“Kirby? You okay? You need some air?”
“I’m fine,” Dane lied, and leaned down on his knees. “What else do we know about this guy?”
“Let me help you.” Roselita held out a hand to help Dane maneuver back toward the door without disturbing anything.
He felt like an idiot but took Roselita’s hand. “Thanks,” he said.
“No problem.” She let go of Dane’s hand and he stood up straight. “As far as what else we know about Blackwell, we know he’s a sack of shit, but that’s about it. He’s from your neck of the woods. He’s been in and out of Gwinnett and Cobb County lockup in Atlanta enough to have a private room at both. And up until right now, I thought you might know him. Maybe thought that was the reason you’re here.”
Dane thought about it. “No. Never heard of him. You said he’s been in lockup a lot. What’s his vice?”
“Gambling, mostly.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, stupid shit.”
“Has he done any time?”
“The longest stint he pulled was a year down in”—she had to look at her notebook again—“Augusta, Georgia, at a Phinizy Road Jail—something to do with illegal poker machines. He got arrested at a gas station that didn’t have a permit to pay out, and since his machine hit for over five hundred bucks, he caught a felony charge. The guy had zero luck. Even when he won, he lost.”
Some people were just built out of bad luck. It filled their bones instead of marrow. Dane knew folks like that back home, and this Arnold Blackwell fella was definitely one of those people. The guy wins a fat payday in some convenience store somewhere and before he even gets to spend a nickel of it, he spends a year in prison for it. That was telling. “Maybe this is just another payday gone sideways.”
“Maybe.” Roselita squatted down by the door and used a ballpoint pen to pick up a Dr Pepper can. She motioned for one of the techs to mark the spot with a placard and then bagged the can.
Another technician, an attractive female with white-blond hair pulled back into an ultratight ponytail, stopped examining Blackwell’s body, stood up, and tucked something else into an evidence bag. Dane couldn’t make out what it was. “Excuse me,” he said. “What is that? Part of a blade?”
“No, sir.” She held it up. “It appears to be a sliver of wood. Bamboo, maybe.”
Roselita slipped her pen back into her jacket. “Bamboo? You mean this guy was chopped up with a stick?” Roselita stared at the shard of wood in the bag.
“It’s hard to determine at this point, ma’am, especially with the body being burned, but the wounds on the victim don’t seem to be consistent with any sort of conventional blade, so it’s a possibility.”
“A fucking stick?” Roselita repeated, confused by the notion of it.
“Not just any stick,” August said over Dane’s shoulder from the doorway. Dane swung his head around hard enough for the bones in his neck to pop. Roselita looked back, too, but didn’t look surprised to see her boss standing there. She was still trying to wrap her head around the idea of a bamboo stick doing this kind of damage to a man.
“I thought you were flying somewhere,” Dane said.
“I said I was going to the airport. I didn’t say I was getting on a plane.” August held out a white paper sack. “I went to Checkers, too. Anybody hungry? I got a sack full of Big Bufords with cheese.”
Everyone just stared at him. August shook the sack. “No takers?” He shrugged and rolled up the top of the bag. “Suit yourselves.”
Dane felt his stomach churning again. He pointed to a small glob of mustard O’Barr had on the corner of his mouth, dangling from the edge of his mustache. “You’ve got a little something on your face.” O’Barr touched at it, and then used his arm to wipe it away, leaving a smear of yellow down the sleeve of his brown suit jacket.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. So about the airport?”
“Right, the airport. I met with the airport manager and a few folks from Delta to find out where our boy was coming from. I mean, he had checked into an airport motel, so I figured he had to be either coming or going.”
“Well, which was it?”
“Coming. It appears our boy just flew in from Atlanta on a round-trip ticket and was headed back the day after tomorrow.”
“So that’s why I’m here?”
“That’s part of it, Kirby.” O’Barr leaned on the doorjamb with a wry smile on his face.
“Was he traveling alone?” Roselita asked.
“According to the flight manifest he was, but we ran the credit card you found in his wallet and saw that he made two more transactions to the same travel site, cheapflights.com, for two one-way tickets from Atlanta back to here three days from now. So I’m thinking his plan was to fly here, handle some business, go back, pick someone else up, and fly back. Both purchases were for the same amount at the same time—for the same flight from Atlanta back here, like I said, one way. Both in his name, but he opted for transferable tickets.”
“So he bought two tickets?”
“It appears so.”
“So he was planning on taking someone with him on his next flight.”
“You are quite the detective, Agent Kirby.”
Again, Dane ignored Velasquez’s insult. “Okay, but why would he do it like that? Why not just put the name of the other passenger on the second ticket?”
“Because he was protecting someone,” Velasquez said.
“Maybe,” August said, and shrugged.
“Why not just stay here and let the other person fly out here to meet him. I mean, why go back?”
Another shrug from August. Dane stepped outside onto the breezeway, next to Assistant Director O’Barr. He spoke softly. “August, listen, man. Whatever this is, whatever you think this is, I promise you, I’m not the guy for it. I’m not doing anything here that Velasquez or even that guy Dahmer couldn’t do better. This is outside my skill set.”
“I agree,” Roselita said, coming up behind them.
“See?” Dane made room for Velasquez in the doorway. “I’m just going to get in the way here. I know that. She knows that. The fire-related activity in this case isn’t something you need me for. It’s barely relevant. Velasquez had already put that together before I even got here.”
Roselita nodded. “He’s right, August. No offense, Kirby.”
“None taken. I don’t mind telling you both that I’m way out of my depth on this. Urban homicide is not something I have a long history with and I’ll be honest”—Dane peeled off the light blue nitrile gloves and finally let his sweaty hands breathe—“I’m worried I may even fuck this case up for everyone.”
August fumbled with the sack of hamburgers for a second before he tipped his chin at the blond tech holding the recovered sliver of bamboo. “Can I see that, hon?”
Dane and Roselita turned to look at her as she stepped to the door and handed the bag to Assistant Director O’Barr. “You’re not here because of the fire, Kirby. You’re here because of this.” He handed Dane the evidence bag.