McQueen,” she said curtly. “One of your specialities, I believe? It used to be hot. Then it got burned by you. Now it’s cold. Enjoy.”
Dishing out her own portion, she turned back to the table and dropped into her chair as he sat down.
“Your friend was killed,” McQueen said tonelessly. “I know Chandra thinks I’m crazy and I know you think I’m crazy, but I’m not. What do you intend to do about it?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “We’re going to leave it to the people who get paid to look into these things. They’ve got the resources and the contacts. We don’t.”
“Says who? I might be able to dig up a few old contacts, and I’m a hell of a lot more resourceful than the two bozos Chandra told me were assigned to this case.” He leaned back in his chair. “Tommy Knopf and Bill Trainor were the geniuses who pegged the Dazzlers fire as an accident, and they weren’t real happy when I came up with the evidence that put Jimmy Malone behind bars.”
He shrugged. “Besides, to get the Dazzlers case reopened I may have mentioned something to the press about their incompetence. If Knopf and Trainor still hold that against me they’re not going to listen too hard to anything I say about what I saw in that room today.”
“Two more names on the list of people you’ve alienated,” she said shortly. “What a surprise.” She got to her feet and collected their untouched plates. “Look, McQueen, you got a split-second glimpse of the scene, and based on that you seem to assume everyone should ignore the rest of the evidence. Claudia smoked. She’d been smoking in bed. And she was dead by asphyxiation before the fire took hold in the rest of the room, which is an almost textbook example of this kind of…of this kind of tragedy.”
Noisily she scraped the plates into the garbage, her back to him. This wasn’t the way she wanted to be talking about Claudia’s death, she thought unhappily—with brutal logic and cold reasoning. Being put in the position of blaming the victim wasn’t anything she enjoyed, either, but she had to make him see how dangerous his misplaced certainty in his own theory could prove to be. She turned to find him standing only a foot or two away.
“I accept that you used to be good at your job, Stone,” she said tremulously. “But that was years ago. From what you tell me of how you spent those years, they had to have taken their toll on your skills. As long as you encourage Petra in this notion that her mom’s death wasn’t an accident she’s going to believe there’s a bogeyman out there who could come back for her. I can’t allow you to do that.”
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