Martin Misunderstood

wall. She told Martin, 'Your co-workers claim Sandy taunted you quite a bit.'

'No, she didn't,' Martin countered. 'Well, I mean, not in a disrespectful way. Not to be cruel, I mean. Well, maybe it was a bit cruel, but she didn't mean to hurt-'

'Two days ago, she went on the loudspeaker and called you 'teeny weenie' then Super Glued a twelve-inch vibrating rubber dildo to your desk.'

Martin cleared his throat. 'She liked her pranks.'

'Apparently.'

'And Sandy knows that Super Glue can be easily removed with GlooperGone. It's one of Southern's best-selling products.' He shook his head. 'She started out on the Glooper line, for goodness' sakes.'

An tried not to imagine Martin gripping a twelve-inch vibrating dildo as he lubed it with solvent and scraped it from his desk. 'Some of the women we talked to said that you listen to them while they are urinating in the toilet.'

Jergens' lip curled in disgust. 'Seriously, dude?'

Martin explained, 'My office is right outside the toilets. I wasn't listening. I didn't have a choice.'

'Yeah, right.' Jergens went back to his doodling. An could see he had drawn a hangman's gallows with a figure resembling Humpty Dumpty hanging from the noose.

An suggested, 'Mr Reed, you can clear this up if you just tell us where you were last night.'

'I told you I drove around. I was home by eight – there was a television program I wanted to watch.'

Jergens perked up. 'What'd you watch?'

Martin looked down, his face reddening. He mumbled something unintelligible.

An, Bruce and Jergens all asked, 'What?' at the same time.

Martin held his head up high, squared his shoulders. 'Dancing With the Stars.'

Jergens shot Bruce a look, and both men chuckled. 'Did you watch it with your mommy?'

An stared at the lawyer, for some reason feeling protective of the suspect.

Martin answered, 'Yes, I watched it with my mother.' An could tell that he was struggling to hold on to a sliver of his dignity.

She asked, 'Did you watch it all the way through?'

Martin nodded. 'Mother went to bed when Mr T was doing the rumba, and as I am a lifelong A-Team fan, I wanted to see what would happen.' He added, 'There's nothing feminine about wanting to watch people dance. Mr T is very light on his feet. He's an amazing athlete. Lots of athletes take dancing lessons. It makes them more nimble.'

An sighed again, sitting back in the chair. Sandra Burke had been murdered around eightfifteen, which, if An was remembering correctly, was around the same time one of the Dancing With the Stars judges had commented that, in fact, many athletes were nimble dancers.

Martin could not stop defending his masculinity. 'There is nothing wrong with having a wide variety of interests. I am interested in many things. Very many interesting things.'

'Books?'

Martin smiled – a genuine smile. 'I love to read.'

'What subjects are you most interested in?'

'Well, murder mysteries. Science fiction, but more about social issues than space ships.' He stared down as his hands, almost bashful. 'I'm particularly fond of Kathy Reichs. Her main character is very… alluring. She gets to the bottom of things, like, you know… you.'

An felt her face flush. She never missed an episode of Bones. Was he comparing her to Tempe Brennan?

Bruce wasn't buying it. 'Come on, Reed. Dr Brennan is a forensic anthropologist.'

'He's right, man,' Jergens agreed, seeming to forget that Martin was his client. 'Andi is a detective.'

'Anther,' Martin corrected. 'Detective Anther Albada.' He kept his eyes on An as he pressed a doughy finger to the legal pad where he had written her name. 'Anther.'

An had started to chew her cuticle again. She made herself stop. Things had gotten off track, and she could not for the life of her figure out how. She asked Martin, 'Do you read true crime?'

'Definitely. But only Ann Rule – not the trashy stuff. Oh, and I never look at the pictures.'

An opened the folder so Martin could see the photos. 'Pictures like these?' she asked, flipping picture after picture around, showing him Sandra Burke splayed naked, her body creased where again and again the car had backed up and driven over her. 'We found parts of her teeth in your back right tire.'

Martin opened his mouth and vomited all over the table.

What Martin Really Did That Night, or All That Glitters is to Goad

Martin often said that he did not have a racist bone in his body. He had supported Barack Obama, or at least he had told people that he did (Martin's life was run by strong women; he was not one to embrace change). His closest co-worker was black. He occasionally listened to rap music and enjoyed the comedy of Chris Rock. He was, in short, a man who did not normally see black and white. When he looked at a person, he saw a person, not a skin color.

Even with these sterling credentials, Martin could not help but notice that he was the only white man in the holding tank at the Atlanta jail. Neither had the color discrepancy gone unnoticed by his fellow prisoners. When he had first entered the cell, someone had noticed Martin's short-sleeved dress shirt and his clip-on tie and said, 'Look, a Republican.'

He could not believe that they were holding him on such flimsy evidence. Sure, his blood was mixed in with Sandy's… stuff… but that didn't mean anything. Or did it? One need only read a good Patricia Cornwell to know that blood did not come with a time-and-date stamp. Scientifically, there was no way to prove that Martin had touched the bumper the day after the incident. What a mess!

He held his breath as the odor of fresh feces filled the air. There were two toilets, both of them out in the open for the world to see. A large, bald man was sitting reading a magazine, doing his business as if this was just another day in his life. Martin had dealt with being around toilets most of his adult life and had tucked himself into the far corner when he had first entered the cell, but the odor seemed to bounce off the walls and envelop him. Sitting on the floor with his knees to his chest, all Martin could think about was this was how the system turned you into an animal. How long would it take before Nature won out and he was forced to relieve himself in front of complete strangers? How long before his dignity was completely removed and he was spitting on the floor and scratching himself alongside the other screws? Or was it fishes? Martin had still not mastered the lingo.

Oh, if only his one phone call had been made to his father instead of his useless mother. She hadn't answered the phone. The answering machine had whirred, Evie's blunt voice saying to leave a message. He knew she was home-Evie could not drive herself anywhere because of her cataracts – just as he knew that she was aware that Martin was sitting – no, rotting! – in jail.

His father would not have left his only son among these monsters. His father would have… oh, who was he kidding? Marty Reed has been just as useless in life as he was in death. An accountant, like his son would grow up to be, Marty had worked in indexing and actuarials for a large law firm downtown. His mother had called it 'the accident' right up until the insurance company had asserted that no matter how many times she insisted, the cause of Martin Harrison Reed Senior's death had been officially ruled a suicide.

This was how it had happened: Marty had enjoyed a nice lunch of ham salad with a devilled egg. He had written a note on the back of an index card and taken off his glasses. He left both of these on his desk. The sight of Marty fumbling blindly through the office, bumping into chairs and walls (he was legally blind without his glasses) as he made his way toward the hallway, did not strike anyone as unusual at the time. He had the remnants of his sack lunch in his hand as he felt his way toward the trash chute. Someone reported hearing a giggle as the door squeaked open, though that would have been the last noise he made. Marty didn't even scream as he careened down the chute, landing thirty-eight floors down beside his wadded up lunch sack.

It wasn't until several hours later when the driver of the garbage truck found the body that someone actually