"Nice work. Next round's on me," Sullivan said. Him and Velo were leaning against Sullivan's car in the Alfords' driveway, watching various cops wander about searching the residence for any additional evidence. The sun was setting. The murderous couple had long since been taken downtown. Sullivan continued. "There's still something that's not sitting right with me."
"Isn't that why you called me in the first place?" Velo replied.
"That's right, smartass, and it looks like I was right about that, wasn't I?" Sullivan retorted. "Actually, there are a couple of things that I'm having trouble working through. Now, I know you know a lot of stupid shit, but how the fuck do you know whether this house was built by Nate Weiss or not?"
Kristogar chuckled. "That was a bluff. I made up the name Nate Weiss on the spot. In case they were aware that their house had been broken into recently, I couldn't chance being connected, so I invented a reason why I would know there was a safe behind that painting."
Sullivan breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. Then you are human after all. ...I think. So you didn't know if they had been aware of what Lavi and Asad did?"
"I assumed they didn't, from the way Lavi reported their demeanor. I knew they had security cameras, but they could have checked them in the past 24 hours."
"Good thing they hadn't."
"With Holcombe gone, perhaps they didn't think anybody else would be breaking in anytime soon, much less finding anything incriminating. That's not the only way we were lucky," Velo said.
"Oh yeah?" Sullivan raised an eyebrow.
"If they hadn't fired everyone who could have provided adequate security, things would have gotten more...difficult."
"Well, before you ask, I'll take care of erasing any security tapes personally," Sullivan promised. Then he grunted absently. "Another thing, it's a small detail, but...when Gillpatrick said that you'd know Billy McCoy...what was that all about?"
"Billy McCoy is the name the government assigns to registered aliens whose name they can not or care not to pronounce. It's an unassuming enough name, there could be a Billy McCoy in any city."
"I'll ignore the disturbing part about the government registering aliens or whatever...not my business," Sullivan stated. "But how did you figure this one was an alien? You seemed to have this whole thing pegged from the moment you studied the crime scene."
"I worked out several theories after studying the scene. If the one about a small alien being used as a bullet to kill Holcombe was a red herring, I would've started over and followed a different path." Velo shrugged and continued. "Turns out I only needed one theory."
"So how did they happen across Billy, or whatever his name was, in the first place?" Sullivan asked.
"Some kind of random chance, I'd assume," Velo said. "We'll probably never really know those details, since it won't be brought up at the trial."
"Alright then, I think I understand all the facts of the case now," Sullivan said. "In the end, Holcombe was just in the wrong place at the way wrong freaking time, wasn't she? I mean, if she'd been working for anybody else, or was sick for a coupla days, she'd still be alive."
"It's best to forget bad things," Velo said with a sort of mysterious air.
"I know I said I didn't trust the Alfords an inch, but now, this whole thing with them isn't sitting right with me, either," Sullivan began.
"Yet you suspected the Alfords from the start. What doesn't make sense now?"
"Just, none of this...doesn't seem to make sense, for a wealthy socialite couple to be doing all this weird shit, y'know?"
"I've seen it before," Velo said slowly, as if explaining a scientific theory. "They're a textbook 'bored couple.' Too rich or too prominent to divorce, so they find excitemtn to avoid the tragedy of being bored. That's what made you wary of them, I think...you could tell they were bored with one another, and yet something was going on behind the scenes that was keeping it together. Unlike most of the cases I've dealt with--exhibitionists and the like, but also murderers, too--the Alfords didn't have to go looking for the excitement their relationship needed. It just simply found them."
"And killing Holcombe?"
"Part of the excitement. McCoy was already dead, that chapter was over. They needed something new to unite them, so they jumped on the first convenient excuse for murder. They were really becoming quite the thrillseekers. It's good you suspected them, or they may not have been caught for awhile."
"It's good I called you in, you mean," Sullivan chuckled.
Velo simply shrugged. He wasn't much for modesty or flattery. His demeanor changed as a brief silence passed, and he posed his next question carefully. "So how's your mother, Stewart?"
Sullivan smiled. He anticipated this question. "In the same place she's been for a year now. She's gotten so peaceful lately...when my turn comes to go, I sure hope I can handle it with the same grace and dignity." Sullivan then glanced at Velo, with a weird mixture of admiration and confusion. "I told her you were in town. She's waiting to see you. I wish to Gob I knew how exactly you two even know each other."
Velo, staring at the ground at this point, half-smiled. Then he looked back at Sullivan and nodded. "I'll go see her then." He broke off to walk down the driveway.
"Hey, you want me to drive you?" Sullivan offered. Velo turned back and shook his head.
"Don't worry about it. I got my own method of transportation." Kristogar Velo then turned and walked away from the Alfords' residence, leaving Sullivan once again feeling that he had been given more questions than answers.
