closet locked last night?”
She shook her head. “No. Why?”
“What kind of chemicals did you keep in here?”
“Cleaning supplies mostly. Oil for the lamps on the tables. Why?”
He turned to me. “Did you notice the smell of accelerants in the bathroom last night?”
“What’s an accelerant smell like?”
He reached into the closet and pulled out a brand new bottle of lamp oil, unscrewed the lid, and held it under my nose. “Like this.”
I took a sniff, and it punched me right in the memory banks. “Yep. That’s it. What is that stuff?”
“Kerosene. Only the unopened containers are left.”
“What happened to the others?”
“Taken as evidence.” He dropped into a crouch and pointed. “See? Fingerprint powder.”
He was right. I joined him at floor level and saw the black smudges. He didn’t touch any part of the door, however. Curious and careful in equal measures.
I stood. “I thought that smell was burning plastic.”
Trey stood too and put the lamp oil back. “It might have been. That’s for the arson team to decide.”
“Arson!” Cricket interrupted. Her voice rang with panic. “Insurance doesn’t pay for arson!”
“It does. Unless the arson was committed by the property owner, of course.”
“Oh god, what if they think we did this?” Tears sparked at the corners of her eyes. “We put everything we had into the restaurant. Right now, my job is the only thing keeping us afloat, and the school’s hitting us with three furlough days and a pay freeze. Our savings are gone.”
Her words tumbled on top of each other. I started to reassure her that nobody in their right mind would suspect a pre-school teacher of burning down her family business, but Trey spoke first, his voice serious.
“Those circumstances could look suspicious.”
I put a hand to his elbow. “What Trey means is, that kind of investigation is way down the road, not something you should worry about now.” I squeezed. “Right?”
He spoke carefully, his eyes on me. “Right.”
Cricket’s panic subsided, so I let go of Trey and stuck my head inside the closet. It reeked of damp wood and ash. I craned my neck to examine the ceiling.
“Could someone have hidden in here?”
He shook his head. “No, the shelves aren’t removable. But someone could have hidden the murder weapon and then disposed of it afterwards.”
“That would mean someone came here last night with the intention and the means to murder Lex Anderson.”
“Which would mean premeditation.”
“Right. But using the lamp oil seems like making do with what you find lying around. Which is the opposite of pre-meditation.”
Cricket leaned against the wall. Near the scene of the crime, the air smelled even more musty and sour, and the incessant drip-drip-drip of water mingled with the monotone hum of the fans. She scrubbed at her eyes.
“I wish Lex had never showed his face around here.”
I tried to keep my voice neutral. “Were there problems?”
“Oh, huge problems. He started off fine. I was happy to have him on the team. But he’d been erratic lately, really unfocused. Jackson said he was using. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Is that why you two threw him out?”
“The main reason, yeah. Also why Frankie decided to throw him off the team and put Vigil back on. Nobody trusted him, and now that I know he stole the team’s money, I know we were right not to.”
So Jackson had finally come clean about the missing funds. I was relieved—one less secret I had to tiptoe around.
“Did you know where Lex was staying?”
“No. I didn’t care as long as he was out of my house.”
“Did you talk to him Saturday night?”
Another shake of the head.
“Are you sure?”
She hesitated. I waited. I knew from experience that the silent pause was the cop’s best friend—people couldn’t stand the pressure of the nothing, so they started spilling words left and right. The technique was getting to Cricket, that was for sure. Trey noticed too. He examined her with his scalpel-like curiosity.
Cricket didn’t meet his eyes. “I may have spoken to him a couple of times. Why?”
I ignored the question. “Is that who you went to see in back? After you got the text?”
She paled. “I don’t remember. I got lots of texts.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Why do you keep asking?”
“I’m not—”
“You think I killed him?”
I looked at Trey. He looked at me. Neither of us said anything. Cricket glared.
“I had lots of reasons to hate Lex, but that doesn’t mean I wanted him dead!”
The back door opened and a shaft of sunlight spilled down the hall. Jackson stood framed in the doorway,