Show of Evil

clients and Vail had decided he should spend at least an occasional night in his own apartment.

She was spoiled already. Spoiled by his attentiveness, spoiled by their passionate and inventive lovemaking, spoiled by just having him there. She stared out the window, watching the night lights streak by. When they stopped at a light, she suddenly sat up in her seat.

'Larry,' she said, 'pull over in front of the Towers, please.'

The driver pulled over and parked in front of the glittering shaft of glass and chrome. He jumped out and opened the door for her.

'I'll be back in a couple of minutes,' she said, and hurried into the apartment building. The night manager sat behind a desk that looked like the cockpit of an SST. A closed-circuit videocamera system permitted him to scan the halls of each of the thirty floors. He was slender, his face creased with age, his brown but greying hair combed straight back. He wore a blue blazer with a red carnation in its lapel and looked more like the deskman at an exclusive hotel than the inside doorman of an apartment building.

'May I help you?' he asked in a pseudo-cultured British accent, his eyes appraising the black limo.

Venable put on her most dazzling smile. 'Hi,' she said. 'What's your name?'

'Victor,' he said with a guarded smile.

'Well, Victor, I'm Jane Venable,' she said, taking a sheet of paper from her purse and sliding it across the polished desk in front of him. 'I'm an attorney. My client has been charged with the murder of John Delaney. I have a court order here permitting me access to the scene of the crime. I know this is a terrible imposition, but would you let me in?'

'What? Now? You want to inspect the premises now?'

She laid the folded fifty-dollar bill on the document.

'I just happened to be in the neighbourhood. I doubt I'll be fifteen minutes.'

He looked at the court order, cast another glance at the limo, then smiled at her as he palmed the fifty.

'How can I resist such a dazzling smile, Ms Venable,' he said. He opened the desk drawer, took out a ring of keys, and led her to the lift.

'Terrible thing,' he said as the lift climbed to the thirtieth floor.

'Dreadful,' she said, remembering that Delaney's death had probably been cause for celebrating all over the city. 'Did you know him well?'

Victor raised an eyebrow and smiled. 'He said 'Hello' coming in and 'Good evening' going out and gave me a bottle of Scotch for Christmas. That's how well I knew Mr Delaney.'

'Was it good Scotch?'

'Chivas.'

'Nice.'

They arrived at the thirtieth floor and Victor unlocked the door. The crime ribbons had been removed.

'Take your time, I'm on until two,' Victor said. 'The door will lock when you leave.'

'You're a dream, Victor.'

'Thank you, Ms Venable.' He left, pulling the door shut behind him.

A crazy notion, she thought, coming here in the middle of the night. But when she had looked through the car window and realized she was in front of the place - well, what the hell, she wasn't in any rush to get back to her empty condo anyway.

It had been years since Venable had visited the scene of a homicide and her adrenaline started pumping the instant she started down the hallway to the living room. She stood a few feet away from the black outline on the floor. It seemed to box in the wide, dark brown stain in the carpet.

She wasn't really looking for anything in particular; she felt it was her responsibility to Edith Stoddard to familiarize herself with the murder scene. She walked into the bedroom, noticed there were scratches on the spindles of the headboard. She stood in the bathroom. His toothbrush, a razor, and an Abercrombie and Fitch shaving bowl and brush were on one side of the marble-top sink and a bottle of bay rum aftershave lotion was on the other side. A towel hung unused on a gold rack near the shower.

She went into the kitchen, checked the refrigerator. Someone had emptied it out and cleaned it. There were canned foods in the small