Ceremony

by Paul Austin Ardoin

  “Douglas Rheinstaller has been the subject of five complaints in the last six months from three different people at the lab—one of whom was Kymer Thompson. I also discovered the assault on Eddie Taysatch. Witness statements make fascinating reading sometimes. It was obvious you’d want to talk with Rheinstaller. I’d have thought he’d be first on your list after the girlfriend.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “About two hours.”

  “Standing out here in weather like this?”

  “Don’t be silly. There’s an excellent taphouse on the main thoroughfare. I had a delightful midday meal, and a wonderful beer.”

  “Pinky’s Taphouse?” Dunn asked, coming around the front of the cruiser.

  “That’s the one.”

  “They’ve got a great selection of IPAs.”

  Kep chortled. “I have found there’s no such thing.”

  Bernadette rolled her eyes and turned to Dunn. “The overhopped IPAs are, uh, offensive to those with a, uh—”

  “Superschnozz. Yeah, I got it.” Dunn shook her head.

  Bernadette grabbed Kep’s elbow and pulled him to the side. “I waited in the hotel lobby for over an hour for you to show up.”

  Kep pulled himself out of Bernadette’s grip. “I was able to get further in the case without your assistance.”

  “You wasted hours of my time, Kep,” Bernadette hissed. “Maura’s been trying to reach you, too.”

  Kep looked sideways at Bernadette. “I know you’re my handler—”

  “Case analyst.”

  “—but I have an investigative process.”

  “You can’t disappear like that.”

  Dunn cleared her throat. “So—all three of us are going up there?”

  Bernadette took a step away from Kep. “Looks like it.”

  “All right,” Dunn said, “you show your federal IDs, and see if he’ll come voluntarily. We’ll even say he can drive his own car to the station.”

  “Sure,” Bernadette said, pulling out her identification.

  “Perhaps we can ask to enter his domicile first,” Kep said.

  “Why?” Dunn asked.

  Bernadette blinked. Her eyes were dry from the cold. “So he can smell.”

  Dunn looked at Kep, who nodded.

  “You’ve gotta be crazy,” Dunn said. “This guy’s been a commercial fisherman for decades. His house probably smells like low tide. You think you’ll recognize the smell from Thompson’s corpse?”

  “The lamprey has a distinct odor from the trout and salmon that Rheinstaller is paid to catch,” Kep said. “I’ll recognize it.”

  Dunn shook her head. “He’s got the odor of a zillion trout and a zillion and a half salmon. And you think you’ll stick your nose into his house and with one whiff be able to tell if he was in the lamprey aquarium for five minutes?”

  “You don’t have to believe me,” Kep said. “CSAB believes me, and I’ve got certifications that say I’m an expert with my—how did you put it?—superschnozz.”

  Bernadette chuckled.

  “Shall we get started?” Kep turned and walked up the path to the front door. The porch was small—miniscule compared to Vivian Roundhouse’s residence. Dunn reached out and rang the doorbell. No dogs barked.

  Bernadette heard rustling inside, then the deadbolt turning, and finally the door creaking open. A tall man, at least six-four or six-five, stood in the doorway, dressed in a red-checked flannel shirt and a pair of dirty blue jeans. His feet were clad in thick gray wool socks.

  “Douglas Rheinstaller?” Bernadette said. She tried to keep her voice even, but it sounded high in her ears.

  “Aw, shit,” Rheinstaller said. “What did I do now? One of those science geeks say I scared ’em off with my ugly mug?”

  “We do want to have a word with you,” Bernadette held up her identification.

  “CSAB? Why does a drug agency want to talk to me? I ain’t even smoked pot for twenty years.”

  “We need to establish your whereabouts late Monday night,” Bernadette said. “And we have a complaint for assault that we need to discuss.”

  “Oh, please,” Rheinstaller said. “One of those pissy little lab rats, right? He can take away my livelihood, but I can’t defend myself?”

  “Perhaps we should come in, sir,” Kep said. “It’s rather cold out here and—”

  “The hell you are. I know my rights. You aren’t setting foot in this house.”

  “Really,” Kep said, “I think you’ll find that we’d like to eliminate you as a suspect—”

  “No. Nice try.”

  “Mr. Rheinstaller,” Bernadette said, “we’d rather have a productive conversation, not—”

  “If you’re not arresting me,” Rheinstaller said, “you can get the hell off my property.”

  “Okay, we’ll do it your way,” Dunn said, taking her handcuffs off her belt. “Douglas Rheinstaller, you are under arrest for assault and—”

  The front door slammed in their faces.

  Bernadette saw red.

  She launched herself past Dr. Woodhead’s side, planting her left foot, then punching her right leg forward.

  The heel of her boot made a satisfying low thwack as it made contact below the doorknob—followed by the sound of splintering wood.

  The door swung open hard and connected with Douglas Rheinstaller’s hip—he hadn’t even had time to turn the deadbolt. He stumbled backward, his heel catching the edge of the tile, and fell, sprawling into the tiny living room in front of a worn tan couch.

  Bernadette pounced on top of him, landing on the small of his back. He was a big man, but he gave a whine as all the wind escaped his lungs. She grabbed his left wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. “Douglas Rheinstaller,” she repeated, “you are under arrest for assault.”

  “And resisting arrest,” Dunn said, appearing at Bernadette’s side, pulling the other arm behind his back, and cuffing his wrists together. “You have the right to remain silent…”

  While Dunn was reading Rheinstaller his Miranda rights, Bernadette stood up. She caught a bemused grin on Woodhead’s face and glared at him. “Aren’t you stepping inside to get that whiff of lamprey you were hoping for, Doctor?”

  “Right,” Kep said, “I appreciate the reminder. Your crimefighting technique vied for my attention for a moment.”

  “The key is to drive the heel of your foot into the weakest part of the door,” Bernadette mumbled.

  “You didn’t even jump-kick.”

  “Come on,” Bernadette said, rolling her eyes. “That’s a Hollywood move. You’ve gotta have a solid plant foot. Otherwise, you lose power.”

  Kep knelt next to Rheinstaller and inhaled deeply, then rose, stepped into the living room between the coffee table and the television, and inhaled again. Then he shook his head.

  “We won’t find any crime here except punching Eddie Taysatch in the face,” Kep said.

  Bernadette helped Detective Dunn get Rheinstaller to his feet. “How did you know about that?”

  Kep pointed at Rheinstaller’s cuffed hands. “Swollen knuckles here. Mr. Taysatch had a black eye when he went for his morning run. I take it you also paid a visit to Mr. Taysatch?”

  Bernadette nodded. “And after our interview, a light blue van drove up, and someone in there shot Taysatch right in front of us.”

  Kep’s face fell.

  Rheinstaller groaned. “I don’t know nothing about that. I didn’t shoot anybody.”

  “Do you own a gun, Mr. Rheinstaller?”

  “I’m not saying nothing.”

  “How about a light blue van? Maybe the Piscary Association has one.”

  Rheinstaller was silent.

  Kep blinked and steadied himself against the door frame.

  “You okay, Kep?” asked Bernadette.

  Kep looked up into Bernadette’s eyes. “He was shot in front of you?”

  “That’s right.” Bernadette felt the tug on her insides, the phantom l
ook on her daughter’s face.

  Kep glared at Rheinstaller on the ground. “I don’t know where he was this morning,” Kep said. “The smell of the lampreys is absent both in this house and on Mr. Rheinstaller’s clothes. I also smell no ibogaine here.” He turned to the handcuffed man whose eyes shot daggers at Bernadette. Kep bent down and sniffed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Rheinstaller spat.

  “I don’t smell nitroglycerin,” Kep said.

  “Nitroglycerin?”

  “Modern ammunition is primarily wood pulp soaked in nitroglycerin. A little mercury fulminate in the primer for that nice little metallic zap that sets my teeth on edge. But I smell none of that on Mr. Rheinstaller. If he had shot Eddie Taysatch this morning, I would smell it.”

  “You’d be able to smell that over the fish?” Bernadette asked.

  “Correct.”

  Bernadette put her hands on her hips as the detective pulled Rheinstaller to his feet and led him outside in cuffs. “Mr. Rheinstaller gets the back seat all to himself, but that means only one of us can ride back to the district station with Dunn.”

  “I don’t want to go back to the district station. I’d like to talk with Annika Nakrivo again.”

  “The girlfriend? She’ll be hard to talk to now. You’ve already said you didn’t believe it when she was crying but you couldn’t sense her tears.” Bernadette held the broken front door open for Kep, then followed him out to the driveway, watching Dunn as she opened the back door of her cruiser for Rheinstaller. “I think we need to talk to a couple of the suspects in the first round. Besides—Curtis is interviewing the IT specialist who was responsible for the software on the lab’s computers. I want to make sure we sit in on that.”

  “That task requires no scent identification. Curtis should have it covered—after all, he’s the technology expert, isn’t he?”

  “Still,” Bernadette said, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  Dunn closed the rear door after putting Rheinstaller inside. “You’re saying you want me to leave you here?”

  “How far away is the Kilbourn Tech campus, Detective?” Kep asked.

  “Too far to walk, that’s for sure,” Dunn said. “Three, maybe four miles, and you don’t want to do it when the sidewalks are icy.”

  “We’ll order an Uber,” Kep said. “Come on, Bernie, let’s catch our killer.”

  She glared at him. “Bernadette.”

  Dunn laughed. “With a woman who can kick like that, you better get her name right.” She opened the driver’s door. “Maybe I’ll see you at the station later.” She disappeared inside the car, pulled into the street, and a moment later she turned the corner and was gone.

  Bernadette glared at Kep, who had pulled his phone out of his pocket and was requesting an Uber. “You sure you want to talk to Annika Nakrivo again? Curtis may know his tech, but he doesn’t know what questions to ask in an interrogation.”

  Kep lowered the phone from in front of his face. “Six minutes,” he said. “And I have to ask—when have you interrogated anyone? Aren’t you a handler—sorry, case analyst?”

  “You assume I’ve always been a case analyst, Kep. It is entirely possible I have more interrogation experience than our good Detective Dunn.”

  Kep’s eyes glittered with amusement. “Be that as it may,” Kep continued, “my nose won’t do the case any good at the station. My olfactory talents will be put to much better use interviewing Miss Nakrivo again.”

  “Even better if you go back to the lab, if that’ll be your argument,” Bernadette pointed out. “There will be a full contingent of employees and interns there—you can sniff them to your heart’s content, and I can even ask a question or two.”

  Kep snapped his fingers. “Interns—of course. Miss Nakrivo is scheduled to be at the laboratory today. She won’t be at Juneau Hall.” He brought his phone back up in front of his face and tapped the Uber app.

  “See?” Bernadette said. “There’s a reason you need a case analyst babysitting you and your supershnozz. So don’t go disappearing again.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  In the back of a neon green Kia Soul—one of the messiest Uber cars she’d ever seen—Bernadette looked over at Kep. Why had he disappeared that morning? Where had he gone, and why hadn’t he allowed his case analyst to go with him? She wanted to discuss strategy once the two of them got to the lab, but Kep’s eyes were closed as he leaned back in the seat, his glasses almost halfway down his nose. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk.

  They arrived at the Freshie a little before three o’clock, and Kep exited quickly, then breathed in dramatic fashion.

  “What’s the plan here?” Bernadette asked. “Usually, I talk strategy on the way so I know what I’m getting myself into.”

  “I apologize,” Kep said. “That car was rank. Fusarium—Cladosporium—the smells were so bad I couldn’t think. I was in no condition to review tactics.” The Kia drove off, and Kep turned to it. “Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon.”

  Bernadette sighed. “Okay, we haven’t gone in yet. Do you want to seek out Annika first, or do you want to have another conversation with Lightman and ask him where he was this morning? See if he knows anything about Eddie Taysatch getting shot?”

  Kep blinked. “Do you have any reason to suspect the professor?”

  “No. But the question will surprise him. It might make him more likely to tell the truth about things he might otherwise keep hidden. Affairs. Skimming off the top. Stuff like that.” Bernadette folded her arms. “We could divide and conquer, but personally—despite the fact that you clearly hate working with me—I think you and I have enough complementary skill sets that it makes sense to be together when we question Lightman and Nakrivo.”

  Kep pulled his winter hat further down on his head. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Who do you want to start with?”

  “My preference is to interview Miss Nakrivo first. I would like to get more information about her visit from the reverend Monday night.”

  “Which she doesn’t want to talk about.”

  “I’d like to press her on her reticence. Perhaps the work environment will force her to reveal more information to try to end the interview in haste.”

  “It’s possible.” Bernadette pressed her lips together. “But someone who doesn’t even cry about her boyfriend dying might be too smart for that.”

  Kep stared at the ground.

  “What is it, Kep?”

  “I suspect Miss Nakrivo is lying about the nature of her relationship with Thompson.”

  “You don’t think they were really boyfriend and girlfriend?”

  “I’m not sure,” Kep muttered.

  “But something smells rotten in Denmark?”

  Kep glanced at Bernadette, who grinned melodramatically and raised and lowered her eyebrows quickly. He chuckled.

  They walked in through the lab’s front entrance, entered the elevator, and pushed the “2” button. The loud grinding of the elevator’s mechanisms echoed the grinding of the gears in Bernadette’s head. Something was still missing. There were plenty of suspects, plenty of lies, plenty of misdirection. But all the lies and misdirection might not add up to murder. Means, motive, and opportunity—Professor Lightman, Nakrivo, Taysatch, and the reverend too. Kep’s nose had for the moment ruled out Rheinstaller, but Bernadette wasn’t so sure he wasn’t somehow involved.

  The elevator doors slid open to reveal the large, open bullpen. Off to the side of the main floor, sitting at Kymer Thompson’s old desk, sat Curtis Janek in his leather jacket and Nick LaSalle, who wiped his brow with his flannel shirt sleeve.

  “I did not expect your technology specialist to be onsite,” Kep hissed, getting out of the elevator with Bernadette.

  “They must have negotiated meeting here instead of the District 5 station,” Bernadette whispered back. “That’s what we wanted to begin with, remember?”

  “We must chart a new course.” Kep point
ed to the back hall that led to the stairs. “Perhaps I’ll investigate the aquarium again. It might be unlocked during business hours.”

  Bernadette nodded. “And I’ll talk to Curtis. Maybe ask the IT guy where he was going last night with two big tote bags.”

  A plan flashed through Bernadette’s head—she wasn’t sure she could pull it off, and the thought of it made her palms sweat, but she had to try. “Come with me,” she said in a low voice. “Stand behind me, like you’re questioning the IT guy too, then you can slip down the hall.”

  Kep pursed his lips and followed Bernadette.

  “Curtis,” Bernadette said loudly, stopping in front of Thompson’s desk. “I thought you were going to talk to IT down at the station.”

  “It makes more sense to see the keylogger in action,” Curtis said, confusion washing over his pale face.

  Kep walked around the desk, taking a position behind the seated Curtis.

  Bernadette turned to Nick LaSalle. “You’re the IT guy we met at the chapel.”

  LaSalle looked up at Bernadette and blinked. “That’s right.”

  “Nick LaSalle, isn’t it? You’re in charge of all the IT that isn’t on the main campus, if I remember correctly?”

  Curtis cleared his throat. “I’m running some diagnostics to see when the keylogger was installed and where the commands originated.”

  “Like I told Mr. Janek,” LaSalle said, “I don’t have any idea about that. I’m a Windows guy. I set up the PCs, I do the password rules, I put the antimalware on the images—”

  Bernadette took a deep breath and tried to channel Sophie in a bad mood. “Sounds like you didn’t do a very good job.”

  LaSalle’s head snapped up. “I do my job fine. The university doesn’t have the budget to spring for some of the more sophisticated security packages—and besides, most of our PCs are too old to run them anyway.”

  In the corner of Bernadette’s eye, Kep stepped back, sinking into the shadows as he disappeared down the hall.

  “I know what I see,” Bernadette snapped. “Someone who’s too incompetent to protect their own network.”

  LaSalle scowled. “There’s only so much I can do,” he said.