Mr. Murder

played Columbo, Nero Wolfe’s thoughtful puckering of the mouth in moments of inspiration, James Bond’s knowing smirk, or any of the slew of colorful traits by which Sherlock Holmes was characterized. “Do your daughters have pets, Mr. Stillwater?”

“Charlotte does. Several.”

“An odd collection of pets.”

Paige said cooly, “Charlotte doesn’t think they’re odd.”

“Do you?”

“No. What does it matter if they’re odd or not?”

“Has she had them long?” Lowbock inquired.

“Some longer than others,” Marty said, baffled by this new twist in the questioning even as he remained convinced that he understood the theory Lowbock was laboring to prove.

“She loves them, her pets?”

“Yes. Very much. Like any kid. Odd as you might think they are, she loves them.”

Nodding, leaning away from the table again, drumming his pen against his notebook, Lowbock said, “It’s another flamboyant touch, but also convincing. I mean, if you were a detective and disposed to doubt the whole scenario, you’d have to think twice if the intruder killed all of the daughter’s pets.”

Marty’s heart began sinking in him like a dropped stone seeking the bottom of a pond.

“Oh, no,” Paige said miserably. “Not poor little Whiskers, Loretta, Fred . . . not all of them?”

“The gerbil was crushed to death,” Lowbock said, his gaze fixed on Marty. “The mouse had its neck broken, the turtle was smashed underfoot, and so was the beetle. I didn’t examine the others that carefully.”

Marty’s anger flared into barely contained fury, and he curled his hands into tight fists under the table, because he knew Lowbock was accusing him of having killed the pets merely to lend credibility to an elaborate lie. No one would believe a loving father would stomp his daughter’s pet turtle and break the neck of her cute little mouse for the shabby purpose that Lowbock thought motivated Marty; therefore, perversely, the detective assumed that Marty had done it, after all, because it was so outrageous as to exonerate him, the perfect finishing touch.

“Charlotte’s going to be heartbroken,” Paige said.

Marty knew that he was flushed with rage. He could feel the heat in his face, as if he’d spent the past hour under a sunlamp, and his ears felt almost as if they were on fire. He also knew the cop would interpret his anger as a blush of shame that was a testament of guilt.

When Lowbock revealed that fleeting smile again, Marty wanted to punch him in the mouth.

“Mr. Stillwater, please correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t you recently had a book on the paperback bestseller list, the reprint of a hardcover that was first released last year?”

Marty didn’t answer him.

Lowbock didn’t require an answer. He was rolling now. “And a new book coming out in a month or so, which some people think might be your first hardcover bestseller? And you’re probably working on yet another book even now. There’s a portion of a manuscript on the desk in your office, anyway. And I guess, once you get a couple of good career breaks, you’ve got to keep your foot on the gas, so to speak, take full advantage of the momentum.”

Frowning, her whole body tense again, Paige seemed on the verge of precisely grasping the detective’s ludicrous interpretation of Marty’s crime report, the source of his antagonism. She had the temper in the family; and since Marty was barely able to keep from striking the cop, he wondered what Paige’s reaction would be when Lowbock made his idiotic suspicions explicit.

“It must help a career to be profiled in People magazine, ” the detective continued. “And I guess when Mr. Murder himself becomes the target of a muy misterioso killer, then you’ll get a lot more free publicity in the press, and just at a crucial turning point in your career.”

Paige jerked in her chair as if she’d been slapped.

Her reaction drew Lowbock’s attention. “Yes, Mrs. Stillwater?”

“You can’t actually believe . . .”

“Believe what, Mrs. Stillwater?”

“Marty isn’t a liar.”

“Have I said he is?”

“He loathes publicity.”

“Then they must have been quite persistent at People. ”

“Look at his neck, for Christ’s sake! The redness, swelling, it’ll be covered with bruises in a few hours. You can’t believe he did that to himself.”

Maintaining a maddening pretense of objectivity, Lowbock said, “Is that what you believe, Mrs. Stillwater?”

She spoke between clenched teeth, saying what Marty felt he couldn’t allow himself to say: “You stupid ass.”

Raising his eyebrows and looking stricken, as if he couldn’t imagine what he’d done to earn such enmity, Lowbock said, “Surely, Mrs. Stillwater, you realize there are people out there, a world of cynics, who might say that attempted strangulation is the safest form of assault to fake. I mean, stabbing yourself in the arm or leg would be a convincing touch, but there’s always the danger of a slight miscalculation, a nicked artery, then suddenly you find yourself bleeding a lot more seriously than you’d intended. And as for self-inflicted gunshot wounds—well, the risk is even higher, what with the possibility that a bullet might ricochet off a bone and into deeper flesh, and there’s always the danger of shock.”

Paige bolted to her feet so abruptly that she knocked over her chair. “Get out.”

Lowbock blinked at her, feigning innocence long past the point of diminishing returns. “Excuse me?”

“Get out of my house,” she demanded. “Now.”

Although Marty realized they were throwing away their last slim hope of winning over the detective and gaining police protection, he also got up from his chair, so angry that he was trembling. “My wife is right. I think you and your men better leave, Lieutenant.”

Remaining seated because to do so was a challenge to them, Cyrus Lowbock said, “You mean, leave before we finish our investigation?”

“Yes,” Marty said. “Finished or not.”

“Mr. Stillwater . . . Mrs. Stillwater . . . you do realize that it’s against the law to file a false crime report?”

“We haven’t filed a false report,” Marty said.

Paige said, “The only fake in this room is you, Lieutenant. You do realize that it’s against the law to impersonate a police officer?”

It would have been satisfying to see Lowbock’s face color with anger, to see his eyes narrow and his lips tighten at the insult, but his equanimity remained infuriatingly unshaken.

As he got slowly to his feet, the detective said, “If the blood samples taken from the upstairs carpet are, say, only pig’s blood or cow’s blood or anything like that, the lab will be able to determine the exact species, of course.”

“I’m aware of the analytic powers of forensic science,” Marty assured him.

“Oh, yes, that’s right, you’re a mystery writer. According to People magazine, you do a great deal of research for your novels.”

Lowbock closed his notebook, clipped his pen to it.

Marty waited.

“In your various researches, Mr. Stillwater, have you learned how much blood is in the human body, say in a body approximately the size of your own?”

“Five liters.”

“Ah. That’s correct.” Lowbock put the notebook on top of the plastic bag containing the leather case of lock picks. “At a guess, but an educated guess, I’d say there’s somewhere between one and two liters of blood soaked into the upstairs carpet. Between twenty and forty percent of this look-alike’s entire supply, and closer to forty unless I miss my guess. You know what I’d expect to find along with that much blood, Mr. Stillwater? I’d expect to find the body it came from, because it really does stretch the imagination to picture such a grievously wounded man