The Price of Innocence by Lisa Black Page A

flammable compounds would be heated, cooled, filtered and heated again, making for an extremely combustible atmosphere. And they
did
stink. Frank loathed meth labs.
    ‘But we were sort of a team. We all had a job. How do you think we could afford to be there at all, Mummy and Daddy? I don’t think so. Mine helped me a little but Marty had been on his own since he was, like, twelve.’
    ‘And what was your role in this operation?’
    Lily rubbed her lips, pulling them out of shape, obviously wondering if she should shut up now. ‘I made deliveries.’
    ‘You were a mule. So not much has changed?’ He expected her to snap at that but she didn’t have an answer, merely bounced on the upholstery so that her foot slipped and she kicked the back of his seat. Apparently not much
had
changed. ‘What was Marty’s job?’
    ‘We were kids, you know? So we’d sell to our friends and let them owe us the money. Only if they didn’t pay, well, we couldn’t let that go on.’
    They drove past the
Plain Dealer
building. ‘So Marty enforced your business relationship?’
    ‘Yeah. He never hurt anyone, really. Not bad. He’d threaten them and they’d pay up. He had more muscle than fat, then.’
    ‘Where did you do all this cooking?’ Angela asked.
    ‘I told you, I didn’t do it.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘In the – place we rented.’
    ‘And who else worked for this little company of yours?’
    Lily rubbed her arms, though even her threadbare sweatshirt should have kept her warm enough inside the car. ‘You don’t need to know that.’
    Frank gave his partner an exasperated look as they crossed East Ninth. ‘Fine. But at least tell me this: how is a sideline from Marty’s college days going to help us figure out who killed him this past Monday?’
    ‘The sins of the past,’ Lily intoned.
    ‘What’s that, the title of a book you read? You got any other information about Marty, maybe something more current? Because I have a hard time believing someone would kill him over a twenty-year-old drug deal. How about that murder you mentioned?’
    Now Lily clamped her arms around her and pushed herself into the seat back as if trying to disappear. ‘Never mind about that.’
    ‘You brought it up.’
    ‘Yeah, I shouldn’t have. Let me out.’
    ‘We’re cops, Lily. If you mention a murder, we’re obligated to investigate same.’
    ‘It’s nothing, forget it. I made it up.’
    ‘Make up your mind. It’s nothing, or you made it up?’
    ‘I was just trying to get a ride.’
    ‘And now you don’t want one?’
    ‘No!’ She set on the door handle with both hands, pushing and pulling, shading from hyperactive into manic. ‘Let me out.’
    Frank couldn’t resist the urge to screw with her. ‘If you have knowledge of a crime, we’re obligated to hang on to you.’
    ‘Forget it, OK? There was no murder! I made it up. Now let me out.’
    Without discussion Angela pulled to the curb, in front of the silver dome of the Cleveland State planetarium. Frank got out, still feeling each abrasion on his legs and arms, and opened the back door. ‘And here we are back at the scene of your college days, Lily. Maybe you can raise the ghosts of your old customers and ask them if they killed Marty.’
    She burst from the car nearly as fast as a champagne cork but without the happy
pop
. ‘Asshole,’ she told him, before stomping down the sidewalk, moving east, retracing their route. She did not look back.
    He shut the rear door and slipped back into the passenger seat, feeling suddenly weary. ‘At least it got her out of the car,’ he said to Angela.
    She shifted into drive. ‘Finally.’

NINE
    T heresa settled down with the samples she had removed from Nairit Kadam – actually the slivers of samples she had retained before turning the larger remaining amounts over to the nicely dressed federal agents – after setting up the scanning electron microscope to analyze the week’s gunshot residue cases and completing the fiber