The Crime Writer

"Oh, yeah." He filled his glass again, unwrapped a taco, took a bite, and set it down. "I'm real sorry for what you've been through, Drew, but I'm not allowed to talk to you. You're a suspect."

"I haven't been charged. I produced proof that I had nothing to do with "

"I heard."

"Look, Kaden and Delveckio already revealed a fair amount to me. I just want to talk through what I already know. We can start with Genevieve, even. I have the murder book, the trial's over. No way for you to misstep there."

Halfway through his second rum and Coke, Lloyd blinked heavily, suggesting a nod. "Don't you remember it all from the trial?"

"It's blurry. I'd like to hear it again from you."

There was an awkward pause, and then Lloyd said, "Pretty damning, Drew."

"You thought I was going away for it?"

"I couldn't imagine a jury convicting you with a brain tumor in a jar, but the evidence…" His long fingers gripped the mouth of his glass, tilting the dark liquid beneath. He contemplated the rum mix. I knew how that silent conversation went.

I said, "Your report showed that Genevieve had no defensive wounds, no skin beneath her nails."

"Katherine Harriman argued that's because she knew you."

"But Katherine Harriman, unlike me, didn't know Genevieve. Genevieve was tough to surprise, especially if she was up out of bed with an intruder in her bedroom. She wouldn't be one to embrace the knife. If she'd seen the blade, she'd have gone down clawing and biting."

"It was a forceful thrust. Death would have been pretty much instantaneous."

"Prints on the knife?"

"Besides Genevieve's and her kid sister's? Just yours."

"Suspect profile?"

"You know, the usual. Left-handed male, hundred eighty-five pounds, diabolical gleam in the eyes."

"Left-handed from the angle?"

He glanced at the watch on my right wrist. "Uh-huh. Slight slant."

"Male?"

"Power behind the stab."

"Body moved?"

"Yeah. A bunch." Another awkward pause. "By you. Your seizure started as a complex partial. Not the thrashing kind, more of a break in consciousness with automatisms lip smacking, repetitive finger movement. People can walk around, even. Complex partial seizures have been used as a defense in shoplifting cases, though that's pushing it. But you would've been functional enough to manipulate Genevieve Bertrand's body. Until your seizure generalized into a grand mal."

"Would I have been able to stab her in that state? The complex partial?"

"Not likely. I agree with Harriman that your break probably occurred after the murder." He studied my face, then said softly, "I'm sorry, Drew."

I sat back, rubbed at the soreness in my eyes with the heels of my hands. "I had a dream my first night home. I was driving over to her house that night. In a frenzy. She kept a key under a plant pot on her porch. I cracked the clay saucer getting to it. When I woke up, I drove over to her place." Would I tell him the rest? Could I? Lloyd's house was so still I thought I could make out the faint sigh of hospital equipment from the other end. "The saucer was cracked. It wasn't cracked the last time I remember seeing it. I think I dreamed a piece of memory. I think I'm starting to put together fragments of what happened that night."

He frowned severely, taking this in. "What do you mean when you say you were in a frenzy?"

"I was sweating a lot. Feeling panicky."

"Do you recall any unusual smell?"

The band of skin at the back of my neck went cold. My voice tangled in my throat, so I nodded.

"Bitter? Like burning rubber?" Lloyd didn't have to wait for an answer; he could read my face. "It's called an olfactory aura. They often occur just before seizures."

I remembered hearing about auras, but I hadn't put the information together with my dream. "Can I ask you about something else?"

"The question is, can I answer?"

"I want to know about sevoflurane," I said.

Lloyd pulled on his glasses, as if they helped him think better, and said cautiously, "What about it?"

"You found traces in Kasey Broach's bloodstream."

"Kaden and Delveckio revealed that to you?"

I couldn't tell if he was shocked or angry. "The night of the dream, when I woke up, I was really groggy and I had blurred vision. I also had a cut on my foot I think someone might have knocked me out and stolen blood to frame me."

Lloyd let out an unamused cough of a laugh. "Drew "

"Just hear me out, Lloyd. I did some research on sevoflurane today. It's a perfect drug for that. Easy to inhale, quickly induces anesthesia, nonpungent odor. It leaves the bloodstream quickly, so it's hard to test for. No strong aftereffects, so I wouldn't know I'd been drugged."

"Did you know?"

"Well, the killer had a running start, because I mostly figured I was insane to begin with. But here's the thing sevoflurane also produces amnesia."

"So you're thinking…"