Frameshift

He walked down the wide stretch of lawn between this house and the one adjacent to it, feeling enormously self-conscious. There was a picket fence, mostly covered with peeling white paint, between the front yard and the back. Part of the fence was a gate, and Pierre lifted the rusting catch, swung it open, and made his way into the backyard, most of which was given over to well-tended vegetable gardens. The rear part of the house had small windows and a sliding glass door overlooking the backyard.

Pierre moved up to the first window and pressed his face against the glass, boxing his eyes against the reflected sky with his hands. Nothing. Just a small wallpapered room with a TV and a corduroy-upholstered La-Z-Boy in it.

He tried the second window. The kitchen. Joan had every conceivable gadget: food processor, juicer, blenders, bread maker, two microwaves, and more.

He moved over to the glass door, moved his face up to it, and—$

Jesus God—

Joan was on her side, facing him, eyes still open. A pool of dark crusted blood more than a meter in diameter had spilled out of her; its shape was irregular on the low-pile carpet, but had neatly filled the tiled area in front of the fireplace. Pierre felt his breakfast climbing his throat. He hurried back to his car, drove till he found a pay phone at a 7-Eleven, and dialed 9-1-1.

Pierre sat on Joan’s front stoop, arms supporting his chin, waiting. A

Berkeley police car pulled up at the curb. Pierre looked up, held a hand to his brow to shield his eyes, and squinted to make out the uniformed figures approaching against the glare of the afternoon sun: a beefy black man and a slim white woman.

“Mr. Tardivel, isn’t it?” said the black man, taking off a pair of sunglasses and putting them in the breast pocket of his jacket.

Pierre rose to his feet. “Officer—?”

“Munroe,” said the man. He nodded at his partner. “And Granatstein.”

“Of course,” said Pierre, nodding at each of them. “Hello.”

“Let’s see it,” said Munroe. Pierre led them down the path between this house and the adjacent one, through the gate, which he’d left open, and into the backyard. Munroe had his billy club out, in case he needed to use it to smash in a window, but when he got to the glass door, he saw the lock had been jimmied. “You haven’t been inside?” asked Munroe.

“No.”

Munroe entered and made a cursory examination of the body.

Granatstein, meanwhile, started looking around the yard for anything the assailant might have dropped during his escape. Munroe came back outside and took out a small notebook, bound with a wire spiral along its top. He flipped to a blank page. “What time did you arrive?”

“At thirteen-fifteen,” said Pierre. “I mean, at one-fifteen.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“I look at my watch a lot.”

“And she was dead when you got here?”

“Of course—”

“You ever been out here before?”

“No.”

“Then what brought you here today?”

“She was late for work. I thought I’d check on her.”

“Why? What business is it of yours?”

“She’s a friend. And she’s a diabetic. I thought she might have been having an insulin reaction.”

“What were you doing around the back of the house?”

“Well, she didn’t answer the doorbell, so—”

“So you went snooping around?”

“Well, I—”

“The knife that did it is gone, but judging by the cut it made, it was very similar to the one that killed Chuck Hanratty.”

“Wait a minute—,” said Pierre.

“And you just happen to be at the scene of both killings.”

“Wait a goddamn minute—”

“I think you should come downtown with us, make another statement.”

“I didn’t do it. She was dead when I found her. Look at her; she’s been dead for hours.”

Munroe’s one long eyebrow knotted together in the middle. “How would you know that?”

“I’m a Ph.D. in molecular biology; I know how long it takes for blood to turn that dark.”

“All just coincidence, is that right?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“You say you worked together?”

“That’s right. At the Human Genome Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.”

“Someone tried to kill you, and now, four months later, someone does kill her. Is that it?”

“I guess.”

Munroe looked unconvinced. “You’ll have to hold tight until the coroner arrives; then we’ll head downtown.”

Pierre was sitting on a wooden chair in a small interrogation room at Berkeley police headquarters. The room smelled of sweat; Pierre could also smell Officer Munroe’s coffee. The lights overhead were fluorescents, and one of the tubes was strobing a bit, giving Pierre a headache.

The metal door had a small window in it. Pierre saw a flash of blond hair through it, then the door opened, and—$

“Molly!”

“Pierre, I—”

“Hello, Mrs. Tardivel,” said Officer Munroe, moving between them.

“Thank you for coming down.” He nodded at the sergeant who had escorted Molly to the room.

It was a sign of how upset she was that Molly didn’t reflexively correct Munroe about her name. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Were you with your husband last night between five and seven?” The coroner’s initial analysis suggested that Joan Dawson’s death had occurred between those hours.