
In the other room, Dicky tapped his Rolex. “Time’s up, Special Agent.” He rose and encourage Abe to rise as well. “Next time, be sure you’re not wasting my client’s time. He may be incarcerated, but he’s a busy man.”
“Oh, yeah?” Morales shot back. “You got yourself a hobby on the inside, Abe?”
Abe glared daggers at him.
“For your information, my client is working to better himself. He’s enrolled in college courses.”
“What are you studying?” I asked over the intercom.
“Criminal justice.” Abe turned fully to face the mirror. “Figured if they let you be a cop, anyone can do it. Besides, the way you’re handling this case? There’ll be an opening soon.”
Dicky grabbed Abe’s elbow and helped him rise. The pair went to the door and knocked for the guard.
“Just one more question,” Morales said in a casual tone. “Why’d you bother getting into the virility potion game? Weren’t you worried about creating a beef with Aphrodite?”
“You’re making quite a leap if you think I would bother with sex magic, Special Agent.” Abe scoffed. “But if I did lower myself to meddling with that sort of potion, Aphrodite wouldn’t dare come after me. The Hierophant knows their place.”
I didn’t comment on the fact that Abe seemed to be up-to-date on the change in Aphrodite’s preferred pronoun, but it was interesting. “But you’ve been stuck in here for years and Aphrodite’s out there,” I said into the intercom. “Besides, they’re ascending. That will make them even more powerful.”
“Ascending,” he scoffed. “Nothing more than a publicity stunt.”
“To what end?” I asked.
“You’re the detective. Figure it out.” Abe shot me a pitying smile. “Despite what Aphrodite wants everyone to believe, I’m still Abraxas Prospero. These walls?” He jerked his head toward the metal-barred window set in the wall. “They might as well be ether.”
There was a note to his voice that I hadn’t heard in the previous meetings. It sounded like the confidence a man got when he held a secret over you. And it scared the hell out of me.
“You two take care, now.” With that, he allowed the guards to open the door and accompany him back to his cell.
Chapter Twenty-One
Two hours later, I pulled Sybil into the parking lot in front of a two-story brick building that had once housed a factory. After the meeting with Uncle Abe, I felt like I’d spent my morning swimming in a sewer, but I hadn’t had time to grab a shower before I had to pick Danny up for the meeting at the Conservatory.
I felt sort of bad abandoning Morales, but I also hadn’t been super excited about going back to the gym and telling Gardner we were no closer to making an arrest in the Valentine and LeMay murders.
“We need to hurry.” Danny had the door open before I put the car in park.
“Relax. The meeting doesn’t start for five more minutes.”
I’d never seen Danny worried about punctuality, but he was clearly eager to make a good impression on the principal of the Conservatory for Arcane Arts.
“Just relax.”
He rolled his eyes at me in that teenaged way that made me feel like I was short on gray matter. “I am relaxed. I just want to get inside before you get called away.”
Guilt flared like heartburn in my chest. The case had been keeping me away from home a lot, and it had been a bit of an ordeal to schedule the meeting with Hidalgo, who was pretty busy herself trying to launch a brand-new school.
“I already told the team I was unavailable,” I said. “They can survive without me for an hour.”
The Conservatory sat on the edge of an area of the Cauldron that had undergone an impressive revitalization effort. Sitting along the Steel River, the tall red brick building had huge metal-framed windows and tall smokestacks with blackened tips. A construction crew swarmed over the lot as they completed the transformation from failed factory to high school of the future.
Danny was five steps ahead of me the entire way to the front door, and he kept looking back to make sure I was coming. I stifled a grin at his enthusiasm. I had to admit it was nice to see him excited about school for change. However, I couldn’t overlook my qualms about fitting into such a new school, and my old habits died hard when it came to Danny doing magic.
The building looked like an old factory from the outside, but inside it looked like a hip dot-com office. Several levels of open loft-like spaces looked down on the atrium. A Latina woman wearing a trendy pantsuit met us at the white lacquered desk.
“Ms. Prospero?” she said, holding out her left hand.
“Kate,” I said, shaking it. “Dr. Hidalgo?”