'You want to check my hands for gunpowder residue?' she asked.
'Gunpowder residue can be transferred from a person's hand to another object they touch,' said Mac.
'Interesting,' said Louisa, working on her coffee.
'When we were here yesterday, you touched a few things,' Mac continued.
Louisa was alert now.
'You stole something from my apartment?' she said.
Mac ignored the question. He was giving her as little as possible. Neither he nor Aiden had taken anything.
'You fired a gun recently,' Aiden said.
Mac thought he detected the hint of a smile on the author's face.
'You have no way of knowing that,' said Louisa. 'You've not examined my hands and I doubt you would take an item of my clothing without a warrant.'
Aiden and Mac did not respond.
'However,' Louisa said, 'you may do so. I think you will find residue on my right hand. I fired a gun at a nearby range two days ago, just before the storm. I think I should call my lawyer,' Louisa said with a smile.
'Press will find out,' said Mac. 'But you have the right to call a lawyer before you answer any more questions.'
Louisa Cormier hesitated.
'I told you I did fire a weapon,' she said. 'I test all the weapons I use in my books. Weight, noise, kick-back, size. I was at the range two days ago. I told you. It's Drietch's on Fifty-eighth Street. I'll give you the address. You can check with Mathew Drietch.'
'What was the weapon?' Aiden asked.
'A.22,' she said.
'Like the one in your desk,' said Mac.
'Exactly. I decided to write about a weapon like the one I own,' she said.
'Lutnikov was killed with a.22,' said Mac.
'I found the bullet at the bottom of the elevator shaft,' said Aiden.
'We'll find a weapon,' said Mac. 'And we'll match the bullet to it. You said you didn't own any gun but the one you showed us yesterday,' said Mac.
'I don't,' Louisa answered. 'Mathew Drietch has a gun just like mine. He has hundreds of guns. You can chose the one you want to use. Mr. Drietch was quite happy to let me do so.'
'You wouldn't know where that.22 is now, would you?' asked Mac.
'I presume it's safely locked away at the firing range,' said Louisa.
'You mind if we search your apartment?' asked Mac. 'We can get a warrant.'
'I do mind if you search my apartment,' she said, 'but if you get your warrant and do so, you'll find no weapon here other than the gun in my desk, which you know has not been fired recently.'
'One more question,' said Mac.
'No more questions,' Louisa said gently. 'My lawyer's name is Lindsey Terry. He's in the phone book. I'm sorry if I'm a bit edgy but I haven't slept and…'
'I read some of your books last night,' Mac said.
'Oh,' said Louisa. 'Which ones?'
'My first three,' Louisa said. 'Did you like them?'
'They got better after those three,' he said.
'I've always thought the first three were my best,' said Louisa. 'Did You read the others?'
'Two of them,' said Mac.
'You're a fast reader.'
'I did a lot of skimming. I'm asking a professor of linguistics at Columbia to take a look at your books,' Mac said.
'What on earth for?' Louisa said.
'I think you know,' said Mac.
'You have my lawyer's name,' Louisa said somberly. 'Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to finish my book and get some rest.'
When Aiden and Mac were in the small reception area in front of the elevator, Aiden said, 'She did it.'
'She did it,' Mac agreed. 'Now let's prove it.'
They started toward the front entrance, footsteps a chill echo. In front of them, about twenty yards away, stood a lean man in his late twenties or early thirties. The expressionless, pale, clean-shaven man in jeans and a blue T-shirt and a down Eddie Bauer jacket had his hands folded in front of him as he watched Aiden and Mac approach.
When the detectives were a few yards away from him, he stepped in their path.
'You're investigating the murder of Charles Lutnikov,' he said, his voice even, speaking slowly.
'That's right,' said Mac.
'I killed him,' the man said.
He was trembling.
'How are you doing?' Stella asked, standing back a few feet so she wouldn't breathe on Danny.
She was sick, no doubt about it. Temperature, chills, slight nausea.
Nausea was no stranger to CSI investigators, and Stella was no exception. She seldom wore a mask at a crime scene no matter how foul the smell, no matter how long a body had lain in a bathtub bloating and emitting up a putrid, familiar stench.
The last time she had held back the unplanned rush of bile had been two weeks earlier when she and Aiden had gone to the home of a cat lady in a brownstone on the East Side. A uniformed cop had been at the door, a look of disgust on his face, which he made no attempt to hide.
Stella and Aiden had gone in and been hit by the reek, the sound of dozens of cats howling, and a sweltering heat from radiators along the walls. The dark room smelled of death, urine and feces.
'Let's not play macho,' Stella had said.
Aiden had nodded and they had put on the masks in their kit and made their way to the bedroom where they found the corpse of the old woman in the print dress. Dried vomit was on her chest. Wide eyes stared at the ceiling. Something crawled at the edge of her mouth, and a large orange cat sat on her distended stomach and hissed at the two women.
'Check with the officer,' said Stella. 'If he hasn't called Animal Control, have him do it now.'
With that and the sound of her own voice speaking inside her, Stella reminded herself that this was what she did, what had to be done, and that she did it better than anyone else.
And so she had spent an hour in the filth, which had begun to accumulate long before the woman died. An examination of the body by Hawkes showed that the woman, who looked as if she had been strangled, had instead died after a heart attack, which caused her to choke on her own vomit.
Danny's back was turned to her. He held up a corked test tube with a yellow viscous liquid inside.
'Last time,' he said. 'You're sick. You should be in bed.'
'It's a cold,' she said.
He shook his head.
'I'm taking care of it. I had some tea,' she said.
'One small step for mankind,' he said.
Stella ignored him and asked, 'What did you find?'
'Whoever produced this vomit, should change his diet,' said Danny. 'He's using his stomach to store and process fat. He had both pepperoni and some kind of sausage, also a large quantity of pasta with a spicy sauce that on a scale of one to ten I'd give an
