The Crime Writer

Exhausted, I sat at the wobbly kitchen table early the next morning, eating stale Smokehouse Almonds and picking through my mail. I'd failed to sleep, finally dragging out of bed to come downstairs. I'd been unable to shake off last night the dream memory or the nonintruder. The implications of both continued to haunt me.

A hospital bill stuck out from the mound of mail, catching my eye, and I opened it to find a twelve-thousand-dollar anesthesia charge. The memo at the bottom informed me that, since I had no insurance, I should have requested a county hospital for my surgery. During my next amnesic psychotic break, I'd be sure to ask for a detour to the ER at Wilshire and Crack Central. Or here's an idea maybe I'd make a decision next crisis go-round before it constituted a calamity for me and a fatality for someone else.

Through the north-facing bank of windows, the sky looked bruised and wet, the smog dampening twilight. Gus, my fat, arthritic squirrel, hobbled across the back deck. It was a miracle the coyotes hadn't gotten him yet. He cocked his head, regarding me with something like sympathy, then raised his little paws as if in Jewish complaint.

"You and me both, bud," I said.

I continued flipping through the mail. From my agency a handful of surprisingly robust royalty payments. Three marriage proposals, photos enclosed, one from an attractive housewife in Idaho. Bank statements and medical claims and flyers from tree trimmers.

The return to the banalities of life was jarring. My reality crumbs on the kitchen table, mortgage-refinance mailers was not how I'd imagined it would be. What had I expected? Me with my scarlet M, slinking around colonial New England, disgraced and outcast, subsisting on forest grubs?

What I wanted was an unromantic drunk, a liquid haze, an alcoholic salve, a wake-up-in-your-own-vomit-beside-the-Jack-in-the-Box-drive-through bender. I was familiar with it, the sublime indulgence of self-destruction. When you've got nothing to lose, you've got something to gain. Thus the fuck-the-world fix. Thus the meek classmate who surprises you at your ten-year with newfound confidence and fifteen pierces crowding his pale features. Thus my and Charlie Manson's marriage proposals. Given that the prospect of marrying Mrs. Sue Ann Miller of Coeur d'Alene was, for the time being, unpalatable, I wondered at my next move.

I had a pretty significant choice to make. Lie down and die. Or don't.

I removed the cell phone from my pocket and dialed. As I waited for Lloyd Wagner to answer, I recalled that little nod he'd given me in court before he'd ripped into the dummy with my boning knife. He'd felt bad, but he'd had a job to do. I didn't begrudge him that. I'd tagged along with Lloyd at the forensics lab, even to a crime scene or two. He and I had shared a few meals as he'd helped me work through various plot points. He had an elongated face, wavy blond hair, and a kooky grin that he showed rarely. A rum-and-Coke guy. Early riser. He was a little cold, as befits a criminalist, though I'd always thought we had decent chemistry. Most important, he'd bagged Genevieve's hands and feet, dusted for prints, analyzed the DNA. I got his voice mail on his cell, so I tried him at home. His wife was ill, some kind of late-stage cancer, if she hadn't already died.

Answering machine. How old-fashioned.

After the beep I said, "Hi, Lloyd. Andrew Danner here. I know it probably seems pretty weird, me calling you, but I'm, I guess, free. I'm wondering how I might reconstruct the night I… drove over to Genevieve's. I figured you'd be the person to ask. We never got to talk, of course, about the evidence, but I'd like to get your unfiltered opinion. I think I hope… I think I was framed. Unless I'm still temporarily insane, which I might be. I… well, I could use your advice. Please give me a call."

I hung up and paced a tight circle around the kitchen. I withdrew the boning knife from the block and studied it as if it had something new to tell me. Then I dialed again.

The line rang three times before the familiar voice said, "Hello?"

I said, "I'd like to see you. Just for a few minutes before you leave for work. Can you do that?"

The pause was so long I thought April had hung up. Then she said, "I can do a few minutes."

I realized I was still gripping the knife, so I slotted it home. Then I thanked her and headed out.

I threaded through the Encino hills. The Ike-'n'-Mamie houses, set behind oval lawns, flashed one after another in my headlights before fading back into the early-morning gloom. Idling across the street from April's house, I called again. Aside from the dim glow behind her bedroom curtains, the house looked dead.

When she picked up, I said, "I'm here."

The lights clicked on, broadcasting her path as she made her way to the front of the house, then the entry blinds swiveled. "So why don't you come ring the doorbell?" she said through the phone.

"I didn't want to startle you."

"Okay. Well, come on."