The Crime Writer

I didn't want to believe it I almost couldn't believe it but who else made sense? Who could've broken in to my house, taken my blood, and put it on Broach's corpse? Who could taint the crime scene with a hair that wouldn't raise suspicion? Who had been helpful as long as I was running down the wrong trail? Who had samples from which to simulate my handwriting in the matchbook? Who'd shown me Richard Collins's fingerprint match only once he'd confirmed that the lifted print wasn't his own? Who had handpicked Mort from the pool of brown-Volvo owners I'd closed in on, selected him as the felon most plausible for a murder upgrade? Who had carte blanche access to equipment and databases and throwaway pistols? Who would know precisely how to angle the blade into an unconscious body to make the killer appear left-handed? Who'd been in convenient proximity to the site where Broach's body had been dumped, in fact, because he'd done the dumping?

Caroline had said it well: That's what you don't understand in that pulp you churn out. Everyone's a good guy. Everyone's a bad guy. It just depends how hard you're willing to look.

I knew I'd have to approach that garage and see with my own eyes. His house, the evening, the quiet neighborhood block I was parked on they all felt surreal, hallucinatory stand-ins for reality.

Part of my manuscript had slid off the passenger seat. I stared at the top page beside me. We got along well, and I had found him alarmingly adept at helping me massage plot elements, so much so that on occasion I'd brought him whole scenes to put his skills to work on.

I got out, eased the door shut, and crept along the mossy wooden fence at the front of the property line, the rambling house drawing into view. I slipped through the barn gate, my shoes crunching on the gravel driveway. I passed the blind side of the house, the kitchen door Lloyd had sagged against, sobbing, as I'd left Monday night.

Pausing, I pressed my ear to the door. The grumble of movement deep within the house. A chair screeching back on its legs?

The sun was far enough gone now that when I ducked into the garage, I had to squint to make out the far corners. The car beside the van, hidden beneath a black cover, looked like a shapeless blob. It was backed in as before, the swung-open rear door of the van leaning against it. At the right front wheel well.

I had visited this very scene before. I remembered the van's rear door, how it rested heavily against the covered car, how it complained when Lloyd swung it shut.

The complaint came again, a dream echo, as I rotated the weighty door a foot or so, letting it rest against my shoulder blade as I faced the neighboring vehicle. Janice's disused car. Gathering a handful of cover, I tugged the soft fabric up to reveal the nose of a brown Volvo. A dent in the right front wheel well. Where the metal had crumpled inward, a white seam, jagged at the edges with flakes of paint. The original coat was in view around the mouth of the indentation. Harvest Gold.

What had Kaden told me? Brown is the second most common Volvo color behind that shit yellow.

I tented out the cover until I saw the jagged eye of the bullet hole in the upper-right corner of the windshield. The shot I'd fired last night in my neighbor's driveway.

I stepped away, the fabric slipping silently back into place, the van's door creaking open and finding the groove it had knocked in the Volvo's frame.

Lloyd had repainted his wife's Volvo so if anyone like Junior spotted it at one of the crime scenes, Janice wouldn't pop up on the DMV databases. There were 153 brown-Volvo owners in L.A. County. Only problem was, Janice's car was in the system as a yellow Volvo.

My cell phone rang, strident in the garage's confines, scaring the hell out of me. Caller ID flashed cdrs hosptl. Glancing around, I thumbed the volume down to "mute," whispered, "Just a sec," into the mouthpiece, and moved swiftly up the gravel drive, casting a nervous eye on the house and trying to keep my footsteps quiet.

Safely back in the Highlander beneath the protective cover of the pepper tree, I let out a deep breath, raised the phone, and said, "Sorry."

Big Brontell's bass vibrated the receiver against my head. "Help you, Drew-Drew?"

I asked, "Can you check for me if Janice Wagner is being treated in the oncology center there?"

"No. But I will." I heard him tapping away, wondered how the keys could accommodate his giant fingers. "We had her four months ago, but not now. She was discharged for home hospice September sixteenth."

September 16. A week before Genevieve's death.

I gathered the manuscript into my lap, wanting to be sure I remembered it right. Lloyd's words stared out at me from the page: "It's back. Other breast now. Third time through, make or break."

I said, "She wasn't seen for breast cancer, was she?"

"Breast? No. For "

"Leukemia," I said.