Read Online Privy to the Dead by Sheila Connolly - Free Book Online

related to his home life, not his work one.”
    â€œTrue.”
    â€œCould it have been an ordinary mugging?”
    â€œOnly if he was carrying a wad of cash in his pocket—which he might have been, if it was payday yesterday. Hrivnak said he had his wallet on him—that’s how the police ID’d him.” I realized I hadn’t asked her if he still had any cash, but Hrivnak hadn’t said it was gone.
    â€œI assume you’ve come up with other worst-case scenarios?”
    â€œOf course. That’s what I do in my spare time.” The wine seemed to be doing its work, and I could feel my tension seeping away. “If we presume that Mr. Scruggs was pushed, which probably means he was having an altercation on the sidewalk with someone, why? Was it a drug deal gone wrong? Was he attempting to mug someone who fought back? Could it have been related to sex—a jilted lover, an angry spouse? Could he have been the victim of a hate crime, bashed because of his sexual orientation or his ethnicbackground, neither of which I know anything about, or because somebody didn’t like the way his face looked?” I realized the wine was hitting me hard and fast.
    â€œAn excellent summary, except that you left out aliens from space and terrorism.” James didn’t look at me as he said that. Maybe he was trying not to laugh.
    â€œWell, pardon me. Of course, my true worst-case scenario is that he was killed over something that has to do with the Society, except nobody has a clue what that might be, and how the heck do we look for something when we don’t even know what we’re looking for?”
    â€œI understand, you know,” he said gently. He put a lid on whatever he was making, then came and sat across from me, bringing the bottle of wine with him. “We need to clear something up, if we’re going to get into this.”
    That sounded ominous. I held out my glass for a refill. “All right, what?”
    He obliged. “You know by now that my jurisdiction as an FBI agent does not extend to Philadelphia police investigations, except under certain unusual circumstances.”
    â€œYes, James, I am well aware of that. And I am aware of the fact that this may be no more than an ordinary suspicious death, being investigated by the city police, and therefore not requiring your special skills.”
    â€œExactly. That having been said, I am more than happy to listen to your thoughts, serve as a sounding board for you, and make suggestions, so long as you don’t bludgeon the detective over the head with them, because she’s going to know where they’re coming from.”
    â€œYou think I can’t come up with intelligent theories of my own? Seriously, I don’t expect you to involve yourself.That said”—I took a sip of wine—“if my victim turned out to have a rare seventeenth-century pen wiper in his pocket, one that had once belonged to William Penn and that still had an accession label from the Society on it, would that make it your problem? Under some form of cultural theft?”
    â€œPossibly. Or not. It depends.”
    â€œWell, I am so glad we cleared that up! And you’d better feed me soon before this second glass of wine makes me totally incoherent.”
    â€œI’ll start the pasta.”
    I watched as he moved neatly and efficiently around the kitchen. I had to say, even though it was undeniably modern and therefore wildly wrong for a classic Victorian house, I really liked this kitchen—well, except for the humongous refrigerator and the frightening stove with lots and lots of dials, both of which I assumed I’d come to understand eventually—and we were getting to know each other slowly. The room was well laid out, and it was a pleasure to work in, with plenty of room for both of us to cook at the same time, unlike either of our former homes. Large windows on two sides let in lots of light