Nelson Blake had told me all that I needed to know as far as who the suspects were. He had eliminated himself and anyone from his drug-infested world when he told me that they were all making money. Rarely does a drug dealer have a better set-up. They even had a processing lab inside the prison. There was absolutely no reason to disrupt the free flow of drugs from Norrell. When the warden was killed, everybody lost money and the lab was shut down.
Somehow, the word “money” kept coming up, yet the money wasn’t taken. This led me to believe that either the killer didn’t need the money, or this was a righteous killing. The killer wanted to expose the warden. Maybe that was the reason for the bullwhip. Maybe the killer wanted to punish Perkins for his crimes. But why the wife? Why scourge her? Why rape? Did she have anything to do with drug dealing? I was baffled.
“Kelly,” I said as we zoomed down the Beltway to Arlington in her black Stingray. “What do you think is going on?”
“The hell if I know, Phoenix. I’ve been thinkin’ about the handsome lawyer we just left.”
I looked at her. Kelly was smiling from ear-to-ear. I knew what that meant. She was going to screw Sterling. She had already made up her mind.
“Kelly, don’t you think…”
She cut me off. “Phoenix, don’t. Okay? I know what you’re going to say and I don’t need to hear it right now. You know what I’ve been through with Simon, and you know he lost Tiffany. Maybe we need each other right now to move on. You know what they say, ‘Nothin’ gets you over the last one like the next one.’”
“So Sterling was havin’ a thing with Tiffany?” I asked.
“Probably. I mean, she was his personal assistant. All the traveling together. Let’s not forget that she was good-looking and so is he. I’d say they were knocking boots.”
It was hard for me to understand Kelly’s attitude about sex. There had been a lot of traffic between her thighs in the ten years I’d known her. Well, maybe five or six guys aren’t a lot these days. I was a virgin when I married Keyth. Call me old-fashioned, call me self-righteous, but I think sex ought to mean more than a romp and a sincere “see ya when I see ya” attitude. But Kelly is my girl, my very best female friend. And if she didn’t want to hear it, I wouldn’t say it.
“You just make sure you use protection, hear?” I said like I was her mother.
“Yes, Mommy,” Kelly said, mimicking Savannah.
We laughed.
“We need to get out to Norrell Prison first thing in the morning,” I said. “Question some people. Stir things up a bit.”
“Sounds good to me,” Kelly said. “All those incarcerated men, harder than the cement walls that surround them. This may be just what I need.”
We laughed.
I said, “We start with Salaam Khan.”