The Crime Writer

Kaden stepped back. Pacing, he cuffed his sleeves up past his wide forearms. "Let's pretend I'm playing bad cop. But see, this game is different. There is no good cop. This is bad cop-bad cop. Delveckio and I, there's no one we hate more than killers of women. We watched you slip off once. We're not gonna do it again."

I glanced at Delveckio. Considerate of Kaden to make room for him under the macho umbrella. With his thin frame and watery eyes, Delveckio was not the most threatening figure. Kaden, on the other hand, looked ready to jam his fingers through my face and use my head as a bowling ball.

He continued, "We're willing to rough you up. We're willing to snap fingers. We're willing to crack ribs. And we're willing to testify how we had to because you were belligerent and violent. We'd rather not, but we will. You can go through it or you can skip it, but either way you're talking, and you don't have a brain tumor to save your murdering ass this go-round."

The crime-scene photo had skidded off the table into my lap. Upside down, it looked even more grotesque. Blood and severed flesh, without orientation.

The familiar sickness started in my stomach, dampening my skin. The sweat-stained hospital sheets. The voices echoing off my cell walls. The scabs had lifted to reveal the same horrible scene. Where was I? What had I done? I felt a sudden caving-in of my resolve. The utter demoralization of long-awaited defeat, of laying down arms and giving in to the inevitable. Maybe I had done it. I could not exactly claim to remember the last time I'd encountered a body under similar circumstances. The evidence, Genevieve, my mental lapses it was too much.

Where were you last night between ten-thirty and two A.M.?

Home alone. Out cold. Yeah, right.

Bill Kaden, looking none too affable, advanced on the table, and I opened my mouth to offer a shaky admission of I-knew-not-what when like a thunderbolt a realization rocketed down, straightening my spine, jerking my fists against the pitted wood.

"The camcorder!" I cried. "I recorded myself sleeping!"

Chapter 10

They kept me alone in that interrogation room for an hour and forty-five minutes. For the first while, I sat on the chair with the crime-scene photo, which they'd thoughtfully left behind to keep me company. On the back was printed Kasey Broach, 1/22, 2:07 A.M. The detectives had wasted no time in getting to me. When I couldn't take the gruesome picture any longer, I had little to do but stare at my warped reflection in the mirror. The distortion amplified the way my hair bristled above the scar line, or maybe that was how it really looked.

My camcorder was digital, with a 120-hour memory, which meant that it had been recording seamlessly since I'd set it up, capturing me snoozing, changing, gargling. For better or worse, it would hold the answer. Me, dozing peacefully. Or sleepwalking into a murder.

After a while I moved the table and chair back to the middle of the room. As I paced, I caught myself inadvertently running the pads of my fingers along the line of my hidden scar. At the hour mark, I told the mirror that I was going to urinate in the corner if someone didn't take me to a bathroom. A moment later the door popped open and a sullen rookie led me down the hall, then brought me back.

Kaden and Delveckio finally returned, carrying chairs and looking dyspeptic. At least Kaden did; from what I knew of Delveckio, that was just his normal expression. Reading their faces, I felt nothing short of elation. Wudn'tme. Wudn'tme.

They sat opposite. The folder in Kaden's lap carried a sweat mark from his hand.

"We saw the footage," Kaden said. "The lab seems to believe it wasn't doctored. No glitches in the continuity."

I blew out a breath that kept going. The relief was so intense it made me light-headed.

Kaden was talking. "But you could've had an accomplice. Or maybe the coroner's time of death was inaccurate. You were off the tape for just about all of the afternoon and the early part of the night."

"I have alibis. I was at a friend's for the afternoon, then my editor came over."

"This still doesn't play right," Kaden said. "Why's an innocent guy an innocent guy that all the evidence at the crime scene just weirdly happens to nail set up an airtight alibi?"

"Because I thought I might have chopped my own foot in my sleep, and I was worried I was losing my mind."

Kaden laughed. "'Losing'?"

"Let's start this over." I extended my hand. "Drew."

Kaden stared at my hand like he was about to spit on it, but after a moment he nodded. Delveckio grudgingly followed suit.

"Okay. You don't like me, and I'm not particularly fond of you guys." I glanced at Delveckio. "Especially you."

"Why especially me?"