After getting that tiny bit of information from Simon Willow, I went home and took a long, hot shower. I did my best not to think about my recent sexual behavior and the fact that I’d never be able to look at Simon Willow without thinking about his skillful, though coerced, blowjob. I suppose I shouldn’t put Simon Willow in the same category as Eddie or Stripes or even Jeremy. If Eddie hadn’t been killed in my house I never would have let Simon Willow suck me off, so it wasn’t really part of my whole let’s-not-be-vanilla thing. Or at least that’s what I told myself.
When I finished scrubbing myself one too many times, it was around noon. Wrapping a towel around myself, I looked around for my phone to call Detective Tripp. I wasn’t sure if the number he gave me was his cell or the office phone. If it was the office, I figured I’d be leaving a message, but that was okay. I needed to talk to him. Hopefully, he’d call me back.
Tripp picked up the phone after just two rings.
“Detective Tripp, this is Matt Latowski. I have some information for you.”
“Information? What kind of information?”
“I spoke to one of my neighbors, Simon Willow, and he saw a woman parked in front of my house in a Mercedes about seven the night Eddie was killed. The woman was crying.” I paused. “He also went out a few minutes later and didn’t see my car. If I was inside murdering Eddie, where was my car?”
“In the alley. Who is Simon Willow?” he asked.
“My neighbor, two doors down.”
“I’ll look at the report in the morning. Good--”
“There is no report.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because he said the police haven’t talked to him.”
“But I sent out two off--” He stopped abruptly and was silent, then he said, “You shouldn’t be talking to your neighbors. That could be construed as witness tampering.”
“I didn’t ask him to lie.” Though in a way, I guess, I bribed him.
“Did you record the conversations?”
“No.”
“Then no one knows what you did.”
“The woman in the car was either Eddie’s mother or his fiancée. Are you going to look into that?” I asked.
“Goodbye, Mr. Latowski.” He hung up on me.
I was pretty sure Detective Hanson was the one who wanted to railroad me, but now I began to wonder. Maybe it was both of them. I’d let my attraction to Tripp cloud my judgment. Had I told Tripp too much? Would he go back to Mrs. Enders and Simon Willow and encourage them to say I’d tried to influence their stories? Was there anything I’d said that could be viewed that way? Oh shit, I thought. If Simon Willow mentioned that we had sex, that could be construed as my trying to influence him. He’s certainly not going to tell a policeman that he blackmailed me into it. Shit.
I had the rest of Sunday and no idea what to do next. It was nearly lunchtime and I was pretty hungry. Mentally, I calculated which of my credit cards might have enough available credit for a decent lunch.
Beyond being hungry, I could really use a nap. I tried to add up the amount of sleep I’d had since I found Eddie in the garage and I figured all told I’d gotten one decent night’s sleep in three nights. Maybe after lunch I could lie down for a little while. No, I thought, I didn’t want to nap myself all the way into a maximum-security penitentiary.
I was in my bedroom, pulling on a pair of boxers when my phone rang. “Have you been arrested yet?” Peter asked when I picked up.
“Sorry to disappoint, but no.”
“The minute I get back, I’m going to throw a fundraiser for your legal defense fund.”
“I don’t have a legal defense fund.”
“We’ll establish one. Where do think it should be?”
“In a bank?”
“The fundraiser. Should it be at Crush or Wrath?”
“Um… I don’t really care right now. Peter, when are you coming home?”
“Oh God, I don’t know. This whole thing is going so well it’s scaring me. Benjamin is just, well, he’s perfect.”
“Benjamin? I thought you said his name was Alfonso?”
“Did I? Hmmm, imagine that.”
“Peter? Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s wonderful. But I can’t explain it all. We’re about to go to the restaurant at the Eiffel Tower.”
“You’re in Vegas? I thought you were in New York?”
“No, darling, we’re in Paris. We’re eating at the real Eiffel Tower. Gotta run. Whatever you do, do not get arrested!” And with that, he hung up.
It annoyed me a little that Peter had to choose this particular moment in time to have a whirlwind romance with Alfonso and/or Benjamin. It would have been nice to have him around, although I had no idea what I expected him to do. I mean, if he was in Los Angeles the most he’d be able to do would be bitching out Tripp and Hanson. Which, while fun to think about, would likely only make things worse.
I finished getting dressed. Eddie’s keys were still in the pockets of my jeans. They were bulky and uncomfortable. I had no reason to take them to lunch with me, so I pulled them out and was about to put them back in the bowl by the front door, when I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
The Pez dispenser had a seam across the tube that held the candy. I tugged on the rubber duck, and the dispenser came apart in two pieces. Candy did not fall all over my floor. In fact, there was no candy inside the dispenser at all. What was inside changed everything -- a USB flash drive.
Chapter Fourteen
Surprised, I held the flash drive in my hand for a few minutes after I found it. Clearly, something important was on it. It wasn’t hard to figure out this is what the killer was looking for when he got into my house; when he broke into Eddie’s car. The killer’s identity
