Page 43 of Fluffed and Folded

He parked in a city lot and hoofed the remaining blocks to the stadium. At the door, he flashed his badge and was granted entry. The badge was a trick he’d used as a cop, after noting people’s almost universal response to it. Something about it triggered their fight-or-flight mechanism. When he needed to gain entrée or information from someone, all he had to do was present it and they froze, relented, or started to babble. In this case they opened the door and buzzed him through without question, not bothering to read what was actually on the badge. If they had, they would have seen the truth:Tristan Evans, private investigator,along with a shiny silver badge that saidsome nonsense phrase in Latin. No one ever paused to read, though, and Tristan counted on their lazy compliance.

By the time Tristan reached the locker room, practice was over and he was diverted to the training room, where he found Rogan Staats in an ice bath, his arm wrapped in an additional ice pack that seemed gratuitous. How much ice did one man need? He sank to a bench uninvited and waited for Rogan to finish bantering with the man in the other ice bath before turning his attention on Tristan with raised brows.

“Something I can help you with, guy?”

“My name is Tristan Evans,” he began, flipping open the badge again for Rogan’s inspection. “I have a couple of questions for you, if that’s okay.” His tone made it clear that it didn’t matter if it was okay, but Tristan was big on the technicalities. Technically he needed permission to ask questions, so technically he’d ask for it, even if he planned to use his size, presence, tone, and badge as inducements.

“About what?” Rogan returned, brows still in the upright position.

Tristan looked at him, letting the question reverberate between them, checking for any hints of guilt. Amateurs and stupid people couldn’t keep guilt off their faces or tongues. Silence made them blurt things or turn their heads away to give their eyes a reprieve. Rogan Staats was either innocent or intelligent because he held Tristan’s unwavering gaze and remained silent, waiting for him to speak.

“Are you familiar with a man named Asher Cline?”

Rogan gave his own pause, and Tristan found that interesting. Why pause before answering, unless he knew Asher was mysteriously dead? “Yeah, he’s an acquaintance.”

“Did you give your acquaintance some free tickets to a game, a few months back?”

“Yeah,” Rogan said, shrugging his unwrapped shoulder. “So what?”

“Did you know Asher was murdered?”

Rogan jolted and cursed. “What? No. What happened?”

Tristan tilted his head at him, as if to say,You tell me.

Rogan held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you insinuating here? I barely knew the guy. How does me giving him a couple of tickets equate to me knowing anything about his murder?”

“It doesn’t,” Tristan assured him. “I don’t know a lot about the man, someone who liked his secrets, and I’m looking into any connections that might give me a better picture. Your name came up. This is me, reaching out.”

“Came up how?” Rogan demanded.

Tristan didn’t answer. He never felt the need to answer anyone’s questions, a trait that served him well in his career, but drove his girlfriend insane. Thoughts of Josie tried to intrude, but he batted them away, lest they make him smile.

“Look, I barely knew the guy. We had friends in common and hung out a few times.”

“What friends?” Tristan enquired.

“I don’t feel comfortable sharing that information, feels too much like gossip,” Rogan said, tone properly self-righteous.

“Why? Were they in the mafia or something?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Then what’s the deal? They were friends, who cares if I know their names?”

Rogan sighed, annoyed. “I don’t know. Friends. You know how it is, you know someone who knows someone. We hung out a few times, he asked for a couple of game tickets, I obliged. It’s a thing I do, try to make use of them, whenever I can.” This time his shrug was more of anaw, shucks, I’m such a good guyvariety. Briefly Tristan wondered if he’d injured his shoulder by shrugging so much.

“How did he seem to you?” Tristan asked.

“You mean did he seem like someone who was about to be murdered? No, he didn’t.”

“Did he have a temper? Was he friendly?”

“I didn’t know him well enough to know if he had a temper. I guess he was friendly. Schmoozy, is probably a good word. He was a name dropper, and I could tell from the beginning that he wanted to be able to drop my name. Probably another reason I gave him the tickets, tossed him a bone. Then when he bragged to his friends that he knew a pro baller, he could have proof.” He smirked. Tristan didn’t, and his smirk soon faded. “What do you want me to say here, man? Do you track all your acquaintances, know their signs, and clock their personality quirks? He was some guy, I gave him tickets, the end.”

“In your brief acquaintance, were there any red flags?”

“What kind of red flags?”

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