“I’m working on it,” Daniels said. “Takes time to build a case. Trying not to tip him off while we investigate him. We’re gonna get him—for whatever he’s been doing. We just want to get it right—and find out exactly what he’s been up to. He may very well have been up to all sorts of corrupt shit but not be guilty of killing anyone. You yourself said he didn’t go into Russ Maddox’s house around the time he was murdered. This kind of work takes patience. Perhaps you don’t have the temperament for it.”

I nodded. “I’m sure that’s it.”

“We don’t know for sure Russ Maddox was murdered, do we?” Stone said. “I thought it was possible he died of natural causes.”

“It’s true there were no obvious signs of foul play,” I said, “but . . . I’ll be shocked if he wasn’t poisoned and if it doesn’t have something to do with what happened to Ike.”

“And it might, but we can’t do anything until we have evidence,” Daniels said.

“I talked to the chaplain at Calhoun Correctional about Shutt,” I said. “He worked there before transferring here. He said he got nothing but complaints about Shutt—”

“Yeah, but—” Stone interrupted.

“—from staff as well as inmates,” I continued.

“Okay,” Stone said. “We’ll watch him very closely. Anything else?”

“Got the results back on the tests the FDLE lab did on the carpet in the back of the chapel,” Daniels said. “Found small traces of blood and semen. Which means someone has been having sex on the floor in there.”

“Confirms Molly Thomas’s story,” I said.

“Lab also found traces of vaginal fluid.”

Stone shook his head and frowned deeply.

As I walked into the chapel I could hear my phone ringing. The quick double rings let me know it was an outside call. Unlocking my office, I rushed over and answered it.

“Dad wanted you to know that it looks like it was murder,” Jake said when I answered. “Russ Maddox’s preliminary autopsy results are back. Looks like he was poisoned. They won’t be one-hundred-percent certain until the labs come back, but they found traces of poison in the wine and caviar and there was plenty of both in his stomach.”

“Do they have any idea what was used?”

“Not with certainty yet. Chloral hydrate is a front-runner.”

“How about a time of death?” I asked.

“ME guesses between 12:30 and 1:30 a.m.,” he said. “Russ ate at Rudy’s earlier, so he’s basing it on that and the stomach contents.”

“We shouldn’t rule out that it could be Rudy’s food that killed him.”

“Oh and we got Russ’s medical records. Faggot had AIDS. Just like you.”