Page 108 of Sharp Force

“She’d come back home through the tunnel and find herselflocked out of the basement,” Zain explains. “She’d have to go outside and use the spare key to open the front door.”

“Did she return that key to its hiding place?” Benton asks him.

“I assume so…”

“When’s the last time you used that key, Zain?”

“Out, now!” His uncle opens the door as I seal the swabs inside a paper envelope, tucking it into the medical kit.

Benton has his badge wallet out. He finds a business card, placing it on the plastic swivel tray next to the bed.

“If there’s anything else you remember or want to tell me?” he says to Zain. “Don’t hesitate to call at any hour.”

We leave the room, and Calvin Willard follows. He shuts the door so Zain can’t hear us. He tells the two agents standing guard that he needs a little privacy.

“Give us a minute,” the senator orders, and they look at Benton.

“It’s okay,” he says, and they walk off toward the nurses’ station.

“You go after him for no good reason, and I can promise there will be consequences,” the senator says in a tone that’s deadly.

“I’d like to think we don’t go after anyone when there’s no good reason,” Benton answers. “But I’m sure you understand that as unfortunate as all this is, we have to do our jobs. We have to investigate and get to the bottom of what happened. It seems to me you should want that.”

“What did you find in his hair?” he demands, looking me in the eye. “Why did you swab the blood in his hair?”

“His story is that the killer kicked him in the head, practically tripping over him.” I’m not going to tell him the real reason. “It’s important to determine whether any trace evidence was transferred to Zain.”

“I don’t know what that is.” The senator glares at me. “What the hell is trace evidence?”

“Microscopic material that people might have on them without knowing,” I explain. “It could be anything.”

“I know you must be quite familiar with Zain’s robotic dog, Robbie,” Benton then says. “You and I have both seen the demos. And it goes without saying that you were around Robbie often.”

“What about him?” Calvin gets an uneasy look in his eyes.

It occurs to him why Benton is asking. The senator knows the cameras were always off inside the house at 13 Shore Lane. But Robbie’s are on as long as his battery is charged.

“Dammit,” Calvin Willard says under his breath.

“We know you stopped by to see Zain last night.” Benton is bluffing. “Robbie told us his cameras recorded your visit.”

That’s not true, but the senator’s fallen for it. I can tell by the wariness in his eyes. He’s been around the robot countless times for years and that’s a recipe for trouble. Once the uncommon is familiar, it’s human nature to let down one’s guard and become less vigilant, eventually paying no attention at all.

When the senator appeared at 13 Shore Lane last night, he wasn’t thinking about Robbie’s cameras. I can tell by watching him that he realizes he made a significant error.

“You showed up and gave your nephew a check made out to Georgine Duvall for eighteen thousand dollars tax free,” Benton says, and that much is a fact.

“Yes, I did.” His expression goes from guarded to resignation. “As I have so many times. Tax-free gifts and everything else.”

“Why?” Benton asks, and the senator motions us to step farther away from the door.

“She’s fucking broke,” he says with contempt. “Has been foryears because of her idiot husband, and I warned her about Liam when all of us were at UVA together.”

He explains that for a while when all of them were in college, he was dating Georgine’s sister, Claire, at the same time Georgine was dating Liam. Now and then the four of them would go out together, and it’s the first I’ve heard about a sibling. The times Georgine and I were together in Charlottesville or on the phone, she never referenced Claire.

“Liam was a nice guy but always had one harebrained scheme after another for how to make money,” the senator goes on disdainfully. “A lot of huge purchases combined with high-risk investments, and he dies leaving her in a hole she can’t get out of. We all know the story. We’ve heard it a million times.”

“Does the sister know what’s happened?” I ask. “Where does she live? And what about their parents.”