Gregg Hurwitz - The Crime Writer

"I was really out of it. My first night home. I woke up just after, I think. Guy might've even still been in the house, but then I wasn't sure "

Kaden placed a thick hand on my chest and shoved me so I fell back into the chair. He kicked the table so it slid over and stopped right in front of me. I was now seated at the interrogation table. Neat trick.

"Where were you last night between ten-thirty and two A.M.?"

Last night?

"Okay," I said, struggling to keep up and failing. "Okay."

Delveckio handed me my coffee, an oddly civil gesture, despite his motivation.

"Getting smarter, aren't you?" Kaden said. "Moved the body this time. Washed it down with a bleach solution."

I believe that anyone is capable of anything.

I felt a flutter-beat of panic. "Is it April? Is she all right?"

They stared at me, arms crossed, spread stances, Delveckio a skinnier version of the big guy.

"Tell me she's okay," I said. "You already dragged me here. No need to add insult to injury."

Delveckio reached over and cuffed my head. Openhanded but hard. "You're a piece of shit," he said. "That's insult to injury."

My chest felt tight. I couldn't move enough air through it. "Just tell me this isn't about April."

Kaden set down a crime-scene photo on the table in front of me. I shuddered so hard that coffee spilled over the Styrofoam lip and scalded my knuckles. Woman on a coroner's slab, familiar deep gash in the pit of the stomach. But not April.

A great hope fell over me like a blanket of light. Two bodies, same MO. If I hadn't killed this woman, I likely hadn't killed Genevieve. My name could be cleared. My relieved exhale was cut short by a renewed understanding of my situation. Interrogation room. Parker Center. Logically, the prime suspect.

"I didn't do this. No way. You think I… what? Slipped while stabbing her in the stomach and cut my bare foot?"

"You undressed to make sure you didn't get any spatter on your clothes," Delveckio said. "Manipulating the body, holding the knife, mistakes happen."

"Come on. That's hardly concrete evidence."

"Oh, you want evidence?" Kaden asked.

Here we go again. Deja fucking vu.

"We found a plastic drop cloth in your trash can. Like for, say, the trunk of your car."

My breath left me in a silent cough. I didn't know anything except to keep fighting. Blindly. And take it on faith that I wasn't a murderer, let alone twice over.

"Why would I leave it in my own trash can?" I said.

"You wouldn't," Delveckio said, "You burned it first. But you missed an edge. And it's sporting residue matching the adhesive from the electrical tape binding her wrists."

I couldn't manage a response.

Kaden laughed at my stunned expression, though there was no amusement in his eyes. "Framed again, huh? One-armed man on the grassy knoll?"

"I didn't do this," I said quietly.

"That's odd, because the killer duplicated every specific. The precise angle of the stab wound. The positioning of the body. The way the head was turned, hair down over the right eye. Not exactly the level of detail we put out for the six o'clock news."

My thoughts bled one into the next.

"Here's the kicker," Kaden continued. "That little piece of unburnt plastic drop cloth we found in your trash can? It had some more surprises for us. The victim's blood. Your blood. And as for your bleach bath? Missed a few spots. Your hair under a fingernail. Traces of your blood on the pad of her foot."

I cannot have done this. It's impossible that I did this last night.

"As far as we can determine, there is only one connection between the victims," Kaden said. "And that's you."

I pointed at the body in the photo. "I don't know who that woman is. Why would I kill her?"

"You're trying to tell us you didn't do this, and you've spent the thirty-six hours since your release digging around in the mud of the case you were just acquitted for? Stalking Katherine Harriman. Trying to get ahold of the key criminalist from the investigation. You're giving new meaning to returning to the scene of the crime."

He nodded at Delveckio, who walked to the corner, reached up, and unplugged the security camera pointing down at us. Kaden set both hands on the lip of the table, leaning over so his face was a few feet from mine. He shoved until the ledge of wood struck my lower ribs and sent me and my chair skidding back with it. The table hit the walls on either side of me, trapping me in the corner. "Decent-sized fella like yourself might be feeling a touch cramped right about now. Get used to it. Because that's your cell size for the rest of your life."

Kaden stepped back. Pacing, he cuffed his sleeves up past his wide forearms. "Let's pretend I'm playing bad cop. But see, this game is different. There is no good cop. This is bad cop-bad cop. Delveckio and I, there's no one we hate more than killers of women. We watched you slip off once. We're not gonna do it again."

I glanced at Delveckio. Considerate of Kaden to make room for him under the macho umbrella. With his thin frame and watery eyes, Delveckio was not the most threatening figure. Kaden, on the other hand, looked ready to jam his fingers through my face and use my head as a bowling ball.

He continued, "We're willing to rough you up. We're willing to snap fingers. We're willing to crack ribs. And we're willing to testify how we had to because you were belligerent and violent. We'd rather not, but we will. You can go through it or you can skip it, but either way you're talking, and you don't have a brain tumor to save your murdering ass this go-round."

The crime-scene photo had skidded off the table into my lap. Upside down, it looked even more grotesque. Blood and severed flesh, without orientation.

The familiar sickness started in my stomach, dampening my skin. The sweat-stained hospital sheets. The voices echoing off my cell walls. The scabs had lifted to reveal the same horrible scene. Where was I? What had I done? I felt a sudden caving-in of my resolve. The utter demoralization of long-awaited defeat, of laying down arms and giving in to the inevitable. Maybe I had done it. I could not exactly claim to remember the last time I'd encountered a body under similar circumstances. The evidence, Genevieve, my mental lapses it was too much.

Where were you last night between ten-thirty and two A.M.?

Home alone. Out cold. Yeah, right.

Bill Kaden, looking none too affable, advanced on the table, and I opened my mouth to offer a shaky admission of I-knew-not-what when like a thunderbolt a realization rocketed down, straightening my spine, jerking my fists against the pitted wood.

"The camcorder!" I cried. "I recorded myself sleeping!"

They kept me alone in that interrogation room for an hour and forty-five minutes. For the first while, I sat on the chair with the crime-scene photo, which they'd thoughtfully left behind to keep me company. On the back was printed Kasey Broach, 1/22, 2:07 A.M. The detectives had wasted no time in getting to me. When I couldn't take the gruesome picture any longer, I had little to do but stare at my warped reflection in the mirror. The distortion amplified the way my hair bristled above the scar line, or maybe that was how it really looked.

My camcorder was digital, with a 120-hour memory, which meant that it had been recording seamlessly since I'd set it up, capturing me snoozing, changing, gargling. For better or worse, it would hold the answer. Me, dozing peacefully. Or sleepwalking into a murder.

After a while I moved the table and chair back to the middle of the room. As I paced, I caught myself inadvertently running the pads of my fingers along the line of my hidden scar. At the hour mark, I told the mirror that I was going to urinate in the corner if someone didn't take me to a bathroom. A moment later the door popped open and a sullen rookie led me down the hall, then brought me back.