The Crime Writer

by Gregg Hurwitz

  Stupefied, I stared at the door, which flung violently open, admitting a stream of figures decked in black and armored with goggles, vests, and assault weapons of some kind. Dark gloves seized my right wrist and ankle and ripped me from bed.

  “Stay the fuck down!”

  “See the hands, see the hands!”

  My limbs spread as if by their own volition, and hands frisked me, not hard to do since I was wearing only boxers. A ghost imprint of white block lettering floated in front of my eyes, though my face was mashed to the carpet. LAPD SWAT.

  I jerked my head to the side so I could breathe. Detective Three Bill Kaden appeared offset, Ed Delveckio peering over his shoulder. Kaden pushed a finger into my cheek until it ground against my teeth.

  “You’re fucked now,” he said.

  As Kaden led me, cuffed and hastily dressed, past the cops already rifling through my possessions, down the stairs, over the scattered shards in the entryway from the front-door glass insets, I registered a certain foolishness, a retroactive shame about how screwed I’d been before I’d even known it. While I’d drooled obliviously on my pillow, scenarios had been drawn up, positions chosen, a battering ram readied. My heart was still jerking in my chest. Being on the wrong side of a raid? Not as much fun as you might think.

  I saw newspapers spinning in to fill the screen, headlines shouting NEW EVIDENCE IN BERTRAND SLAYING. But wasn’t I protected under double jeopardy?

  I said, “I assume you have a warrant.”

  Bunched beneath Kaden’s fist, the document appeared before my face. I was being arrested for murder, though the warrant didn’t name names. That would be, I assumed, my job.

  Kaden threw me in the back of an unmarked sedan and climbed into the driver’s seat. Delveckio sat in the passenger seat. My neighbors were on their front steps or at the windows.

  “You could have just called,” I said. “I would’ve driven in. I’ve always cooperated.” A few more blocks in silence. My alarm was finally ebbing, giving way to outrage. I cleared my throat. “I say, ‘What’s this about?’ and you say, ‘I think you know, punk.’ Then I say, ‘I want to talk to my lawyer,’ and you say, ‘As soon as you’re booked.’”

  The backs of their heads did not respond.

  We were on the freeway now, flying toward downtown. The first time I’d ever been on the 101 without traffic. The freeway, usually bumper to bumper, was deserted, postapocalyptic.

  I was not surprised, some fifteen minutes later, to see the Parker Center through the windshield. Home to Derek Chainer. And to LAPD’s elite Robbery-Homicide Division. A glass-and-concrete testament to fifties architectural cost-effectiveness, Parker’s rectangular rise blocked out the emerging sun.

  I was steered upstairs to an interrogation room. They kept the door open, cops coming and going with papers and whispered updates. Once again I felt disoriented, nervous, shoved out of my rightful place. I knew these halls. I knew this building. I’d researched men like these and written about them in flattering fashion. After my first book came out, I’d taken the buddy-buddy tour with the public-information officer, watched a real-live interview from the other side of the one-way mirror. What a distance between that side of the glass and this.

  “Why am I here?” I said.

  Kaden said, “Take your clothes off.”

  “Okay, but it’s fifty bucks up front, and I don’t kiss on the mouth.”

  “Off.”

  I glowered at him. “Not until I talk to my lawyer.”

  “After we search you.”

  “In case I’m secreting a bazooka up my ass?”

  “You can keep your boxers on.”

  I kicked off my shoes, and Kaden stared at my bare feet and said, “Stop. Band-Aid off, please.”

  I complied. He snapped his fingers at the door, and a guy came in with an oversize Polaroid and took a picture of the slice in my flesh while I stood on one foot.

  I finished pulling off my clothes, and they made sure I had no other scrapes or slashes. As I dressed, the photographer withdrew and closed the door, leaving me with Kaden, Delveckio, a table and chair, and a shiny mirror on the wall. The lights were hot, and someone had brought me coffee. My job was to drink it and get jittery and have to take a leak and spill all my secrets so I could get to the can. I could’ve been more compliant if I knew what my secrets were.

  Delveckio nodded at my foot. “Looks to be a fresh knife cut, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You talk, too?”

  “Answer the fucking question,” Kaden said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It looks like a fresh cut. Now, what the hell’s this about?”

  “Got a little careless?”

  “Doing what?”

  “You tell me.”

  I palmed sweat off my brow. The hot overheads were working. “I might have had an intruder two nights ago. I think someone broke in when I was sleeping, cut my foot.”

  “Sure thing,” said Delveckio. “Easter Bunny maybe?”

  I glared at him. “Not in January. I was thinking tardy elf.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police?” Kaden asked.

  “You guys haven’t exactly been sympathetic.”

  “And this…mystery assailant cut you and you slept through it?”

  “I was really out of it. My first night home. I woke up just after, I think. Guy might’ve even still been in the house, but then I wasn’t sure—”

  Kaden placed a thick hand on my chest and shoved me so I fell back into the chair. He kicked the table so it slid over and stopped right in front of me. I was now seated at the interrogation table. Neat trick.

  “Where were you last night between ten-thirty and two A.M.?”

  Last night?

  “Okay,” I said, struggling to keep up and failing. “Okay.”

  Delveckio handed me my coffee, an oddly civil gesture, despite his motivation.

  “Getting smarter, aren’t you?” Kaden said. “Moved the body this time. Washed it down with a bleach solution.”

  I believe that anyone is capable of anything.

  I felt a flutter-beat of panic. “Is it April? Is she all right?”

  They stared at me, arms crossed, spread stances, Delveckio a skinnier version of the big guy.

  “Tell me she’s okay,” I said. “You already dragged me here. No need to add insult to injury.”

  Delveckio reached over and cuffed my head. Openhanded but hard. “You’re a piece of shit,” he said. “That’s insult to injury.”

  My chest felt tight. I couldn’t move enough air through it. “Just tell me this isn’t about April.”

  Kaden set down a crime-scene photo on the table in front of me. I shuddered so hard that coffee spilled over the Styrofoam lip and scalded my knuckles. Woman on a coroner’s slab, familiar deep gash in the pit of the stomach. But not April.

  A great hope fell over me like a blanket of light. Two bodies, same MO. If I hadn’t killed this woman, I likely hadn’t killed Genevieve. My name could be cleared. My relieved exhale was cut short by a renewed understanding of my situation. Interrogation room. Parker Center. Logically, the prime suspect.

  “I didn’t do this. No way. You think I…what? Slipped while stabbing her in the stomach and cut my bare foot?”

  “You undressed to make sure you didn’t get any spatter on your clothes,” Delveckio said. “Manipulating the body, holding the knife, mistakes happen.”

  “Come on. That’s hardly concrete evidence.”

  “Oh, you want evidence?” Kaden asked.

  Here we go again. Déjà fucking vu.

  “We found a plastic drop cloth in your trash can. Like for, say, the trunk of your car.”

  My breath left me in a silent cough. I didn’t know anything except to keep fighting. Blindly. And take it on faith that I wasn’t a murderer, let alone twice over.

  “Why would I leave it in my own trash can?” I said.

  “You wouldn’t,” Delveckio said, “You burned it first. But you missed an e
dge. And it’s sporting residue matching the adhesive from the electrical tape binding her wrists.”

  I couldn’t manage a response.

  Kaden laughed at my stunned expression, though there was no amusement in his eyes. “Framed again, huh? One-armed man on the grassy knoll?”

  “I didn’t do this,” I said quietly.

  “That’s odd, because the killer duplicated every specific. The precise angle of the stab wound. The positioning of the body. The way the head was turned, hair down over the right eye. Not exactly the level of detail we put out for the six o’ clock news.”

  My thoughts bled one into the next.

  “Here’s the kicker,” Kaden continued. “That little piece of un-burnt plastic drop cloth we found in your trash can? It had some more surprises for us. The victim’s blood. Your blood. And as for your bleach bath? Missed a few spots. Your hair under a fingernail. Traces of your blood on the pad of her foot.”

  I cannot have done this. It’s impossible that I did this last night.

  “As far as we can determine, there is only one connection between the victims,” Kaden said. “And that’s you.”

  I pointed at the body in the photo. “I don’t know who that woman is. Why would I kill her?”

  “You’re trying to tell us you didn’t do this, and you’ve spent the thirty-six hours since your release digging around in the mud of the case you were just acquitted for? Stalking Katherine Harriman. Trying to get ahold of the key criminalist from the investigation. You’re giving new meaning to returning to the scene of the crime.”

  He nodded at Delveckio, who walked to the corner, reached up, and unplugged the security camera pointing down at us. Kaden set both hands on the lip of the table, leaning over so his face was a few feet from mine. He shoved until the ledge of wood struck my lower ribs and sent me and my chair skidding back with it. The table hit the walls on either side of me, trapping me in the corner. “Decent-sized fella like yourself might be feeling a touch cramped right about now. Get used to it. Because that’s your cell size for the rest of your life.”

  Kaden stepped back. Pacing, he cuffed his sleeves up past his wide forearms. “Let’s pretend I’m playing bad cop. But see, this game is different. There is no good cop. This is bad cop-bad cop. Delveckio and I, there’s no one we hate more than killers of women. We watched you slip off once. We’re not gonna do it again.”

  I glanced at Delveckio. Considerate of Kaden to make room for him under the macho umbrella. With his thin frame and watery eyes, Delveckio was not the most threatening figure. Kaden, on the other hand, looked ready to jam his fingers through my face and use my head as a bowling ball.

  He continued, “We’re willing to rough you up. We’re willing to snap fingers. We’re willing to crack ribs. And we’re willing to testify how we had to because you were belligerent and violent. We’d rather not, but we will. You can go through it or you can skip it, but either way you’re talking, and you don’t have a brain tumor to save your murdering ass this go-round.”

  The crime-scene photo had skidded off the table into my lap. Upside down, it looked even more grotesque. Blood and severed flesh, without orientation.

  The familiar sickness started in my stomach, dampening my skin. The sweat-stained hospital sheets. The voices echoing off my cell walls. The scabs had lifted to reveal the same horrible scene. Where was I? What had I done? I felt a sudden caving-in of my resolve. The utter demoralization of long-awaited defeat, of laying down arms and giving in to the inevitable. Maybe I had done it. I could not exactly claim to remember the last time I’d encountered a body under similar circumstances. The evidence, Genevieve, my mental lapses—it was too much.

  Where were you last night between ten-thirty and twoA.M.?

  Home alone. Out cold. Yeah, right.

  Bill Kaden, looking none too affable, advanced on the table, and I opened my mouth to offer a shaky admission of I-knew-not-what when like a thunderbolt a realization rocketed down, straightening my spine, jerking my fists against the pitted wood.

  “The camcorder!” I cried. “I recorded myself sleeping!”

  10

  They kept me alone in that interrogation room for an hour and forty-five minutes. For the first while, I sat on the chair with the crime-scene photo, which they’d thoughtfully left behind to keep me company. On the back was printed Kasey Broach, 1/22, 2:07A.M. The detectives had wasted no time in getting to me. When I couldn’t take the gruesome picture any longer, I had little to do but stare at my warped reflection in the mirror. The distortion amplified the way my hair bristled above the scar line, or maybe that was how it really looked.

  My camcorder was digital, with a 120-hour memory, which meant that it had been recording seamlessly since I’d set it up, capturing me snoozing, changing, gargling. For better or worse, it would hold the answer. Me, dozing peacefully. Or sleepwalking into a murder.

  After a while I moved the table and chair back to the middle of the room. As I paced, I caught myself inadvertently running the pads of my fingers along the line of my hidden scar. At the hour mark, I told the mirror that I was going to urinate in the corner if someone didn’t take me to a bathroom. A moment later the door popped open and a sullen rookie led me down the hall, then brought me back.

  Kaden and Delveckio finally returned, carrying chairs and looking dyspeptic. At least Kaden did; from what I knew of Delveckio, that was just his normal expression. Reading their faces, I felt nothing short of elation. Wudn’t me. Wudn’t me.

  They sat opposite. The folder in Kaden’s lap carried a sweat mark from his hand.

  “We saw the footage,” Kaden said. “The lab seems to believe it wasn’t doctored. No glitches in the continuity.”

  I blew out a breath that kept going. The relief was so intense it made me light-headed.

  Kaden was talking. “But you could’ve had an accomplice. Or maybe the coroner’s time of death was inaccurate. You were off the tape for just about all of the afternoon and the early part of the night.”

  “I have alibis. I was at a friend’s for the afternoon, then my editor came over.”

  “This still doesn’t play right,” Kaden said. “Why’s an innocent guy—an innocent guy that all the evidence at the crime scene just weirdly happens to nail—set up an airtight alibi?”

  “Because I thought I might have chopped my own foot in my sleep, and I was worried I was losing my mind.”

  Kaden laughed. “‘Losing’?”

  “Let’s start this over.” I extended my hand. “Drew.”

  Kaden stared at my hand like he was about to spit on it, but after a moment he nodded. Delveckio grudgingly followed suit.

  “Okay. You don’t like me, and I’m not particularly fond of you guys.” I glanced at Delveckio. “Especially you.”

  “Why especially me?”

  “That insult-to-injury thing was lame. Kaden may posture more, but he cuts a more impressive swath, so I figure he’s entitled to it. But”—I paused for effect—“you’ve both got a case weighing on you. Maybe two. I’m stuck in this investigation. Uniquely so. I’m here, and I’m not lawyered up. So take advantage of the situation.”

  “You know what I like even more than smart-ass Hollywood types?” Kaden asked. “Reopening cases I already closed.”

  “If my case is closed, who killed Kasey Broach?”

  My using her name set him back a moment, but then his eyes pulled to the crime-scene photo between us. “I don’t know, Danner—someone who has your exact hair, exact blood, and uses your trash can. So guess who we’re coming after when we figure out this digicorder crap and have probable cause again?”

  Probably not the guy who framed me.

  I stared at Kasey Broach’s corpse, wondering what, if any, was her connection to me. Or to Genevieve. Maybe there was a connection between Broach and the surviving Bertrands. Or maybe she’d been killed merely to set me up. Who had a motivation to see me locked up? That is, aside from the detectives right in front of me. Had Genev
ieve been seeing someone new, who didn’t think I should be driving the streets with impunity? Maybe Luc Bertrand had hired someone to bring me down by any means possible. Hard to believe with his droopy blue eyes, but hey, so was a brain tumor. My mind continued to spin, reeling in an agent I’d fired, a guy whose nose I’d accidentally broken on the basketball court, a bizarre letter I’d received from an anonymous reader after Chainer’s Link.

  “How can I help you look into this?” I asked. “Where do you start?”

  Delveckio said, “We don’t have anything we can disclose at this point in time.”

  “Did Genevieve and Kasey Broach have anything in common?”

  “Grieving parents. Devastated younger sisters.” He shook his head. “I did the advise-next-of-kin for Adeline. I wish I’d borrowed your camcorder first so I could make you watch her reaction.”

  I resisted giving him the reaction he was looking for. “So you haven’t found any connection between the victims?”

  His grin faded, and the skin tensed around his eyes. “Just you.”

  Kaden stood to leave, Delveckio rising on a slight delay.

  “You find anything unusual in her bloodstream?” I asked.

  They halted. Kaden pivoted, slowly. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Two nights ago I felt really hazy when I woke up. I thought it was brain-tumor fallout or stress. But maybe I was drugged so someone could cut my foot.” I leaned back in the chair, folded my arms. “Take my blood.”

  Delveckio raised his eyebrows at Kaden, who took two solemn steps back to his chair and sat. “Why’d you wake up so quickly, then? If you were drugged?”

  “Dunno. I have a pretty good tolerance from my misspent youth. Can we run my blood?”

  Kaden fished a cell phone from his pocket and dialed. “Kaden here. Get me Wagner.” He rose and walked out of the room.

  “Lloyd Wagner’s on this case?”