Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Janna huddled in her trench coat and glanced over her shoulder. Maybe the downpour hid them. "You're considering breaking and entering in broad daylight and in front of god knows how many neighbors?"
"Of course not," he replied. "We're officers making a welfare check...Ah." A window slid sideways. He put a leg over the sill and eased through. "Come on, Bibi."
Against her better judgment, she followed. Inside she stared. Lengths of glass tubing stuck up out of bins on one wall. More tubing lay on a large table beside a gas torch. In several corners tangles of glass tubing in varying colors rose glowing out of broad bases.
"Neon sculpture," Mama said. "Not bad.."
Janna hissed in exasperation. "For god's sake. We're breaking and entering and you're taking the time to be an art critic!"
"Sorry." He glanced around. "Let's find Salmas."
They found a man answering his description sprawled fully dressed on his back on the bed in the bedroom. Under his nose spread the most spectacular mustache Janna had ever seen, a fiery set of wings indeed.
He lay very still. Too still. Janna could not hear him breathing. "Mama!" He was already beside the bed, feeling for a pulse. "He's alive, but we'd better call an ambulance."
She eyed the limp man. "Odd he'd try suicide over a robbery."
"He didn't." Mama looked up at her. "I think he's been here since he called in sick."
She stared. "You think someone else went to work in his place? Impossible! You heard Keleman. That door takes not only a Scib card but a retinal scan. Someone else might take his Card, but how could they pass the scan?"
"I don't know." Mama pushed his glasses up his nose. "Bibi, I have a feeling this case will be complicated."
Copyright © by Lee Killough
