The Big Cat Nap

scare me,” she teased him.
    Coop, good at questioning, read people fast and accurately. Some needed to feel safe, others needed to be knocked down a peg, some feared that revealing information would cost them their jobs—and, depending on the information, it just might. Others feared physical reprisals, especially with certain types of murder, and Walt’s carried a hint of that. Anyone who would bash out someone’s brains with a tire iron either possessed a hair-trigger temper or didn’t much mind hurting someone. That could include anyone who got in the way while they covered up the first murder. Victor liked congeniality. Cooper provided that, and her good looks certainly assisted the process.
    He smiled at her mock fright. “Oh, you’ve dealt with a lot worse than myself, Deputy.”
    Her turn to laugh. “Mr. Gatzembizi—”
    “Call me Victor.”
    “Victor.” She waited a moment. “Have you received threats concerning your business?”
    “No.” A cautious note crept into his voice. “But ReNu is a relatively new firm, founded here in 2007, as you know. I also have shops in Richmond, Virginia Beach, Alexandria, and Norfolk.” He brightened. “Norfolk—all those sailors. The young ones get loaded on the weekends and it’s one fender bender after another. Perfect for me.” He grinned broadly.
    “No threats at all?”
    “You mean from a disgruntled customer or from another business? No. Well, this sounds like so much hype, but I don’t have disgruntled customers. I fix their cars. If there remains a problem, I do any further work gratis so they don’t have to keep dealing with their insurance companies. That’s where the real problems are. By the time the client gets to me, he or she has been exhausted by all the people they’ve hadto talk to—the claims adjuster, et cetera. It’s a bit better if they deal locally. Tell you what, Officer, don’t get in an accident.”
    “I know that. You get a lot of business.”
    “There are a lot of accidents in Charlottesville. As you know, hey, anywhere there’s a college, there are plenty of accidents.”
    She flipped through her notebook. “The various insurance companies cite you as providing reasonable rates for repairs.”
    “Yes, I have a good relationship with all of them. And I can usually undercut other shops. I’m more efficient. It’s not rocket science.”
    “I see. You don’t think one of those other shops—let me put it this way, someone would try to harm your business?”
    “The way to harm my business would be to offer quality work cheaper than I do. It would be pretty stupid to kill my best mechanic. Better to steal him away, pay him more.”
    “Yes, it would.” She again agreed with him.
    “Officer, I’m a successful businessman in a difficult time. Really. Every time I turn around it’s a new law, a new ruling, a new tax. I hire good people, which is half of success. I’m always looking for better ways to provide service, and that isn’t always easy, especially given the materials cars are made out of now. Entire bumpers fall off. In the old days those bumpers were made of steel. Used to be pretty simple to repair carburetors. Fuel injection is a wonderful thing, but it’s more expensive when something goes wrong. If I undercut my competitors, it’s their own fault. But, still, to kill one of my people—I can’t believe it.”
    Coop had let him ramble a bit. Often people revealed far more than they intended to if you let them go on. It wasn’t necessarily facts but a sense of the situation and a strong sense of who that speaker was.
    Victor Gatzembizi was intelligent and slick. She understood his self-interest—not necessarily a bad thing. She sensed he was a ruthless competitor, although the form that took appeared to be honest. He cared about his appearance. He really had built a successful business. Her own work on this told her that. Big shops across the state, forty-six employees, a few part-time. That was a pretty lean number, so he saved money there. By all accounts he paid very well, rewarding good work. His employee turnover stayed low.
    Coop returned to her squad car, where Rick bent over his laptop. He’d walked through the repair shop and the body shop. He had wanted to see those splatter patterns on the computer and he had a special meeting that night with the county commissioners, not public. Not only would this murder come up, so would the budget. He wanted to be prepared, and if he sat in