Sigma Curse - 04 by Tim Stevens Read Free Book Online

hadn’t yet fully melted, and the asphalt was slick. “Since then, you’ve pulled off quite some shit, Joe. The Salazar business. Then you took down Gene Drake.”
    “Not just me,” said Venn. “My team, too.”
    “Of course.” But Teller sounded skeptical. “So I really don’t have a problem working with you. Guy with your resume, it’s an honor, frankly.”
    He didn’t sound in the least flippant.
    They rode in silence for a while, until Teller raised the subject of the killing of Dale Fincher.
    “So have you had any further thoughts?”
    “Not really,” said Venn. “The toxicology results will be helpful, whenever they’re ready. It’s hard to imagine a soldier like Fincher being overpowered easily, and without much of a struggle. Especially if there’s a woman involved. My guess is he was drugged. She took him to the hotel, got him drunk, slipped a Mickey Finn in his glass. Then branded him and stuck the icepick through his head.”
    “You think it was a woman, then?”
    “Maybe. Or, like you said, she was bait, and there was a guy waiting in the wings.” Venn spread his hands. “Anyhow, you said yourself that speculation wasn’t a good idea. I suggest we wait till we get a little more information.”
    Thirty seconds passed. Snowflakes were spiralling lightly out of the heavy sky, and Teller turned on the wipers.
    He said: “You’re holding something back, Joe.”
    Venn gazed out the window. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I am.”
    “Well?”
    Venn said, “I’ll tell you once we’ve spoken to his mom. She might shed some light.”
    Teller tilted his head in a gesture that said, Okay, suit yourself . He didn’t ask any more.
    *
    J udge Marilyn Fincher was a small, surprisingly plump woman of around sixty, with a frizz of gray hair held down with difficulty by a series of clips and ties. Despite her haggard expression, the rawness of the rims of her eyes, she maintained an air of composure, of forcefulness, even, which Venn associated with the judges he’d encountered over the years.
    She ushered the two men into a sumptuous living room. Venn had already been struck by the grandeur of the house, a mansion, really, set in woodland in the suburbs of Albany. A host of other people milled around, some of them looking like family, others like friends. They murmured softly to Judge Fincher, drawing in protectively as though Teller and Venn were two thugs sent round to intimidate her, but she dismissed them all and closed the door, leaving herself alone with the two men.
    “Tea?” she asked.
    “Coffee, please,” said Venn. “Black.”
    Teller took his the same. The judge poured with exaggerated, fussy care, as if she could hold on to her composure through this simple, mundane procedure. Her hand didn’t shake at all, nor did her face crumple at any point. Venn wondered if she was numbed, and thought that the grief would hit her later, hard, once they’d gone.
    “Dale and I weren’t close,” was the first thing she said, after they’d offered their condolences and the coffee-serving ritual had been completed.
    Venn was surprised. “You mean you didn’t see a lot of one another?” he asked.
    She gazed at him directly. Venn felt the power of her stare, and could imagine himself in the witness stand, giving evidence before her, while she dissected him with her eyes.
    “We didn’t, no. But I don’t just mean we weren’t geographically close. Our relationship was a strained one.”
    This wasn’t at all what Venn had been expecting. He said, “Without wanting to pry, Judge... would you mind telling us why that was?”
    “He wanted a father,” she said simply. “He lost his father when he was four years old. So he never knew him. But growing up, he’d surround himself with photos and memorabilia of Dad. I tried to be both to him, a mother and a father. As well as a judge. You can imagine how that worked out.” A trace of bitterness had crept into her tone.
    Teller and Venn waited as she