Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver

The Fall Guy

The headlights lit the sensuous sweep of the road ahead of her.

Cruising through the dark pines, swaying left right, left right. A damp evening, a cold spring. Her Lexus strayed slightly over the centerline of the wet asphalt and she wondered whether she'd had two martinis with Don or three.

Only two, she decided, and sped up.

She drove this same road, from her job in New Hampshire to her home just over the Massachusetts border, every weekday night — and every night she thought the same thing on this stretch of Route 28: sensuous curves.

Like the cliché of a sign two miles back: Soft Shoulder.

A lot of nights — slightly drunk, listening to Michael Bolton on the radio — she'd laugh at those words on the yellow diamond. Tonight she was somber.

Twelve miles from home.

Carolyn eased her stockinged foot off the gas. Her white Ferragamo spike heels rested on the seat next to her (she often drove barefoot, less for control than to avoid scuffing). Then she piloted the car through the final set of, yes, sensuous curves that led to the minuscule town of Dunning.

The gas station, the general store, a propane company, an old motel, a liquor store and an antique shop in which she'd never — in the five years of commuting to and from the hospital — seen anyone buy a single thing.

She slowed to thirty at the rusted harvester, which is where the avid young cops of Dunning caught their speeders and tormented anybody driving a vehicle nicer than a Buick. She stopped here every night on the way home from work — buying gas and a large coffee — but the service station attendants never seemed to notice that she was a regular.

As she climbed out of the car she saw another customer, a man with a rough face and a five o'clock shadow, leaning against his car, talking on a cell phone. He nodded unhappily; whoever was speaking on the other end of the line was delivering bad news.

Carolyn slipped the nozzle into her gas tank and set the catch on the handle. She stood up, felt a chill. She was wearing her beige Evan Picone suit, low cut, no blouse, and a short skirt. With some satisfaction she noticed the customer's eyes lift from the asphalt and scan her body. Even though there was something crude about him — the craggy face, the meaty hands — he was dressed well. A smooth gray suit and a dark trench coat with lots of flaps. His car was a Lincoln, golden brown. It cost, she figured, about the same as hers. She approved of men in expensive cars.

The nozzle snapped off and she went inside to pay.

A cup of black coffee, a roll of Lifesavers. Pep-O-Mint. Without a hint of recognition, the young clerk looked up from his portable TV only long enough to glance at her chest while he gave her the change; maybe it was just her face he didn't recognize.

She stepped back outside, glancing at the man with the Lincoln as he tossed his phone on the seat of the car and reached into his pocket, fishing for money. He glanced toward her again.

Then he froze. His eyes went wide, focusing just past her.

And she felt an arm snake around her waist, felt cold metal at her ear.

"Oh, God…"

"Shut up, lady," a young man's voice stuttered in her ear. He was nervous and smelled of whisky. "We're gonna get in your car and drive. You scream, you're dead."

Carolyn had never been mugged. She'd lived in Chicago and New York City and briefly in Paris but the only time she'd ever been physically threatened, the perpetrator hadn't been a crook but the wife of the man who lived across the hall from her on the Left Bank. She was now paralyzed with fear.

As the mugger dragged her toward her car she stammered, "Please, just take the keys."

"No way, babe. I want you's much as I want your wheels."

"Please, no!" she moaned. "I'll give you a lot of money. I'll —"

"Shut up. You're coming with me."

"No, she's not." Lincoln Man had walked up to the passenger side of her Lexus. He was standing between them and the car. His eyes were steady. He didn't seem afraid. The skinny kid, on the other hand, seemed terrified. He shoved the gun forward. "Get the hell outa the way, mister. Nobody'll get hurt, you do what I say."

The man said calmly, "You want the car, take the car. Take my car. It's new. Got twelve thousand miles on it." He held up the keys.

"I'm taking her and her car and you're getting outa my way. I don't want to shoot you." The gun wavered. He was a scrawny young guy, backwoods, with dishwater-brown hair in a snaky ponytail.

Lincoln Man smiled and continued to talk calmly. "Look, friend. Carjacking's no big deal. But a kidnapping or rape count? Forget about it. You'll go away forever."

"Get the hell out of my way!" his voice crackled. He moved forward a few feet, forcing Carolyn along with him. She was whimpering. Hated herself for it but she had no control.

Lincoln Man stood his ground and the kid shoved the gun directly into his face.

What happened next happened fast.

She saw:

Lincoln Man turning his palms toward the mugger in a gesture of surrender, stepping back slightly.

The passenger door swinging open and the kid shoving her inside. (Carolyn, thinking crazily: I've never been in the passenger seat of my car before, the seat's too far forward, I'll tear my panty hose…)

The mugger walking around the front of the car to the driver's side of the Lexus, forcing Lincoln Man — hands still raised — out of the way.

Carolyn glanced hopelessly into the gas station window. The young attendant was still behind the counter, still eating potato chips, still watching Roseanne on the tiny TV.

The mugger started to climb into the car, then paused, looking back, realizing the nozzle was still in the gas tank of the car.

Then Lincoln Man was lunging, grabbing the mugger's gun hand. He gasped in surprise and fought fiercely to free his hand.

But Lincoln Man was stronger. Carolyn pushed open her door and sprang out as the two men tumbled onto the hood of the Lexus and grappled for the gun. Lincoln Man banged his opponent's wrist onto the windshield several times and the black pistol flew from his grasp. Carolyn squinted as it landed at her feet. The gun didn't go off.

She'd never held a gun in her life, not a pistol anyway, and she now crouched down and lifted it, felt its heavy weight, felt its heat. She shoved the muzzle into the face of the mugger. He went limp as cloth.

Lincoln Man — a good foot taller than the kid — rolled off the hood and took him by the collar.

The mugger looked at Carolyn's uneasy eyes and must've concluded that she wasn't going to be shooting anybody. He pushed Lincoln Man away with surprising strength and took off at a gallop into the brush beside the gas station.

Carolyn thrust the gun generally in his direction.

Lincoln Man said urgently, "Just shoot for his legs, not his back. You'll be in trouble, you kill him."

But her hands began to tremble and by the time she forced herself to steady it, he was gone.

In the distance a car started, a car with a rattling tailpipe. Then a screech of tires.

"Oh, God, oh, God…" Carolyn closed her eyes and leaned against her car.

Lincoln Man came up to her. "You all right?"

She nodded. "Yes. No. I don't know… What can I say? Thank you."

"Uhm…" He nodded toward the gun, which she was carelessly pointing at his belly.

"Oh, sorry." She offered it to him. But he glanced down and said, "You better hold on to it until the cops get here. I'm not supposed to have too much to do with guns."

Carolyn didn't understand this. For a moment she thought that he was in recovery and touching a gun would be like somebody in AA taking a drink. Maybe people got addicted to guns the way other people — her husband, for instance — got hooked on gambling or women or coke.

"What?"

"I have a record." He said this without shame or pride but in a tone that suggested he was used to mentioning it early in a conversation, getting the fact out of the way, and seeing what the reaction was. Carolyn had none, and he continued, "Somebody finds me with a pistol… well, it'd be a problem."

"Oh," she said, as if he were a Safeway clerk explaining about an expired spaghetti sauce coupon. His eyes dipped again to her beige suit. Well, more accurately: to the part of her body where her suit was not.

He glanced inside the station, where the clerk continued obliviously to watch his TV program, then he said, "We better call the cops. He's sure not going to do it."

"Wait," she said. "Can I ask a question?"

"Sure."

"What'd you do time for?"

He hesitated. "Well," he said slowly. And then must've decided that Carolyn, with her beautiful suit, her tight skirt, her black lacy stockings from Victoria's Secret, this wonderful, fragrant package (Opium, $49 an ounce) would never be his and so he had nothing to lose. He said, "Assault with a deadly weapon. Five counts. Guilty on all of them. Oh, and conspiracy to commit assault. So, should we call those cops?"

"No," she answered, slipping the gun into the glove compartment of her car. "I think we should have a drink."

And nodded toward the lounge of the motel across the road.

They awoke three hours later.

He looked like a smoker but he wasn't. He looked like a drinker too and drink he did but he'd had only one beer to her three from the six-pack they bought at the party store beside the motel, after one martini each in the bar.

They stared at the cracked ceiling.

"You have someplace you have to be?" she asked.

"Doesn't everybody?"

"I mean now. Tonight."

"No. I'm just in the area for the day. Going back home tomorrow."

Home, he'd explained over the martini, was Boston. He was staying the night at the Courtyard Inn in Klammath.

His name was Lawrence — emphatically not Larry. After prison he'd gone straight and given up his job of collecting debts for some men he described vaguely as "local businessmen."

"I collected the vig, they call it," he'd explained. "The interest on loan shark loans. You gotta pay the vig."

"Like Rocky."

"Yeah, sorta," Lawrence said.

When she asked his last name his eyes went cloudy and though he said, "Anderson," he might as well have answered "Smith."

He said, "None of the above," to her inquiry about a wife and family and she was inclined to believe him.

The one thing she knew about him for certain was that he was an incredible lover.

Sensuous road, sensuous curves…

Nothing soft about his shoulders.

For nearly two hours, they'd kissed, touched, tasted, pressed together. There was nothing kinky about him, nothing odd. He was simply, well, overwhelming. That was the only way she could describe it. His strong arms around her, his large body atop hers…

As they lay now in the warm, cheap bed, she watched his chest rising and falling. There was a nasty scar on it, clearly visible beneath the black, curly hair. She wanted to ask him about it but couldn't bring herself to.

"Lawrence?"

He glanced at her cautiously. This was the revered moment after coupling. A risky time. Certain conventions had to be followed. Honesty was dangerous but sincerity a must. Synonyms for commitment and love and the future — if not those words themselves — had ruined many rosy evenings.

But Carolyn's mind wasn't on any of those matters. She was picturing the black gun in her glove compartment and the high, frantic voice of the man who'd nearly kidnapped her.

"What do you do for a living now?" she asked him.

A pause.

"I used to sell auto parts. Well, manage a store. I'm between things right now."

"Got fired?"

"Yeah, got fired." He stretched, a bone popped. "You have a record, they'll fire you if some kid in the mailroom takes a box of staples home. You're always the number-one suspect. I came up for a job interview in Hammond today. Didn't work out."

She remembered his sullen face during the conversation on his cell phone:

"Can I ask vow a question?" he asked.

"Sure. I'm married, no children. I love sex and I drink too much. Anything else?"

"Why didn't you want to call the cops?"

But instead of answering she asked, "Why didn't you get shook back there?"

He shrugged those great shoulders again. "I've had guns pointed at me before. I can tell when somebody's going to use a piece and when he's not. Oh, that kid'd been a pro, I'd've said so long, lady, and hoped the state troopers got to you before it was too late."

"Have you ever killed anybody?"

The hesitation was his answer.

"No more questions from you till you answer mine," he said. "Why no cops?"

"Because I have a business proposition for you."

"What, you need some auto parts?"

"No, I want you to murder my husband."

"Divorce him," Lawrence said. "That's what they make lawyers for."

"He's worth a lot of money."

"If he's cheating, you'll get half. Maybe more."

"Well…"

"Oh. He's not the only guilty party." Lawrence laughed and gestured toward the bed they were lying in. "Guess not. Who cheated first?"

"He did." Then she added, "Well, he got caught first."

"Tough luck. But I'm not a hit man. I never was."

"What can I say to convince you?"

"Nothing. Not. A. Thing."

"What can I do to convince you?" She moved her hands along his body, pinched his thigh playfully.

He laughed.

He stopped smiling when she asked, "Fifty thousand?"

But after a moment: "I've done my time. I didn't like it."

"A hundred?"

The hesitation was probably only a millisecond but to Carolyn it was plenty long enough.

Lawrence said, "I don't think so."

"I don't think — that's not the same as no."

"It's not easy killing somebody. Well, matter of fact, that part is easy. But getting away's tricky. That's the almost-impossible part."

As she often did in the meetings she ran at the hospital — when the people who worked for her would come up with excuses for not having their reports or proposals in on time — Carolyn said, "I'm hearing almost. I'm hearing tricky. But all that tells me is it's doable."

"You ever threatened him?"

She shrugged. "I found him with his girlfriend once at the mall. I lost it. I said I'd kill them both… No, I think I said they'd wish they were dead by the time I got through with them."

"Ouch."

"I don't think anybody heard me."

"Well," he said slowly, like a doctor formulating an opinion. "You've got a reason to kill him. That's a problem. It means you've got to find a fall guy. You've got to make it look like it's more likely somebody else committed the crime than you, even if you have a motive. We need —"

"Another suspect?"

"Yeah."

She smiled and eased her breasts against him. "Like a car-jacker. Or a mugger?"

"Sure." His eyes swung toward the gas station. He nodded. "That kid, we've got his gun…"

Stan had several guns. Carolyn remembered the forms he'd had to fill out to buy them; she knew gun shops kept good records of ownership. She mentioned this now.

"Might be stolen, might not be his," Lawrence said.

"It'd have his fingerprints on it."

"We'd have to wipe it — you touched it, remember?" But then he laughed.

"What?"

"Well, even if we wiped the gun, the bullets'd still have his prints on them."

She nuzzled against his neck.

"But," Lawrence added, "he's just a carjacker. You really want to bring him down on a murder charge?"

"He was going to rape me," she pointed out. "Maybe kill me. Look at it like this: We'll be doing a good deed, getting him put away before he hurts someone."

"A hundred thousand?" Lawrence gazed up at the ceiling. "You know, those social workers and counselors… in prison, I mean? They'd ask about all sorts of crazy stuff. What appealed to me about antisocial behavior? What was I angry about? Was my childhood conflicted?" He laughed. "They didn't like my answers. I told 'em I could make five thousand a day just to break some poor schmuck's arm. Who the hell wouldn't want a job like that?"

"Well, here's a chance for your nest egg." She kissed his ear and whispered the words that always thrilled her, "Tax free."

He thought for a moment. "We'd have to set it up carefully. Maybe we find the motel where he's meeting his girlfriend —"

"I know it. They always go to the same place."

"How does it work?" He laughed. "I was married for ten years and I never had an affair. Would she leave the place first? Or him?"

"She'd leave first. He'd wait, pay for the room."

"Okay, after he pays he gets in the car. I'm there waiting for him."

"And you shoot him?"

Lawrence laughed. "In a motel parking lot? With people around? I don't think so. No, I'll force him to drive me someplace deserted. Do it there. Make it look like we fought and I shot him. Then I panicked and jumped out of the car and ran. I'll drop the gun on the way. You follow and pick me up… When should we do it? Sooner's better. I need the money bad. I owe big-time on that Lincoln."

"Stan usually goes to see her on Tuesday and Thursday nights."

"Today's Tuesday," he said.

She nodded. "That's where he is now."

"Well, day after tomorrow. Sure. It's a good setup. We've got a murder weapon that can't be traced to us, a good motive. And a fall guy."

Carolyn rolled atop Lawrence once more, straddled him, feeling his interest in her Pamela Anderson body rapidly reviving. And she thought: We sure do have a fall guy, Lawrence. You. An ex-con out of work, a man with a great motive to rob Stan — and kill him in the process.

"I think it'll work," he said.

"I think it will too," Carolyn said. And started to chew on his lower lip.

Sensuous curves…

The car gently rocking back and forth. It was Thursday, another overcast spring evening, and Carolyn was wearing a long-sleeved navy blouse and a pleated skirt that ended halfway between knee and ankle. A couple of the assistants in the hospital office had looked at her with surprise. No cleavage today, no thigh, no straining buttons. The AquaNet had remained capped and her hair was pulled back in a plain pony-tail. She'd decided that after she made the anonymous call to the police reporting one man shooting another in a green Cadillac, she'd have to speed back home and prepare to be the demure, innocent widow. A costume change might be hard to manage in time.

She found herself in an odd state: nearly aroused. The sashaying of the car, the cool air on her skin. And, she had to admit, the thought of Stan dying turned her on.

So did getting her hands on his money. He was such a miser. He wouldn't even buy her the damn Lexus. It had to be a lease.

Thinking about Lawrence too.

Such a great lover.

But a better fall guy.

Too bad, Larry.

It wouldn't be easy, though. She couldn't call the cops from the car phone, of course; there'd be a record of the call. So she decided to pick the place for the hit herself. This would make sense to Larry — she was the native; he wouldn't know the area. She'd suggest that he drive Stan to Cardiff Falls. There, the county road stretched through a steep valley. A mile up the road was a convenience store with two telephones outside.

She'd follow them and after Larry'd killed Stan and gone to meet her she'd slip out of her car and flatten the rear tire of Stan's Cadillac with the kitchen knife she had in her purse (she'd let the air out of the spare tire that morning). Then she'd leave Lawrence there and speed to the store, make the call to the cops and race home. Lawrence'd be trapped in the valley. It would take him forty minutes to get out on foot; the cops would be there in minutes.

Perfect.

Her thoughts segued again to the Heritage Hotel, where her husband was right at the moment.

She pictured them in bed together.

Pictured his girlfriend: Loretta Samples… Lorrie… an unremarkable woman. Blonde, boringly pretty. When Carolyn had stalked them to the mall, Lorrie was wearing a ludicrous black floppy hat and was walking close to Stan with his elbow seated hard against her chest. They'd braked to a fast stop in front of the banshee wife. Oh, had Carolyn enjoyed that little scene.

Lor-rie…

What were they doing at this minute? Carolyn wondered, gripping the Lexus's steering wheel so hard her fingers cramped. Drinking wine? Was he kissing her feet? Lying on top of her and hooking his longish brown hair behind his ears?

Then Lawrence's motel loomed and she braked hard. She pulled past it, like they'd agreed, and he stepped out from behind a row of bushes and climbed into the car before it stopped moving.

"Go," he said.

She sped back onto the road.

She'd expected that he'd be dressed in, well, killer clothes. Like a commando, maybe. At least a black sweater and jeans, or something. But he was just wearing one of his business suits under the elaborate trench coat. His tie was printed with tiny yellow fish. Ugly, tasteless. For some reason this made her feel better about turning him in.

"You're sure he's at the hotel?"

"He called and said he was going to be late for dinner. He had a meeting with Bill Mathiesson."

"And he doesn't?"

"Not unless it's in London, which is where Bill is this week. According to his office."

Lawrence gave a bitter laugh. "You gonna lie, lie smart." He looked at his watch. "What do you know about his girlfriend?"

Another heat flash of jealousy coursed through her. "She's got small boobs and needs a nose job."

"She married too?"

"Yeah. She's just like Stan. Rich bitch. Inherited daddy's money and thinks she can get away with anything. They deserve each other."

"Well, let's hope she leaves the room first. Witnesses're no good." He pulled on tight-fitting cotton work gloves.

"Don't you wear rubber gloves?"

"No," he said. "Cloth is better. No fingerprints inside. To trace you to the gloves."

"Oh." She supposed that Lawrence Anderson Smith, aka the Lincoln Man, aka the Lovemaker, had been very good at collecting debts.

He opened the glove compartment and took out the pistol.

Carolyn glanced at it. They all looked alike to her. Black, dangerous.

He clicked it open. She saw there were six bullets in the six chambers. Lawrence asked, "Did you wipe it?"

"No," she said. "I don't know how."

He laughed. "You just… wipe it." He pulled a Kleenex from the box on her dashboard and carefully wiped the metal.

"There," she said. "There it is."

Ahead of them was the hotel. The red Vacancy light pulsed unappealingly. It was a seedy place. (Carolyn insisted that her lovers take her to bed-and-breakfasts. Or at least the Hyatt.)

She parked on the street, with a view of the parking lot. There was Stan's Cadillac. She wondered which car was Lorries.

"Oh, there's a good place I know to do it," she said, as if she'd just thought of the idea. "Cardiff Falls, Route Fifty-eight. It's about five miles from here. It's real deserted. Just keep going on Maple Branch about a mile to the Mobil station then turn left. That'll be Route Fifty-eight."

"Good." He nodded then said, "You stay right here. I'm going to hide in the bushes. I'll get him in the Caddie and drive there, find a place by the side of the road. You follow us."

Carolyn took a deep breath. "Okay."

"Afterwards, you drop me at my hotel and go home. When he doesn't show up tonight, call the cops. Remember, don't overact when you find out what happened. It's better to look stunned than hysterical. Sort of zoned out."

"Stunned not hysterical." Carolyn nodded.

Then he leaned forward and gripped her neck hard, pulled her lips to his. She kissed back, just as hard. She enjoyed a kinky little shiver, feeling the gloves on her neck. Maybe she'd have to play dress-up sometime with Don. Or some other lover. Maybe leather would be fun…

He released her and she looked into his eyes. "Good luck," she said.

He climbed out, crouched beside the car, looked around. The street was deserted. Still hunched over, he ran through a wedge of shadow beside the hotel and disappeared behind a row of boxwood.

Carolyn laid her head against the leather rest and clicked on Lite FM.

Now, finally, the nervousness descended like a spray of cold rain. The horror of the evening unfurled within her and her hands began to quiver.

What'm I doing? she wondered.

The answer came to her: what I should've done a long time ago. Suddenly her uneasiness turned to rage. I hate these damn clothes, I want to be dressed up, I want to be going out for nice wine and martinis, I want that idiot Stan out of my life, I want to get the whole thing over. I want —

Two sharp cracks from the hotel.

Sitting forward, staring into the parking lot at Stan's Cadillac.

Two more bangs. They sounded like gunshots.

Lights went on in some of the hotel windows.

Carolyn felt the fear inside her like a cold stone.

No, no. They were just backfires. That's all. She scanned the parking lot. More lights came on. Doors opened. Several people stepped onto balconies, looking around.

Then there was motion to her right. She glanced toward it.

Lawrence stood in the shadows. His eyes were wide; on his face, a look of terror. Was he holding his stomach? Had he been shot? She couldn't tell.

"What?" Carolyn screamed.

He looked around, in panic, then gestured her frantically to leave. Mouthing, "Go… go. Get home fast." He disappeared back into the bushes.

Had a guard or off-duty cop seen him with the gun? Did Stan have a gun with him?

Two people stepped from the hotel managers office, a fat woman in a turquoise jumpsuit and a skinny man wearing a short-sleeved white shirt. They looked around the U-shaped building, said something to each other, then listened to some of the people on the balconies and the sidewalk in front of the ground-floor rooms. Carolyn couldn't tell what they were saying.

She looked back toward where Lawrence had whispered his warning. No sign of him.

Time to go, she thought. This is trouble.

She floored the accelerator.

But as the car sped forward she heard a soft pop and the whup whup whup of a tire going flat.

No! Not now! Please…

She kept going. The hotel guests and the couple from the manager's office were staring at the Lexus as it swerved down the street. Then the rubber fell off the rim of the flat rear tire and the car jolted to a stop against the curb.

"Damn! Damn, damn!" she screamed, slamming her fist on the steering wheel.

In the reafview mirror, flashing lights — a police car was speeding toward the hotel.

No, no…

The young officers glanced at her car but passed it by and parked up the street. They trotted to the crowd of guests by the manager's office. Several of them pointed to a room on the first floor and the cops hurried to it.

Two other squad cars showed up and then a boxy ambulance.

Run or stay?

Hell, they can trace my car. It'd seem more suspicious if she ran.

I'll come up with a story. My husband called me and asked for a ride.

My husband wanted me to meet him here…

I happened to see my husband's car…

The cops knocked on the door to room 103 and, when there was no answer, the skinny man in the white shirt unlocked the door. He stood back as the cops, their guns drawn, pushed inside.

One stepped back outside and spoke to the ambulance attendants. They walked inside slowly. If it was Stan's room, and if Stan was inside, Carolyn guessed he was dead.

But what had happened? What —

A rapping on her car window. She screamed and turned around. A large cop was standing beside her. She stared at him, her mouth open.

"Miss, could you move your car?" asked the beefy crew-cut cop politely.

"I — The tire. It's flat."

"Is something wrong, ma'am?"

"No. Nothing's wrong. I just… It's just that I had a flat tire."

"Could I see your license and registration, please?"

"Why?"

"Please? Your license and registration."

"Well, sure," she said, staring at him, his badge, his walkie-talkie. She didn't move.

A moment passed. "Now."

"Ma'am, you're acting kind of strange. I'd like to ask you to step out of your vehicle."

"Well, now, Officer…" She smiled and leaned toward him, easing her arms together. Only after a glance at his perplexed face did she realize that the attention-getting valley between her breasts was hidden by her conservative blue blouse.

She climbed out of the car, handed him the documents.

"You been drinking?"

"No, Officer. Well, I had one beer a couple of hours ago. Well, two."

"I see."

Then she glanced at the rear wheel, frowning. It looked as if somebody had put a trap under the tire — a piece of wood with a couple of nails hammered through it.

The cop noticed her gaze. "Damn kids. They do that sometimes for pranks. Throw 'em in the road. Think it's funny. This your current address?" Nodding at her license.

"Yes," she said absently. Eyes on the hotel room. More police cars had arrived; there were a dozen now, their lights flashing in alarming red and blue. Two men in suits and badges around their necks — one with bushy hair, one balding — arrived and stepped into room 103.

The cop walked to the rear of the Lexus to check the license plate. He seemed calm and reasonable. Carolyn was relaxing. He'd let her go. Sure he would. It'll be okay. Just stay calm and they'll never put anything together.

Then the crew-cut cop's walkie-talkie crackled. "We have a multiple homicide at the Heritage Hotel. Victims are a Loretta Samples, female cauc, thirty-two and a Stanley Ciarelli, male cauc, thirty-nine."

"What?" blurted the cop, looking up from the driver's license he held.

"Oh, Jesus," said Carolyn Ciarelli.

"Detective!" the traffic cop shouted to the bald man with the badge around his neck. "Think you better come over here."

Five minutes later she was sitting in the back of the patrol car — no handcuffs, at least — where she'd been asked to remain until everything got sorted out.

A young patrolman came running up to the detectives. He held a large plastic bag containing the pistol Lawrence had apparently dropped as he fled.

"What've we got here?" one detective asked.

"Probable murder weapon," the young officer said a little too eagerly. He drew snickers from the seasoned detectives, Mutt and Jeff.

"Let's see it," the balding detective said. "Hey, Charlie, any latents?"

An officer wearing latex gloves walked over to them. He was carrying a box with a wand attached, like a small neon tube. He shone a greenish light on the gun, examining it carefully.

"Nup, not a whorl or ridge."

Thank God, Lawrence had wiped the prints off.

"But," Charlie added, pulling on an eye loupe, "we got something here. Looks like a bit of blue tissue caught in the cylinder release catch." He examined it closely. "Yep, pretty sure it's Kleenex."

Oh, my God, no…

She glanced behind her to see the crew-cut cop walk to the Lexus, retrieve something and return. "Look what I found here, sir.

He pointed to the wad of blue Kleenex that Lawrence had dropped on the floor after he'd wiped the gun.

Well, so what? There were hundreds of thousands of boxes of Kleenex around the country. How could they prove —

Charlie unwadded the Kleenex carefully. There was a triangular tear in the center. Where the scrap on the gun would fit like the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle.

Another officer came up to the detectives holding the cloth gloves Lawrence had worn. The bushy-haired detective, now wearing latex gloves himself, lifted them. Smelled the palm. "Women's perfume."

Carolyn could smell the scent too. Opium. She started to hyperventilate.

"Sir," another cop called, "ran the registration on that weapon. It's the victims. Stanley Ciarelli."

No, impossible! It was the same gun the mugger'd had! She was sure. Had he stolen it from Stan's den? But how could he?

Carolyn realized all the cops were staring at her.

"Mrs. Ciarelli?" the bushy-headed detective asked, pulling his handcuffs from the back of his belt. "Could you stand up and turn around, please?"

"No, no, you don't understand," she cried.

After he read her the Miranda rights and put her back in the rear seat of the patrol car she heard a faint squealing of tires in the distance. She stared at the approaching car but her mind was elsewhere.

All right, let's figure it out, she thought. Let's say Lawrence and the mugger are in this together. Maybe the mugger's a friend of his. They steal Stan's gun. I stop in Dunning for coffee and gas. They could've followed me and found out I stop there every night. They make it look like it's a mugging, I sleep with Lawrence…

But why?

What's he up to? Who is he?

Just then the car that had been speeding toward the hotel skidded to a stop nearby. It was a golden-brown Lincoln.

Lawrence leapt out, leaving the door open, and ran in panic toward the doorway of room 103.

"No, no! My wife…"

A cop restrained him and pulled him back from the door. He was sobbing. "I came as soon as you called! I can't believe it! No, no, no…"

The cop's arm slipped around the shoulders of the fancy, navy blue trench coat and he led the sobbing man back to the detectives, who gazed at him with sympathy. The bald one asked softly, "Your name's Samples?"

"That's right," he said, struggling to control his sorrow. "Lawrence Samples." Breathlessly, he asked, "You mean… she was cheating on me? My wife was cheating on me? And somebody's killed her?"

You've got to make it look like it's more likely somebody else committed the crime than you, even if you have a motive…

And for an instant, unseen by the officers, Lawrence cast a glance toward Carolyn, a look that could only be described as amused. Then, as she began screaming at him in fury, slamming her shackled wrists against the window, his eyes went dull again and he covered them with shaking hands. "Oh, Lorrie… Lorrie… I just don't believe it! No, no, no…"