“Have you even checked into this guy’s background? Did three years. Man two.”

Manslaughter? Damn it. Parker didn’t mention that part. It would make my job harder, but not impossible. I didn’t care what the guy did in his past life. He was innocent of killing Emery Adams.

“So, that’s why you guys are jumping on the arrest so fast.”

“Pretty good reason, if you ask me. Once a murderer—”

“Manslaughter is a far cry from murder.”

“He was directly responsible for another person’s death. If that’s not murder…”

* * *

Feeling more ill equipped to handle this case than I had, I flew back to the office to check on Cookie’s progress and to do a few background checks of my own, all the while trying to figure out how to get close to a god without being detected. If one or both of the gods of Uzan were hijacking humans and discarding their dead bodies willy-nilly, they needed to be stopped sooner than later. This wasn’t just about Beep anymore.

Well, it was mostly about her, but people were dying, and I couldn’t help but take a little of the blame. We’d been warned, Reyes and I. We’d been told not to consummate our relationship, though admittedly we weren’t warned until the deed had been done. Several times. In more than one location. And on a variety of surfaces.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Cookie said, rushing over to me. She handed me a file on Lyle Fiske. After my conversation with Taft, I dreaded looking at it.

“So,” I said, regarding her hopefully, “thumbs-up or thumbs-down?”

“It’s debatable. I will say after what you told me about him, take everything you read here with a grain of salt.”

“Will do.”

I read for several hours from the plethora of info she’d dug up on both Lyle Fiske and Emery Adams before doing my own investigation on a third cog that just didn’t quite fit. Why was Parker so convinced of Fiske’s innocence? Or was this about something else? And why did he purposely leave the man two conviction out of Fiske’s file? I was certain he did that on purpose.

Cookie took off to pick up Amber from school while I read late into the afternoon. Fiske was a fraternity president at UNM. A kid died in a hazing accident on his watch, and it happened to be around the time fraternity hazings were under fire from the media, activists, and politicians. To make an example of him, the judge sentenced him to five years for negligent homicide. He got out early for good behavior.

His record would make it more difficult for a jury to acquit him no matter how much Nick Parker tried to sabotage the case. And his career in the process.

A search of the shady ADA’s digital footprint showed that he had been in the same fraternity as Lyle. He did say they were old college buddies. He failed to mention the frat connection. Or the hazing accident.

A general background search didn’t reveal a whole lot on Emery’s grieving father other than the fact that he’d made a couple of bad business investments over the years. Who hadn’t? I still couldn’t believe Martian Barbie didn’t take off.

I did find out Emery had wanted to become a nurse when she’d started college. Specifically, a trauma nurse. She ended up getting her doctorate in medicine but went on to get a Ph.D. in hospital administration.

She drove the speed limit. Paid her bills on time. Even finished reports early.

I sat back, suddenly realizing what was going on. How could I have been so stupid? Emery Adams was a robot sent from an alien world to study our strange ways. Clearly she was missing the point of being human.

I texted Cookie to let her know I was going to check out Emery’s car. I almost stopped in the restaurant to check on the rascally son of Satan, but I stopped myself. It wouldn’t do any good, so I drove back to the station.

I began my investigation by harassing a couple of cops at impound, then headed to where they were keeping Emery’s car. The one supposedly drenched in so much blood, they couldn’t decipher the true color of the interior until they looked up the car title.

I would visit the actual crime scene later. It was getting dark, and the car was found in a remote area. One thing about New Mexico: we had our fair share of remote areas.

Squaring off against a curmudgeonly guard who had zero intention of letting me see the car, I fought the urge to recommend trying Rogaine. The CIB had already gone over the car with a fine-toothed forensics kit, so it wasn’t like I could contaminate the evidence.

Fortunately, Parker had arranged for me to have full access to everything, so the guy had no choice but to let me see it.