Tomorrow—later in the morning, I corrected myself—we would have to pay a visit to the offices of Heath, McKenzie, and Company. Hearing something of Heath’s leadership style would help promote him to suspect status or perhaps remove him from consideration entirely. At the time, I recall that I considered the latter unlikely. As yet we had no hard evidence linking Heath to the crime, but the evidence of the sort I was employed to collect painted a picture of a man not incapable of murder.

Baker set his comm down and said, “Heath is here, in 7130.”

“Marvelous,” said Amber. “Come along, Watson. Sam, you’ll be behind the mirror this time.”

I nodded assent and patted my pockets for my in-ear comm. Even though I had a hard-earned card in my wallet that qualified me to conduct interviews with persons of interest in investigations in which the Port Authority had jurisdiction, I rarely had cause to use it: Amber had decided some years ago that, in interviews with people we thought might be lying, I was more useful when I could stare without the subject noticing.

We were on our way to the elevators before I realized what had been bothering me. I turned to Baker. “Where’s Heath’s wife?”

He shrugged. “The uniforms said nothing about her either way.”

“Make a point to ask him about it,” I suggested.

We said nothing worthy of recollection for the remainder of the trip. I took my place in the observation room, while Amber and Baker waited in the hall for a few moments to give me time to form my initial impressions.

Heath was a large man, cut from the same Nexus-native Caledonian cloth as McKenzie had been. Regrettably, he seemed the sort of man whose precise mood I would have difficulty characterizing; I found people displaying the sort of active energy he was difficult to read reliably. His eyes were constantly on the move, inspecting every nook and cranny in the cramped interrogation room. Every few seconds, he began to drum his fingers on the table, then stopped as soon as he noticed what he was doing. That he was nervous was little surprise, but the nature of the mannerism suggested a man used to self-control and irritated at its absence.