“I know. It was a joke. Sorry, it’s been a hectic few days, and my sense of humor is coasting on dry. I’ve worked with some English guys.”
“Oh? As a lawyer?”
“When I was in the military.”
“Ah. And how did that go?”
“It was a period in my life,” he said, keeping non-committal.
Jenkins smiled affably, but Bob got the sense he was being studied. There was a gaze there, not immediately detectable, but enough to say some assessment was going on. “My father served in the Royal Navy,” the elderly engineer said. “Not for long, but enough to see a bit of the world. It was a rite of passage for many, I suppose.”
They were interrupted by the housekeeper. “May I offer your guests something to drink, Professor?”
Jenkins turned back to Bob. “Do you like tea, Mr. Richmond? Tea, please, Carlos, milk and sugar on the side, there’s a stout fellow.”
He waited until his helper had left. “Now, Mr. Richmond, how may I help? I understand from your message it’s about Hap’s meeting with us?”
“He was parked close by when he was killed.”
Jenkins looked solemn. “He’d been to see us less than an hour earlier. I must say—and I’ve told this to the police already—he was extremely upset. He stormed into my office and… well… it was frightful, really, Ms. Singh. I’m sorry, but it was not pleasant.”
“When he really believed in something, he took it very seriously,” she said. “He was passionate, no doubt.”
“He was ranting that I was personally responsible for people getting addicted to methamphetamine in Oildale, that people like me were why the county is, and I quote, ‘going to hell in a handbasket’. That I was ‘encouraging addiction’.”
“He must have told you why,” Bob suggested.
“He claimed I was hiring goons to harass him over an affordable housing deal. ‘You’re not going to scare me off, Richard!’—things like that. And I can absolutely assure you that that is not the case.”
“I assume you told him that.”
“I did. He said he didn’t believe me, and he’d have proof soon enough. I asked him what he could mean, as I was genuinely confused, but he seemed so certain. He insisted I knew what he was talking about. And then…” He paused, as if puzzled.
“Then?” Sharmila prompted.
“Then he said ‘it’s all going to come out.’ And then he stormed off. I was quite perplexed.” Jenkins reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved a fold-out metal pipe cleaner. He scraped the contents of the completed bowl into the ashtray next to his chair, then folded it up and returned the cleaner to his pocket.
“All? He didn’t…”
“Explain? No! Not at all.”
“Was anyone else present for this?”
He shook his head. “But my office door is always open, even though I’m rarely in it. I’m quite certain everyone could hear him.”
“And… how many people could that realistically be?” Bob asked.
“Well, my office is adjacent to a research laboratory and there are usually, oh… six or seven people in there working. Then there’s our chief executive, my financial right-hand man, Parker Baird. He’d likely have been in his office next door. His assistant, Greg, would probably have been with him. And then there’s my secretary, Ms. Lopez. So… possibly ten people, along with anyone who might have been visiting… I’m sorry… why is this relevant?”
“Well, let me put it to you this way, Professor,” Bob said. “Do you believe he was killed by Marcus for his wallet?”
The professor looked taken aback. “Ridiculous! I mean… one can’t claim to know everyone, but I think I’d have had at least some sense if the lad were a sociopathic opportunist. Marcus is a lovely boy.”
Carlos returned with their tea. He set a cup and saucer in front of each. “There’s milk in the small pot,” he said before departing.
“Then that leaves one option: someone framing him,” Bob continued, “because the police claim he was carrying the murder weapon. The only reason to frame him is to cover up the real motive and killer. And Hap had just finished telling you—and apparently an entire office floor full of people—that he had information coming, dangerous information.”
The realization caught. “You think someone at Jenkins killed him.”
“Or had him killed.” Bob studied the man’s pupils, the creases around his eyes, the muscles around his mouth. Most liars weren’t smooth, but even the good ones often had a tell: a tiny smirk, flittering pupils, flaring nostrils. Something they repeated unconsciously.
But if Jenkins was responsible, he displayed no outward sign.
“I can’t believe that!” he said. “We’re a house of science, a gathering of the curious. I can’t believe any of our men would be involved in anything so perverse, no more than I can believe Marcus would shoot someone. No, Mr. Richmond. That doesn’t make sense. And… why!? Because Dr. Singh didn’t approve of a trailer park being built? That’s ludicrous.”
It had been Bob’s experience that most people weren’t very good at hiding who they really were, despite many thinking duplicity second nature to the people they most disliked. Professor Jenkins was probably a lot of interesting things, but he’d met butterflies more ruthless.
“If not them,” he asked, “who? Who hated Hap Singh enough to look for a patsy, other than Merry Michelsen?”
“Merry what?’ Jenkins said.
“Michelsen,” Sharmila said. “The drug dealer. He runs one of the parks, uses it as a base of operations.”
The professor frowned. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him.”
“You run in different circles,” Bob said. “Dr. Singh was concerned he would branch out to your new development, I guess. That or some other rationale.”
“Why other?” Sharmila interrupted. “Maybe interfering with his business was enough.”
