“Sure,” Cowder said. “Same one they’ve been giving for more decades than I’d care to think of. The mother was married before. Divorced her husband, married Larchmont. But she had a boy by her first husband.”
“Broken home and sibling rivalry? Pfui! And if it wasn’t that, the sociologists would find another excuse,” Mike said angrily.
“Funny thing is that the older half brother was a perfectly respectable kid. Made good grades in school, joined the Space Service, has a perfectly clean record. And yet he was the product of the broken home, not the two younger kids.”
Mike laughed dryly. “That ought to be food for high sociological thought.”
The door announcer chimed again, and Cowder said: “That’s probably the lab boys. I told them to come over here as soon as they could finish up at the cathedral.”
Mike checked his screen and when Cowder identified the men at the door, Mike let them in.
The short, chubby man in the lead, who was introduced as Perkins, spoke to Sergeant Cowder first. “We checked one of those rockets. Almost a professional job. TNT war head, surrounded by a jacket filled with liquid HCN and a phosphate inhibitor to prevent polymerization. Nasty things.” He swung round to Mike. “You’re lucky you weren’t in the room, or you’d just be part of the wreckage, Mr. Gabriel.”
“I know,” said Mike the Angel. “Well, the room’s all yours. It probably won’t tell you much.”
“Probably not,” said Perkins, “but we’ll see. Come on, boys.”
Mike the Angel tapped Cowder on the shoulder. “I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”