Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Cut

“I don’t know, buddy,” said Alec, who felt sorry for the guy, in spite of the fact that he was obviously a killer. “I’m not really into fashion myself.”

“Leo had trained a lieutenant. A second-in-command and potential successor. Xavier Yesmanicki. He’d been running the day-to-day side of the business for years, and was ready to take over. Or at least that’s what Leo told me. He was so proud of Xavier. Said that if only he’d found him sooner he’d have been able to make Leonidas Flake twice as big as it was now. Anyway, our arguments always revolved around the same topic: I saw that he was suffering and so I urged him to slow down, and that made him upset, and so he threw in my face that all I wanted was to destroy his life’s work and yadda yadda yadda.” He threw his hands in the air. “It was horrible. Horrible!”

“And so one thing led to another and in a fit of rage you killed him.”

“No! When I get upset I don’t lash out. That’s not in my nature. I simply… crawl into my shell and completely… shut down, I guess.” His lip trembled as he nervously touched it. “I guess it’s the way I’m built—I don’t know.”

“So you gave him the silent treatment.”

“Yes, I did! Because it’s what I always do. We don’t speak for a day, maybe two days, and then we get up in the morning and we both act as if nothing happened, and then finally we hug it out and there will be tears and apologies and remorse and…” He blushed. “Well, make-up sex is popular for a reason.”

“Only this time there was no make-up sex,” said Chase.

He groaned and buried his face in his hands. “This is a nightmare! This is a horror show! My life is ruined! And who’s going to take care of Pussy now?”

Alec shuffled uneasily in his chair. This interview wasn’t going well.

“So where is Pussy now?” he asked.

“Back at the house. Oh, she’ll get all the food and water she needs, but it’s the affection she’ll miss. The love she gets from her papas.” He was rocking back and forth now, hugging himself. “Poor Pussy. She needs her papas.”

“I’m sure Pussy will be fine,” said Chase. “Now let’s go back to last night. So you and Leo had a fight.”

“A very big fight.”

“So you…”

“So I walked out and went into my room, slamming the door. Then I put my music on as loud as possible. Rihanna, of course. Or it could have been Beyoncé. I don’t remember. Leo hated music. He said it messed up his frequency.”

“His frequency?”

“His body’s vibrational frequency. He had this theory that all creation comes out of the void—out of nothingness. So he needed to create a void in himself. Nothingness. No smell, no color, no taste, no sound… He would even put on gloves to cut out his sense of touch. Turn off the light. Meditate for hours and hours. And out of this nothingness, pure creation would ensue.”

“Well, he did create a pretty big business empire,” said Chase, “so maybe he was onto something.”

“I don’t think so. I think Leo was damaged. He had a horrible childhood, with parents who never showed him an ounce of affection. It made him bitter and withdrawn. He lived like the proverbial boy in the bubble, only his bubble was self-created.”

“And then you entered that bubble,” said Alec.

“Yes, I entered the bubble. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Leo wasn’t antisocial. He had lots of friends, and he liked to have fun. Just not when he was working.”

“I see. So back to last night. You were in your room, listening to Rihanna.”

“Or Beyoncé,” Chase added helpfully.

“I blasted my music all through the house at full volume. Five minutes later he came stomping into my room and yanked the speaker from the wall, then threw it out the window!” He laughed, then cried. “It was the last time I saw him! My beautiful, darling boy!”

“So how do you explain you standing at the side of the bed with a knife in your hand?”

“That’s just it! I can’t! I was asleep in my bed. Took me hours to fall asleep, worried as I was about Leo, and the fight we had. When we fight I always sleep badly. And then suddenly I’m wide awake, and I’m standing over him, and there’s blood everywhere, and there’s something cold and metallic in my hand and-and-and… Leo is dead, staring up at me with those lifeless, accusing eyes! As if he knew what I did and he wanted me to know that he knew!” He broke down, and Alec shook his head. They weren’t getting anywhere with this guy. So he and Chase got up and walked out to confer.

“Either he doesn’t remember or he’s a great actor,” said Chase.

“He seems sincere,” said Alec. “But it doesn’t matter. He was there—he did it. No jury will think otherwise, and no judge will decide not to convict him.”

Chase stared through the one-way mirror into the room where their suspect still sat, rocking back and forth again, his arms wrapped around himself and his face turned up to the ceiling, crying bitter tears.

“I feel sorry for the guy, though,” he said.

“He probably just lost it. Felt abandoned, or angry, flew into a rage. It happens, especially with emotional types like him. They bottle up their emotions for a while, then erupt like a geyser.” When Chase gave him a look of amusement, he said, “What?!”

“Is that your professional opinion, Mr. Freud?”

“The hell should I know! But it stands to reason he must have been out of it, made a grab for the knife, and stabbed. And that’s all it took, unfortunately. And when he finally came to, it was too late. The boyfriend was dead.”

“Diminished responsibility?”

“That’s for the judge to decide. I’m just telling it like I see it.”

There was a commotion behind them, and suddenly a blond-haired woman came bursting into the room, accompanied by a man with a camera, and before they could stop them they were aiming the camera at their suspect and the woman was firing off a barrage of questions at the Chief.

“Hey! Get the hell out of here!” he yelled.

Dolores, the police station receptionist, came huffing in. “I tried to stop them, Chief!” she cried. “They pushed right past me!”

“Is Gabriel Crier the killer, Chief? Why did he do it?” asked the woman. “And is it true that Leo Flake left his entire fortune to his cat? Any comment?”

“Get out!” thundered the Chief. “Out! Out! Out!”

More officers had arrived on the scene, and managed to muscle the twosome out of the room before their chief had a conniption fit.

“Can you believe that?” he demanded hotly.

“Actually, I can,” said Chase, who seemed amused at the interlude.

And as Alec stood reeling, he remembered the woman reporter’s last question: Is it true that Flake is leaving his entire fortune to his cat?

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Maybe that’s our motive, buddy. If Flake had decided to leave everything to his cat, then maybe this made Crier so angry he decided to kill him.”

“Which means he’ll get nothing,” said Chase. “Not much of a motive, Chief.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said, frowning as he tapped his lip with his index finger. “We’re not talking about a rational person, here, though, Chase. And he might be lying about the fight. They could have been fighting over the inheritance, not about Leo Flake being a workaholic.”

“Let’s get back in there and have another crack at the guy,” Chase suggested.

They both joined Gabriel Crier in the interrogation room once more, and this time Alec decided to change tack. Instead of being the nice cop, he decided to play the bad cop and go for broke.

So he pounded the table with his fist—hard. “Isn’t it true that you and Leo fought about his intention to leave his fortune to his cat?” he demanded.