Page 52 of Manner of Death
“Why not?” Sawyer grinned as he reached for another breadstick. “It isn’t the giant stack of cases I can’t keep up with or the shitshow that is my partner’s life, so… yeah. Do tell.”
Okay, that was fair. Bashir was up for a distraction from everything at work, too, and maybe after this, he’d be able to sleep. Then he could actually do tomorrow’s autopsies like a professional instead of a semi-comatose med student.
“All right, all right…” He pursed his lips. “Well, at my first job, we had two forensic assistants who were screwing. Which was fine… until they broke up.”
Sawyer leaned in, eyes wide. “Seriously?”
“Mmhmm. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve been listening to a guy begging his ex to take him back over an autopsy while she’s trying not to die from morning sickness…”
Chapter 14
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Bullshit.”
“Nan.”
The look she gave Sawyer could have peeled paint. It was the strangest combination of scathing disdain and searing guilt he’d ever seen. “I think it’s the least I can do after what happened with Kurt stalking your crime scene.”
Sawyer shook his head. “You didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“I did, though. I’m the one who took the time off.”
“You were spending time with your family!”
“Sure, but I still should have told the desk sergeant to make sure he didn’t answer any questions about you!” She pointed a pen at him. “This is Partnership 101. Kurt’s already proven himself unstable; that’s the whole reason we got placed together, and then I wasn’t there to have your back when he stormed onto a crime scene.”
The memory of nearly falling was still a little too fresh for Sawyer to focus on. He’d done a stunt like that once—well, almost done a stunt like that. His character had fallen down the stairs, but Sawyer had just filmed the initial drop. He’d hit a padded mat, then given things over to his stunt double, who rolled backward down the rest of the flight. His double had been all right at the end of it, but Sawyer already knew that he wouldn’t have been. Not in either situation.
“He would have found a way to get into trouble no matter what,” Sawyer said tiredly. “He can’t handle being at home right now, but he can’t handle doing anything else either.”
“Not sober, at least,” Nan agreed. “But whatever, Kurt’s issues are sad but they’re not our main concern right now. We’re looking at…” She sighed. “That fucker’s podcasts.”
“Yep.” Honestly, it was an angle Sawyer couldn’t believe he hadn’t considered before. Felix had been running his weekly true crime podcast for three years, and he’d become pretty popular. As his popularity grew, the cases he spotlighted had gotten more and more outrageous. He had a reputation for delving into not just issues of police malfeasance, but also the strangest, goriest, most disgusting deaths he could find.
Sawyer had thought Felix had a connection inside the department that he’d learned about their serial killer from, but maybe he’d had it reversed. Maybe the serial killer was mimicking Felix’s old cases, and Felix had put that together and was trying to insinuate himself into the investigation in a very weird case of meta.
The easiest way to figure out whether the connection started with the podcast would have been to ask Felix, but thanks to his bulldog of a lawyer, that felt akin to trying to walk across a minefield. However, thanks to a website of fan summaries, Nan had been able to narrow down a selection of similar cases. None was an exact match so far, but if they found one that involved carbon monoxide poisoning as a mask for something else…well, then they could look at this angle more seriously.
Unfortunately, the summaries could only take him so far.
“Number twenty-eight,” Nan said and pressed play. There was Felix’s theme music, something like a techno version of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” which made Nan roll her eyes, and then Felix’s voice came on.
“Who would have thought,” he said, his podcast voice noticeably lower than his in-person voice, “that a trip to the family farm could end in so much terrible tragedy? Not Michelle McNiell. Five people dead, all of them poisoned…a dismal end for a picture-perfect family, one that rocked the tight-knit community they lived in. But the truth is so much stranger than the picture the killer tried to paint. What is the truth?” Felix laughed. “Nothing like what the so-called authorities would have you believe. Welcome to Stab in the Light, where—”
“Oh my God, how is he even more insufferable when you don’t have to see him in person?” Nan asked. “Do we really have to listen to this one?”
“Come for the murders, stay for the poisons,” Sawyer said. “I can’t find a decent summary of it online, so yeah, I’m afraid we do have to listen. At least long enough to see whether we can cross it off the list.”
“Fine.” Nan sat in silence for a moment. “Coffee?”
“Sure.” There was some left in the pot in the break room, he knew, but it had been stewing for hours now. “I’ll walk down to the cart and back.”
“Thanks.” Nan turned the playback speed up with a grim look, then smiled. “Actually, he’d make a decent chipmunk.”
“Congratulations on your coping skills.” Sawyer grabbed his jacket and headed out of the repurposed interrogation room. He walked as fast as he could without seeming like he was rushing down the hall and through the lobby, finally breaking into the fresh air and bright sunshine with a sigh of relief, instantly feeling better. The only things that could improve this moment were a cup of decent coffee and Bashir, but Bashir was working, so coffee would have to do.
A black Americano and a caramel latte later—Sawyer hadn’t decided yet which one he would give to Nan—he was headed back toward the precinct when his phone went off. He considered ignoring it and answering once he got back inside, but it was so nice out… He sat on the low brick wall between the sidewalk and the parking lot, set the coffees down, and fished out his phone.