Gabe heaved a sigh, but didn't throw one of his off-hand remarks at her.

“What kind of games does he play?” he asked dutifully, doing his best to humor her.

“Wordplay,” she said, “double meanings. Triple meanings. As much as he can load in to any given act.”

Gabe didn't know Vallejo the way Ruby did, hadn't before been made to feel stupid for missing his clues.

“Pearls before swine...” Ruby mumbled. Rage threatened to bubble up inside her. Vallejo had told her what to expect, and she hadn’t recognized the clue. She couldn’t. There was no way to interpret his meaning until it was too late. Pearls.

“Excuse me?” Gabe asked.

“Something he said to me at the prison. Don't cast pearls before swine,” she repeated.

“Oh, great to know he's reading up on his Bible in prison,” Gabe said. “So we're not worth his pearls of wisdom?”

There was probably some degree of that, Vallejo's smug layers of intent in every word. But it wasn't just that.

“Think literal. Pearl Helman. That's the victim,” Ruby said. “So if he meant Pearl literally, did he mean swine literally as well?”

They exchanged a look.

“They were barbequing,” Gabe said. “I’ll get the witness statements. Maybe we were asking the wrong questions. Who would know what was on the menu?”

“The grill master,” Ruby replied. “We should try asking the right questions this time.”

There was no way Vallejo’s words had been just coincidence. He had to know what was going on and Ruby was going to figure it out.

*

Out of all the witnesses, they chose Paul Kinley to call back in.

He sat nervously across from them, by all accounts an average looking guy. If anything, that made Ruby more suspicious. Clearly their killer had the ability to look like he belonged and Kinley fit that description.

“You were manning the barbeque during the party?” Ruby asked, glancing down at his original witness statement.

“Yeah, I was supposed to be. Someone else had their hands in it, though. Felt like I was just there as decoration,” Paul said with an awkward laugh. “But I was outside the whole time. Never upstairs.”

“Was there something in particular you were supposed to be doing?” Ruby asked.

“Nothing, really. I was supposed to be helping to keep the drinks flowing, but mostly I was standing around not really doing anything,” Kinley said. “Am I like a person of interest or something?”

Gabe raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to be?”

Kinley shifted uncomfortably. Too awkward to be a true suspect, as far as Ruby was concerned, unless he was a truly excellent actor.

It was possible he was just very clever. He downplayed his role at the barbeque, he was quick to insist he hadn’t been upstairs. Kinley wanted them to see him as incompetent and innocent. It could be a good tactic if he was actually guilty.