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“In the flesh. Can I come up?”
“Why do I think you’re up to something?”
“Pretty please?”
He sighed. “Remember, I now know how to disappear a body.”
I laughed.
“Stay there, I have to sign you in.”
I waited. Several minutes later, Nico came through a door. He was dressed in slacks, a blue Phoenix lab polo shirt, and a white lab coat. “Do I get a tour?” I asked.
“I already gave you a tour last summer.”
“Why are you so sour?”
“I’m just busy. And I know you want something.”
“Okay, I want something. Can we talk in your office?”
“What makes you think I have an office? I have a cubicle.”
I exaggerated batting my eyes and got a half smile.
Unlike Jack and my dad who were both over six feet tall, Nico—who’d been sickly as a kid—was five foot eight. It used to bother him, I knew, and sometimes I think it still did. He was twenty-four and looked like a young college student.
We went upstairs to the main lab, and Nico walked me to his semi-private cubicle. He had given me a tour shortly after he started working here and it was interesting, but I don’t think I’d have the patience for the meticulous work required of a lab scientist.
“So... I am interested in your Paradise Valley burglaries.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know a lot. Detective Villines is working with Paradise Valley PD. If you want info, you should talk to him or PVPD.”
“Well, not those specific crimes, just a general question. Do you take prints from all robberies?”
He said, “Just spit it out, Margo.”
“Have you been involved in investigating the spree off Camelback that started right after Christmas and culminated in the shooting at the Cactus Stop?”
“Those aren’t connected.”
“How do you know?”
He looked at me oddly. “Because they aren’t. One is a string of robberies by juveniles, one is a homicide investigation.”
“That doesn’t prove they’re not connected.”
“The police haven’t connected them, and I only worked the Cactus Stop.”
“You printed the store?”
“Our field team did. Do you know how many people come and go? We have no useable prints, not even on the door, which was our best chance. Based on the video, the suspects wore gloves.”
“Why do you think they’re not connected to the other robberies?”
He sighed. “I told you. If you want more, you’ll have to ask Villines,” he said.
“I’m asking you.”
