Gregg Hurwitz - The Crime Writer

Kaden smiled. "Yours."

I opened my mouth but realized I had not a single goddamned thing to say.

"You're chasing a phantom all right, Danner." Kaden unfolded a photocopy the matchbook note next to a sample of my handwriting, pulled from a DMV form I'd filled out sometime last year.

Matching characteristics of the letters had been circled in red. At a glance it made a convincing argument.

"Block letters are the easiest to forge," I said quietly. I didn't know this to be true, but it sounded good, and I had the force of desperation on my side.

Kaden and Delveckio looked at me like well-intentioned friends about to point out that my belt didn't match my loafers.

"Right," Kaden said, "and good ol' Mort takes a crash course in forensic handwriting after his shift stamping metal."

"But congratulations," Delveckio said with false cheeriness, "you caught a rapist, helped us close a case. So you're in the clear."

He offered his hand, but I knew better than to take it.

They both chuckled heartily.

Kaden said, "It doesn't quite work that way, as we tried to explain. You refused to walk the line, and now we have you on obstruction of justice, assault and battery, a couple B amp;Es. We asked you nicely, we asked you not nicely, and we warned you that this would wind up in the shit. But you were too busy playing gumshoe to think we were serious. That there would be consequences. So we're gonna charge you. Because, see, we're curious why you're so desperate to hang Kasey Broach's murder on someone else. You've got your taped alibi, fine, but we're gonna connect the dots, because we know they're there to be connected. And while we're busy doing that, we're gonna leave you in general pop over in Twin Towers."

Kaden stood and gripped my arm hard at the biceps. He led me out into the hall. What was I supposed to do? Kick and scream? Fight?

We rode the elevator down, then drove across to Twin Towers. They tugged me out, me moving numb on my feet, not fully believing they'd put me in the fish tank with murderers and rapists but believing it at the same time. I was prodded into Tower One. The building's hexagonal shape, contributing to the much-touted panoptic design, turned the interior into a house of reflections, each module faced and flanked by its multiple mirror image. The smell of the building had been singed into memory, bringing me back to those infinite four months. The stained concrete, the metallic din, the echo of wall-muffled shouts and clangs. The thick air took up bitter residence at the back of my throat.

"You have to charge me first," I said, "and let me call my lawyer."

The detectives left their Glocks in the gun lockers, and we passed through the double security doors into the no-man's-land of Sheriff's deputies with their tan-and-green uniforms and holstered pepper spray. Beyond one more gate of bars, I saw the inmates circling the vast rec room, talking shit, their too-loud laughter edged with aggression. Frankel wasn't among them, but he would likely be soon. While two cohorts watched, a prisoner with a shaved head and a goatee leaned up against a skinny black kid, pinning him to a barred window. A ripple of awareness passed through the group, heads swiveling to the gate, to me behind it.

I twisted my arm free. "This is bullshit. You can't do this."

Kaden unlocked my handcuffs. The deputy nodded at a colleague behind ballistic glass, and then the gate hummed pleasantly and he drew it aside and gave me a little shove. I knew better than to turn back pleading, so I stood and faced the others. The rec room was deep, at least a hundred blue jumpsuits dotting the metal benches and hanging from the pull-up and dip bars. The air was still, uncooled, and the heat from all those sweltering, stressed-out bodies vibrated the air like a low, sustained note.

Behind me the gate closed with steel finality.

Maybe fifteen convicts drew toward me, interest piqued. A man with matching crosses branded into his forearms stepped out in front, stretching his fingers wide as if flexing them. I moved to the side, putting concrete at my back as the others spread strategically and began their approach.

The inmate with branded forearms smiled, his red mustache seeming to spread, and he feinted at me. I jabbed, missing badly.

The others whistled and laughed, and someone said, "Regular Mike Tyson."

"Shit," one of the black inmates corrected, "white boy a regular Jack Dempsey, you gonna poke fun."

Another guy came from my left, and I swung hard, clipping his chin, my momentum throwing me off balance. The inmate with the brands slipped in from my right, tying me up from behind in a bear hug, his body pressed to mine, stale cigarette breath puffing across my cheek. Pivoting, throwing elbows, I tried to get in a blow, but he lifted me off my feet, and then I hit the cold concrete and saw scores of white canvas shoes shuffling in swiftly for me.

There was a bang of steel, and then the crowd dispersed, my attacker pried off me. Two deputies at his side, Kaden hauled me up and hustled me out, down a corridor, onto an elevator, where he and Delveckio stood silently on either side of me like executives getting offwork. Before my breathing had slowed, they'd moved me through the lobby and out into the bright afternoon.

Kaden stuck his finger in my cheek. "Let us give you some pointed advice. You are to stay the fuck away from this investigation. Entirely. No. Let me correct. From all investigations and all LAPD activities. Understood?"

My breath was still hammering through me. "Understood."

Delveckio shoved a shoe box into my chest, filled with my personals. The glass doors glinted, and they were gone. I took a few unsteady steps and sat on a planter.

Two seconds of still, and then I began shaking violently.

People passed oblivious, discussing weekend plans, complaining about coffee.

After a few minutes, I was able to pull together my thoughts. My handwriting on the skull-and-bones matchbook? Maybe I was further gone than I'd imagined. But there was evidence, also, to the contrary. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. In fact, it would be easier to frame someone on perpetual edge.

The night of Kasey Broach's murder, Morton Frankel had been busy raping another party. But he'd been set up as Broach's murderer, just like me. Was he the backup fall guy? Or had he been framed as the guy framing me? Was he really after me? Or was I being set up to take him out? There I was, hanging off the ledge in the treadmill shot from Vertigo.

Finally I fished my cell phone from the shoe box and punched in Chic's number.

He answered on a half ring.

"Pick me up," I said. "I've got a lot of work to do."

I'd settled considerably by the time Chic got there, but the thought of those unprotected minutes in the jail rec room still sent acid washing through my stomach.

Chic pulled up and said, "I'm getting tired of picking you up from jail."

"Pretend you're my pimp."

"Talk about your low-wage jobs."

When I explained that I had given the hair sample to Johnny Ordean, Chic just shook his head. "Come on, Drew-Drew. That's minor leagues. You know better than to entrust a piece of evidence to someone who's hysterical by vocation."

"What should I have done?"

"I'm sure someone knows someone in the paternity-testing biz who could've run a hair. It's quiet where it's shady. Not under the klieg lights."

Not for the first time, I wished that I had been born with Chic's sense.

We drove for a while in silence as I ran through my next move in my head.

My cell phone rang Preston, desperate for an update. I brought him up to speed, and then Chic started talking in my free ear, so I clicked on the speakerphone.