“What’s your big idea?” Whitlock asked. “If you’re here, you must have one.”

Vassier seemed mighty pleased with himself. “More than an idea. An entire plan. Officially, you are close to declaring the whole thing a suicide, right? Or an accident.”

“Not if I can help it,” Whitlock said with a low grunt. Neither theory – suicide or accident – sit well with him. The position of the victim, the signs of an earlier struggle and violence prior to the fall that had brought about the poor chap’s demise, and the academy’s reluctance to cooperate, all pointed to foul play.

“That’s the spirit, detective. What we need is someone on the inside.”

“Right,” Whitlock said dryly. “Have you secured a temp job to become part of the faculty then? I don’t see you working there as a janitor. Or as a cook. Maybe a maid?”

Vassier gave him a withering look. “We need a student who can feed us the right information.”

Whitlock paused. “Do the von Kellers have such a connection?”

“No, but I have already put things in motion to get someone in.”

“They don’t accept just anyone. I believe they have stricter admission standards than the Vatican.”

“I will get that someone in,” Vassier said in a tone that brooked no contradiction. “But you must supply that someone.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Whitlock opened his arms wide. It annoyed him that Vassier had more essential information than he did.

“Your nephew. He’s in his last year now, correct?”

Whitlock took a moment to stare at Vassier as if the man had lost his marbles. “Lawrence? Pardon my French, but are you mad?”

“His grades are perfect, he’s in top physical condition, he’s smarter than your entire precinct put together, and he’s the right age to mingle with the possible guilty parties.”

“More than one guy whacked the boy? That your theory?”

Vassier shrugged. “People up there are too tight-lipped for the whole thing to be neat and tidy. I bet my right nut that things are much more complicated than they’d have us believe.”

For Vassier to make such a blunt wager, things had to be damn interesting.

Still, Whitlock couldn’t go along with what Vassier was suggesting. “I can’t get Lawrence involved. He’d stick out like a sore thumb there.”

Not to mention the secrecy required by such an operation. What Vassier wasn’t saying, and Whitlock knew better than to bring up, was a simple truth: theirs was an institution where paperwork abounded but was just as easy to be made to appear lost. Like in the old folktales, Lawrence would have to walk in there like the wise peasant’s daughter, neither dressed nor undressed, neither walking nor riding.

However, above all the complications – which were within Whitlock’s purview to make much easier, given his position – there was the matter of involving Lawrence. It was hard to believe that the boy was now a young man of twenty-two, already looking too serious and older than his age.

Vassier nodded slowly. “He’s a big gentle brute, just like you, and people who don’t know him think he’s slow. But he’s right for the job. This is a career-making case, Jakob. You can’t keep the boy out of it. Ask him. See what he thinks.”

Career-making case. Vassier had to know he was talking out of his ass. But Whitlock understood office politics well enough to understand that success in the role would work mightily in Lawrence’s favor. He’d be fast-tracked for making detective, and no one would bat an eye.

“No way, no.” Whitlock shook his head. “That’s my sister’s kid we’re talking about.”

“He’s a grownup. He wants to be a big bad cop like you. Do you think that protecting him from danger will keep him from wanting it less? And don’t bring your sis into this. That woman never cared about Lawrence, with all due respect.”

Whitlock had to bite his tongue to hold back the impulse to send Vassier to hell and out of his office. Although, he would do better to remember how well Marius knew him and all his dealings. At first, it had been unnerving; in time, it had become a too familiar aspect of their relationship to get annoyed about.

“He’s not ready,” he said, slowly scratching an old scar on his right hand with a single fingernail, something he often did when faced with a dilemma. “And he has school. The year barely started.”

“Which makes it ideal. Transferring a student mid-term would be more difficult. Get Lawrence to take a sabbatical. He helps us solve this, he becomes a hero.”

“There are other things to consider. What kind of miracle worker do you think I am to be able to make this happen? Don’t even suggest that we should do this outside the law,” Whitlock said, wagging his unlit cigarette again at his guest.

“You’re the king here,” Vassier said, smiling like he knew shit. “Hell, some of your subordinates even call you Emperor.”

“Stop bullshitting me. This could land us both in hot water. Me more than you.”

Vassier stood and leaned over the desk. He grabbed the case folder and opened it. The vic’s sheet was, again, under Whitlock’s eyes. Vassier rapped his knuckles over the vic’s picture. “Read it out loud, Jakob. Date of birth, date of death. No, better let me do it.” With a flourish, he lifted the folder and turned it so he could read it. “Born February 14^th 1964. Date of death: March 10^th 1986. How many months since it happened? Seven months?”

“Yeah, that’s about right.” Whitlock grabbed the folder and closed it, slamming it down on his desk.

“He had his whole life ahead of him. Are you willing to let this go? Those fuckers up there,” Vassier gestured at an indefinite point in space, “think they can get away with murder. Let’s mess them up.”

Whitlock rolled the cigarette slowly between his thumb and forefinger, thin tobacco shreds pouring down onto his desk. “Who’s the guy the von Kellers suspect?”

Vassier locked eyes with him in an undisguised battle of wills. “Give me your word that you’ll talk to Lawrence, and I’ll tell you.”

Whitlock pushed his cigarette between his lips and lit it. Through the cloud of smoke he blew toward the ceiling, he examined Vassier slowly. “If Lawrence says ‘no’, you find someone else. And you keep me in the loop.”

“Deal.”

“Sure of yourself much?”

“I know Lawrence.”

Vassier had met Lawrence a total of five times in the last three years. This infuriating private eye thought he could read people, even those going through the natural transformation of adolescence and young years. The problem was he was right on most occasions. And Whitlock could feel it in his gut that Lawrence would say ‘yes’. His nephew was a silent, brooding young man at first glance, but a benign one, hence Vassier’s remark about people suspecting him of being slow.

Lawrence was anything but slow. His wit was sharp like a razor blade, his mind worked faster than that of anyone else Whitlock had ever met, and he was able to memorize information in impressive quantities, information he analyzed and reduced to its essentials in the time people took to blink. Sometimes, his nephew’s outstanding intellect amazed Whitlock in a way he could only describe as uncomfortable. It made him wonder if the young man Lawrence had become ever had time for making friends or finding someone special. As far as Whitlock knew, the boy had never had a girlfriend, unless he was extremely discreet, which, again, was an important part of his character.

He could see why Vassier would think Lawrence perfect for the job.

“Fine, then.”

“We’ll talk to him together,” Vassier said.

“Don’t you trust me?” Whitlock quirked an eyebrow and took a long drag from his cigarette.

“Not for this. Lawrence is more like a son than a nephew to you.”

That was also true. As was true how Denise had preferred to leave her only son in the care of boarding schools and other people in general. Lawrence was her secret, one she treated like a dirty one; she had never told anyone who Lawrence’s father was, though she had chosen a last name she wouldn’t share with him. Whitlock had taken to the boy despite his taciturn disposition and understood quickly how intelligent he was. And Lawrence took to him in his own reserved way; that was why he was at the police academy now, educating himself to become a future cop, and later, a detective, just like his uncle.