Virginia knocked on the office door but entered without waiting for an invitation. Becky Melton, her narrow back to the door and blonde curls resting on drooped shoulders, spoke in the monotone of someone teetering on exhaustion as she recounted the last time she saw her husband alive. “He had to be at work an hour earlier than me, so he was always up and dressed first. The last time I saw him was through the shower door. He liked watching me shower.”
One of the officers in the cramped room moved to intercept Virginia. “Miss, you can’t be in here.”
“Virginia!” Becky’s voice sparked to life, and she pushed herself out of the chair.
As the new widow ambled toward her, arms outstretched, tears ran from her blue eyes down the dried channels of previous flows. Virginia embraced her, allowing her a moment of emotional release. “I’m so sorry, Becky. Officers, could you give us a few minutes?”
The officers grimaced at each other but complied. The last one out the door gave her the “five minutes” sign before leaving them alone.
Virginia reiterated her condolences as she eased her embrace. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Becky lifted her puffy cheek from Virginia’s breast and threw up her hands. “I don’t know. He left for work, and about an hour later, the police called.”
“Do you have any idea how he ended up on the outside of that window?”
“Corey’s deathly afraid of heights. He always keeps the blinds closed in his office because he can’t even look out a fifth-floor window without getting dizzy.”
“Do the police have any ideas?”
“They’re not coming right out and saying it, but I can tell they think he killed himself.” Becky looked her friend in the eyes. “Virginia, there is absolutely no way Corey committed suicide. He wouldn’t have done that.”
Virginia placed an arm around her shoulders and assured her, “I’m going to find out what happened.”
Becky’s eyes popped wide open. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve already discussed it with my partners—”
Becky shook her head. “No. No, I can’t afford to pay you.”
“This one’s on the house.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“We insist.”
“We? Not just you?”
Virginia smiled at Becky’s underestimation of her offer. “I don’t do field work. I brought my friend Jeff Woodard. You remember him.”
“That skinny preppy from high school who talked you into going into business with him?”
“He’s not skinny anymore, and he’s an excellent private investigator. Plus, we just took on a new partner who was with the TBI.”
Wayne Buckwald’s round, ruddy face expressed outrage, but his eyes gleamed with the excitement of a sadistic child shaking a jar of lightning bugs. He repeated his question, stressing every third word. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Emory could feel the heat emanating from his face as his brain scrambled for words to say. “Wayne… How are you?”
“Why are you two standing in my crime scene?”
Glancing at Wayne and Emory, Lester forced a laugh in an apparent attempt at easing the tension before the air snapped. “Were you two assigned to the same case? Clerical error?”
Wayne lifted the yellow tape and stepped within two feet of Emory. “He wasn’t assigned to any case because he’s no longer with the TBI.”
Lester’s rosacea-stained cheeks dropped. His eyes grew to circles of confusion. “I don’t understand. Emory?”
Seconds of silence answered before Jeff spoke up for his tongue-tied partner. “We’re private investigators working for the victim’s wife.”
The police detective inspected Emory’s face. “Is this true?”
Emory forced his eyes from Wayne to Lester. “It’s true.”
Lester’s face hardened. “You should’ve told me.”
Emory opened his mouth to apologize, but Wayne interrupted. “I’ll give you and the missus here three seconds to get out of here before I charge you with impersonating a state officer, tampering with a crime scene and interfering with an investigation.”
Emory and Jeff looked at each other, and Wayne pointed at the exit. “Get!”
In silence, Emory slipped under the yellow tape, followed by Jeff.
“Oh Emory.” Wayne grinned when the PIs turned around to face him again. “Before you leave, I want to introduce you to my new partner, Steve Linders.”
Until Wayne pointed him out, Emory hadn’t noticed anyone standing next to his former partner. A bear of a man with a shaved head and a sweet face half-framed by a thick but shaped beard, Steve smiled and nodded to him. “Nice to meet you.”
“Don’t be nice to them! Crime is shit, and PIs are the dung beetles. They wallow in it, and we clean it up.” Wayne patted his new partner on the back. “Steve here is totally by-the-book. A real straight-shooter. Straight and narrow.”
“Okay, Wayne, I get it. You can stop now.”
Wayne laughed. “Oh, I ain’t nowhere near ready to stop. You always hated PIs. Now look at you. You are what you hated. Pathetic.”
Fists cocked, Jeff was about to lunge at Wayne, but Emory stopped him with a hand to the chest. “Let’s go.”
After several tense seconds, Jeff relaxed his hands. The two PIs withdrew from the crime scene and returned to the hallway.
Emory looked through the glass wall at the TBI special agents conversing with the police. “What about Virginia?”
Jeff shook his head. “She’s just comforting a friend. She’ll be fine. Hopefully, she can get some worthwhile information from her.”
“Well, at least you got what you wanted.” Emory stepped in front of the elevator and stared at it as if the door would open without pushing a button.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t even want to take this case.”
“Are you kidding? Now I want it out of spite.” Jeff jabbed the elevator button to go up. “We’re going to solve it first so we can cram it down that smug asshole’s throat.”
“What are you doing?”
“Going to the roof before we’re banned from there.” Jeff glanced at his partner. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. I’m just not used to being kicked out of a crime scene.”
“It’s irritating, but this won’t be the first time. You’ll get used to it.”
Emory growled, “I don’t want to get used to it.”
The elevator doors opened, and the PIs stepped inside. “Why is the TBI here anyway?”
Emory hit the button for the top floor. “Because the victim is an employee of the Tennessee Valley Authority. It’s a federally owned corporation, so any potential felony that might be linked to it is investigated by the FBI. However, in recent years, the federal government has been pulling back on its oversight of the company, so the TBI has taken over investigations.”
They exited the elevator on the top floor and climbed the single flight of stairs to the roof. To their good fortune, the police had not yet cordoned it off.
Emory took a moment to snap pictures of every feature of the rooftop – from the expansive seven-foot ventilation system at its center and the sole access point through which they had just come to the empty flagpole jutting upward forty feet near one edge and the most prominent feature – a huge billboard that bisected one corner of the roof. The far side of the billboard protruded beyond the vertical planes of the building, making the hair product ad splayed within its frame more visible to drivers heading downtown.
Emory followed Jeff toward the side with the broken window, scanning the silicone flooring along the way for any evidence. As they neared the edge of the building, he stumbled and fell onto the three-foot-high metal railing that bordered the roof.
Jeff grabbed him and pulled him back from the edge. “Are you okay?”
“I stepped on something.” Emory glanced back for the culprit in his misstep, and he saw a translucent object in the path he had taken. “It’s just a rock.”
For extra security, Emory grabbed the barren flagpole positioned two feet from the railing before poking his head over again.
Jeff looked over as well and pointed to the broken window. “There it is.”
“No protrusions in the wall. It’s straight down to the sidewalk. How could he have fallen from here and then horizontally into that window?”
“Well, the wind certainly couldn’t have pushed him into the building.”
“No.” Emory backed away from the railing. “Assuming Corey Melton did jump from here, he was maybe two feet from the building on the way down. He weighed about 140 pounds, and the glass curtain walls in this building are laminated and tempered, requiring more horizontal force to crack than could’ve been exerted by his body if he had encountered a strong gust on the way down. It would’ve taken a tornado to push him through the glass from that short of a distance.”
Jeff thought for a moment. “What if he jumped out, away from the building? He could’ve been maybe six feet from the side on the way down, which would’ve given more time to build momentum if the wind pushed him into the window.”
“The wind still would’ve had to be super-strong, faster than the rate he was falling. No, I don’t see how he could’ve originated from here.”
“Then how did he do it?”
Emory looked around before answering. “I don’t know. Maybe the autopsy will tell us more. Until then, I suggest we proceed as if he were murdered while the trail’s still hot. If it turns out he wasn’t, nothing lost.”
“Except our time, effort and money.” Jeff pulled a vibrating phone from his pocket and answered. “Hi Virginia. You’re on speakerphone.”
Virginia spoke from the hallway near the elevator. “I’m going to drive Becky home in her car. Can I call you later to come pick me up?”
“Of course.” A biting gust of wind flew into Jeff’s unbuttoned pea coat, giving him the momentary appearance of hulking out. He clenched the lapels together. “What did you find out?”
Virginia saw Becky leaving the office and heading toward her. “I’ll tell you later. What’s that noise?”
“It’s the wind. We’re up on the roof looking for evidence that he jumped from here.”
“There’s no way.”
“You never know. Some people are good at hiding depression.”
Virginia held up an index finger to an approaching Becky and walked further away from her so she could talk about her husband. “It’s not that. He had a major fear of heights. He would’ve never gone to the roof of a skyscraper.”
“Then maybe someone forced him up here and pushed him off.”
Emory shook his head and interrupted their conversation. “That still doesn’t explain how he fell sideways into the glass wall.”
Jeff grunted. “The truth is, we’re at a loss, and that really pisses me off.”