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Sliding glass doors along the front opened onto a second-floor balcony overlooking Ocean Street. The drapes were open and I could make out a desk, a swivel chair, bookcases, a reading lamp. I swept the room with the narrow beam of the penlight, getting my bearings. The book titles were half fiction, half college textbooks in psychology. A
On the desk was a photo of Ori in her youth. She really had been beautiful, with large luminous eyes. I searched the desk drawers. Nothing of interest. Checked the closet alcove, which was filled with summer clothing. The bathroom held nothing. The door that co
Room 20 was a duplicate of the one I'd occupied. This was A
I had really hit the jackpot. On the floor beside the reloader was a microcassette recorder with a tape in it. I pressed the rewind button and then pressed play, listening to a familiar voice slowed down to a series of quite nasty gravel-throated threats. I rewound, switched the tape speed, and tried it again. The voice was clearly A
I flashed the penlight through her living room and kitchenette, doing a one-eighty turn. When the narrow beam crossed the bedstead, I caught an oval of white and flashed the light back over it again. A
"Finding everything you need?" she asked.
I raised my hands just to show I knew how to behave. "Hey, you're pretty good. You almost got away with it."
Her smile was thin. "Now that you're 'wanted,' I can do it, don't you think?" she said conversationally. "All I have to do is pull the trigger and claim trespass."
"And then what?"
"You tell me."
I hadn't quite worked the whole story out, but I knew enough to make a flying guess. Why you have chats with killers in circumstances like these is because you hope against hope you can (1) talk them out of it, (2) stall until help arrives, or (3) enjoy a few more moments of this precious commodity we call life, which consists (in large part) of breathing in and out. Hard to do with your lungs blown out your back.
"Well," said I, hoping to make a short story long, "I figure once your daddy dies and you unload this place, you'll take the proceeds, add them to the profits from the forty-two thou you stole, and sail off into the sunset. Possibly with Dwight Shales, or so you hope."
"And why not?"
"Why not, indeed? Sounds like a great plan. Does he know about it yet?"
"He will," she said.
"What makes you think he'll agree?"
"Why wouldn't he? He's free now. And I will be, too, as soon as Pop dies."
"And you think that constitutes a relationship?" I said, astonished.
"What do you know about relationships?"
"Hey, I've been married twice. That's more than you can say."
"You're divorced. You don't know dick."
I had to shrug at that.
"I bet Jean was sorry she confided in you."
"Very. At the end, she put up quite a fight."
"But you won."
"I had to. I couldn't have her ruining Dwight's life."
"Assuming it was his," I said.
"The babe? Of course it was."
"Oh great. No problem, then. You're completely justified," I said. "Does he know how much you've done for him?"
"That's our little secret. Yours and mine."
"How did you know where Shana would be Wednesday night?"
"Simple. I followed her."
"But why kill the woman?"
"Same reason I'm going to kill you. For screwing Dwight."
"She was going up there to meet Joe Du
"Bullshit!"
"It's not bullshit. He's a nice enough guy, but he's not my type. He told me himself he and Shana were just friends. It was strictly platonic. They hadn't even screwed once!"
"You liar. You think I don't know what's been going on? You sashay into town and start coming, on to him, riding around in his car, having cozy di
"A
"Nobody's going to get in my way, Kinsey. Not after all I've been through. I've worked too hard and waited too long. I've sacrificed my entire adult life, and you're not going to spoil things now that I'm almost free."
"Well, listen, A