The Crime Writer

Though I had only the thinnest of circumstantial evidence, I couldn't help but put Morton Frankel in Genevieve's bedroom. This was the face that she'd glimpsed through her last panic flash, approaching her in the night? That face in her peaceful bedroom with the vanilla candles and fluffy duvet? It seemed impossible, profane, even. Had he been obsessed with her? Or had he killed her to work out an obsession with me? What continued to plague me most was the thought of Genevieve's fear in that final instant before the knife tip found her heart. A terror that Katherine Harriman, my redoubtable prosecutor, might have called unimaginable. But I could imagine it all too well. Would Morton Frankel have made it worse Genevieve's last moment alive than if it had been me in that room? I prayed that she hadn't suffered at his hands, that the struggle had been as brief and merciful as billed. The thought of him watching me while I slept made me actually shudder. This man, with pointed sideburns, crouching over my sevoflurane-slumbering form with a boning knife?

Lloyd had been talking.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said, this is my ass on the line. I'll deny sending you this to the bitter end."

"I will, too. Getting it from you, I mean."

"Hand it off to Kaden and Delveckio. I can't without answering questions of how I closed in on it, which means I would implicate you, which means I would implicate myself. Get it?"

"I get it."

"I'm sorry about last night "

"If there's one thing you don't have to do, Lloyd, it's apologize."

There was a long silence, and then he said, "I have to go."

I couldn't take my eyes off the booking photo. There was something unquestionably perverse about Morton. Something unreasonable about his very appearance. He made for much better cackling-villain material than Richard Collins, the Home Depot stoner. Maybe Frankel murdered women for the thrill of it. That would explain the lack of obvious connections between Genevieve and Broach. But it wouldn't explain why a random serial killer would want to frame me.

A scrape at the door startled me I'd forgotten I was a proud dog owner. Xena ambled in, squatted, and urinated into a box of Hunter Pray DVDs in the corner.

I'd let her sleep on a mound of pillows in the kitchen, figuring the flagstones to be impervious to accidents. Then again, glossy jewel cases probably held up pretty well under dog urine, too. I mopped up as best I could and went downstairs, Xena slobbering at my side. Since I didn't have any dog food, I pan-fried some hamburger meat, adding salt, pepper, and a dash of curry as befitted a princess warrior. Xena seemed quite pleased with the results.

Gus had been MIA for a few days. The coyotes had probably caught up to him at last, poor guy. Before letting Xena out, I checked the backyard one final time, then offered my missing squirrel pal a toast with my glass of pomegranate juice. I went upstairs and showered. Preston arrived just as I finished dressing, and Xena unleashed her inner killer on him, nuzzling his crotch and licking his hands in threatening fashion.

We made and broke eye contact, neither of us eager to acknowledge my drop-in the previous night. Were we going to discuss it? Discuss what?

Preston brushed past me, rubbing his palms together eagerly. Business as usual. "Got more pages for me?"

"Better. I have a suspect."

He detoured through the kitchen, returned with a rum on the rocks, and plunked onto the couch, oblivious to the two dirty glasses he'd left on the coffee table in his prior house calls. Xena curled at my feet, licked herself vigorously, then fell asleep. As I brought him up to speed, the gardeners arrived. Xena failed to rouse when the team of five masked men, wielding hedge trimmers and weed whackers, carved up my backyard.

Preston thrilled at the photo of Morton Frankel. "What an antagonist! He even looks like one. But Mort? Mort! Why can't he be Cyrus?

Or Bart? Who names their kid Mort? Only Jews with a dead Mort somewhere."

"Like in the attic?"

"You know what I mean."

I got Preston my latest pages, and he set them in his lap and leaned back on the couch. I detected an underlying sadness. Or, having seen his digs as lonely as mine was I projecting?

"Listen," he said. "I, uh…" An unusual hitch. He cleared his throat and started again, more formally, "I don't do so well when I'm

… I suppose I do better when I'm out. And skip the obvious jokes. It's a part-time condo, if that. Just for me, really. I'm not actually here that much that it makes sense to do a whole thing. I don't even take dates back. People pawing around. It just feels too invasive."

"Invasive," I said. "Right."

Leaving Preston on my couch reading my latest pages and Xena trying to bite the stream of air from the floor vent, I gathered up my untraceable documents and my various theories and went in search of a detective.

"Since I wasted your night last time, I figured I'd give you first crack at it."