In Their Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

up some guy who happens to be driving near Lotus Island with a laptop case and a rap sheet and you’re done. You’ve got your killer. The streets of Miami are now safe for its citizens. Children can go back outside to play.”
    “Mr. Stroeb,” Kuzniski said, “this investigation has been given top priority. We’re all working hard with the sole task of finding your parents’ killer. Where do you get off, barging in here and attacking us?” He ran his fingers through his hair in two rapid movements. “We’re busy people, Mr. Stroeb. We don’t have time to sit around with some college punk who’s watched a few episodes of CSI and thinks he knows more than we do. Are you coming, Lieber?”
    She shook her head.
    “Fine,” Kuzniski said and stomped out of the coffee shop.
    The woman with the toddler was staring at him. Jeremy caught her eye, and she turned away.
    Why had he come here? There was nothing he could do. Everywhere was frustration. His uncle, the detectives. The sense of his own futility. It’s why he’d left in the first place.
    Tomorrow he’d catch a plane. Maybe he’d go to Greece. The islands. He’d always wanted to go to Santorini.
    “I can imagine how difficult this is for you,” Detective Liebersaid. She’d been watching him. “How’s your sister? I saw her at the funeral. She seemed— well, lost.”
    Her kindness made his throat close up. He shot a muffin crumb across the table with his thumb and middle finger.
    “It must be a big relief to her that you’re home now.”
    Jeremy pushed back his chair. It scraped against the floor. “I really appreciate you meeting me,” he said, “but I’m sure, like Detective Kuzniski, you have more important things to do.”
    She was flattening out a gum wrapper against the table and made no move to get up. The skin on her hands was slightly wrinkled and covered with age spots.
    “I understand you’ve been traveling around Europe for the past year,” Lieber said after a while. “That your parents and sister had just returned from visiting you.”
    “I’m sure Uncle Dwight filled you in. Gave you an earful about the wayward son.”
    “Did your parents seem concerned about anything?”
    “Besides me?”
    “Yes, Jeremy. Besides you.”
    He leaned his head back. One of the overhead lights was out. She must think he was one self-centered jerk. “I don’t know,” Jeremy said. “They were both pretty intense people. They always seemed to have a lot on their minds.”
    “Tell me about them.”
    “Why?” he said. “Why do you care? You already have a suspect.”
    “A suspect is only that, Jeremy.”
    “So you haven’t put the investigation to bed?”
    “I don’t like loose ends and unanswered questions.”
    “Thank you.” He looked down at his clenched hands. “Thank you.”
    “So tell me about your parents.”
    The door to the coffee shop opened and a group of women in sweat suits and oversized designer bags came in, talking loudly as though they owned the place.
    “She wasn’t like that,” Jeremy said, nodding toward the women. “My mother. She was classy and understated and—”
    “And what?”
    Jeremy’s throat had closed up again. He reached for Lieber’s black coffee and took a sip. Cold and bitter. “You know she was a partner in a CPA firm. Very smart, respected. Everyone liked her.”
    “It seems that way from the people I spoke to.”
    “So you have been asking around?”
    “Of course.”
    Maybe he’d misjudged the detectives.
    “Can you think of anyone who may have wanted her dead?”
    “My mother? I can’t imagine.”
    “Clients? Partners? Someone on the staff?”
    He shook his head.
    “She had two partners.” Lieber flipped through the pages of her notebook. “Bud McNally and Irving Luria. Did you know them well?”
    “Not really. I used to hang out in my mom’s office when I was a kid.” He thought back to the gathering at the Castillos’ yesterday. They had both been there— Irv Luria, the