didn't pick up more strays, the way the wind was blowing.'
'So one hair for me, one for Mr. Mystery. But my door gets the battering ram.'
'Between your hair, the blood-type match, and the similarities to Bertrand's body, Kaden and Delveckio were ready to make a move on you. At this stage you're the only link between the victims.' Lloyd's gaze was steady. Not judgmental, not accusatory. Just steady. 'The blood DNA comes back tomorrow. I wouldn't hold your breath that it'll exonerate you.'
'It could be someone inside. Kaden and Delveckio said the killer posed the body like Genevieve's, in ways that weren't released to the press. And a cop or detective might want me to go down for Genevieve's killing.'
Lloyd looked at me as if I were paranoid, which I was. 'So badly that they'd murder an innocent girl? Come on, Drew. Crime-scene photos leak.' He leaned over and snatched the paper back from me. 'Unlike criminalist reports. Plus, given the trial, there were a lot of lawyers and reporters poking around the Bertrand case files. The specifics were hardly kept as state secrets. Kaden and Delveckio were probably just trying to rattle you.'
The crime-scene photos I'd stolen reinforced Lloyd's point. Kaden had grown touchy when I'd pushed for more information on what they'd gotten off the body. Ah, here it is: None of your fucking business.
I led him a bit with my next question. 'What about the other key piece of evidence?'
'The rope? It's an all-cotton brand used for bondage. Probably bought at an erotic specialty store.'
'Why tie rope around the ankles but tape the wrists?'
'Easier to transport a body. Easier to throw it out a vehicle. No limbs flapping around.'
'No, I mean, why use different restraints on the same body?'
'You ever bind someone's wrists with rope?'
'No. Have you?'
He guffawed I'd forgotten about his great, unruly laugh. 'No. But it's difficult. You can squirm your hands free easier than you can your feet.'
'So why not use electrical tape on both the wrists and ankles?'
'I don't have an answer for you, Drew. But we're looking into it. This and more.' He set down his glass and yawned. I could only imagine his exhaustion working long days, caring for his wife every spare waking hour. He walked me to the door. 'It goes without saying that you can't mention to anyone and I mean anyone that I saw you today.'
'I won't. And don't worry you didn't tell me anything that hasn't already been disclosed to me.' I felt like a heel. This was a guy who, when asked to confirm an autopsy detail for me, would fax me a two-page essay. Now he'd stepped away from work and left his dying wife to help me, and I'd manipulated him, then lied about it. Not the first time I'd lied in pursuit of something I wanted, but I told myself I wouldn't let it come back to bite him in the ass. We shook hands, and I said, 'I'm very appreciative that you took the time to talk with me. I know you're on overload.'
He nodded, pausing in the doorway while I walked up the gravel drive. He didn't seem eager to head back down that hall. I got to the gate and turned around, and there he was, still silhouetted against the faint light from the kitchen.
'Leave it alone, Drew,' he called after me. 'This isn't one of your books.'
I raised a hand and slipped through onto the street.
The hell it isn't.
Chapter 14
I stared again at my latest chapter, now pockmarked with Preston's notes.
Someone was out to get me. Someone had broken in to my house, drugged me while I slept, stolen my blood, and dripped it onto a corpse. Creeped out (1). I rose from bed and moved room to room, inspecting the doors and windows. All secure. Then I checked the garage, the closets, behind sofas and under beds. I was alone in the house.
I'd covered over the shattered panes in the front door with acrylic packing tape (2). Though guarded by shards and tape, the apertures may have been big enough for someone to reach through to the dead bolt a few feet below. Before returning upstairs, I layered over the windows yet again, figuring that if I left my bedroom door open, I'd be able to hear the tape being peeled back by an intruder.
Not 1: Use something here that is not a cliche.
Note 2: Why not hammer a piece of wood across the holes. We're talking about your life-let's not be fastidious about the architecture.
Note 3: I went to one of those meager, inopulent feasts just last week. it pisses me off that they call them feasts, y'know?
I lay atop my sheets, sweating despite the January chill, images and conversation snippets crowding my mind. The crime-scene photos, spread across the interrogation table like an opulent feast (3). Kaden and Delveckio freezing me out of the investigation. We don't have anything we can disclose at this point in time (4). Cal's offering me only a denunciation and my own image (5).
Note 4: Point in time? why must these guys talk like Dragnet? Their self-important language is embarrassing, since the narrator seems not to notice it.
Note 5: Why did you go to Cal without any concrete goal? Go to people when they're required for something as with Lloyd or else the plot drags. And you'll unnecessarily deplete human resources you may need later. reflected back from his mirrored lenses. Preston's incessant heckting. A writer's job, perhaps more than any other, is not to be afraid of possibilities. What was I afraid of? What was I still not considering?
Perhaps that there were more variables in play than I cared to look at. The fact that I hadn't killed Kasey Broach hardly retroproved that I was blameless in Genevieve's death. Though I could count few people I knew who would have been willing and able to kill another woman and frame me for murder, perhaps an unhinged member of the TV-watching public a crusading vigilante, a pushed-too-far militiaman obsessed with society's deterioration, an angry husband who'd lost his wife to a similar crime had gone after me, seeking vengeance.
Someone was out to get me. And now I was out to get him (6).
Note 6: You're focusing on yourself becauseyou've heard the movie-trailer voice-over tell you 'This time its personal' about a thousand times. Open yourself up to more narrative possibilities. This might center on you without being about you. Life is fucked up enough you generally don't need diabolical plots. They just happen. Factor in the 310 area code, you got more coincidences than a Dickens plot.
I glanced up from the red-marked pages. Preston was sprawled on my sectional, editing some other victim and looking characteristically pleased with himself.
'I'm in the 818 area code, actually. Just over the crest.'
Preston's eyes flicked over to me. 'I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.' He finished his morning cup of rum, leaving it on the coffee table for the housekeeper I could no longer afford. He fanned himself dramatically with the manuscript pages, then cast them aside. 'It's hot in here.'
'You're menopausal.'
He rose, took my pages from my hands, and flipped through them, failing to suppress a chuckle at one of his edits. He slapped the sheaf against an open palm. 'There's gotta be a story that incorporates all these elements gracefully. We need a development meeting.' He glanced at his watch. 'I have a lunch reservation for three at Spago.'
'Three?'
'I thought you might invite Cal Unger. We require him for brainstorming.'
'You just wrote not to bother him unless I have a and I quote 'concrete goal.' '
'But this is social.'
Preston had met Cal once at the book-launch party for my third Chainer novel.
'He's not gay, Preston.'
'Of course not. Gay is a level of self-and political awareness. Which he lacks. He's just got tendencies.'
Preston thinks everybody has. Which makes sense, since he works in publishing and splits his time between the Village and West Hollywood. When we would go out, we frequented West Hollywood restaurants, after which
