Son of a bitch, I had to admire the guy.

And here, now, in my hand was just the tool I needed to send Sims and Hanratty to join the chase for Miles Cave. Let them all rush off in search of the great white whale, while Julia and I floated into the sunset on our boat, a smaller, tawdrier boat than I had hoped, absolutely, but a boat nonetheless. I was imagining the scene, the ocean breezes, the gentle waves, Julia’s lips pressed upon my neck, when something stopped me.

There was an address at the bottom of the letter. It was a bit smudged, which was why I hadn’t noticed right off, but there it was. And from what I could tell, it was a familiar address.

It was my address.

The son of a bitch had been living in my building.

Wait a second. There was something about the signature. The small i in Miles. The first two letters in Cave. What the hell?

I took a piece of paper and signed my name and compared the two. Close enough to get my nerves a-snapping. It didn’t make any sense, unless…

At that very moment, I sensed someone close. Instinctively I dropped the letter to my lap at the same time I looked up. There was a woman in the doorway. She wore a print dress that looked like wallpaper on her sturdy body. She seemed somehow familiar, though I couldn’t quite place her.

“Mr. Carl,” she said, her voice both high and dismissive. “My name’s Margaret. I’m the secretary here. Mr. Nettles asked me to see if you needed any assistance.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” I said.

“Do you need something to drink?”

“No, really, I’m fine,” I said. I looked at her for a moment. Short hair, thick nose, the jaw of a wrestler, knuckles. “Do I know you?”

“Do you dance? Ballroom dancing, I mean. There are monthly events that our club sponsors. You might have seen me competing.”

“No, definitely not. I have the grace of an aardvark – after it’s been hit by a car. The only thing worse than my dancing is my singing.”

“Then I won’t bring out the guitar.” She looked down at the file open on my desk. “Do you need any copies?”

“Yes, actually.” I closed the file and pushed it forward. “The whole file, please. One copy of each letter would be perfect,” I said.

“Of course, Mr. Carl.” She stepped forward, took the file off my desk, clutched it to her chest.

“Margaret,” I said, “has anyone else looked at this file in the past few days?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Were the police here?”

“Two detectives, one big and one not so big. They came to talk to Mr. Nettles, and they examined the financial records. The big one left pretty quickly, but the little one stayed quite a while and made plenty of copies.”

“But he didn’t see this file?”

“No.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“I’ll be right back, and I’ll put the copies in a folder for you.”

When she left, I lifted the paper that was still on my lap. My address. A signature that had much in common with mine. I read it again and picked out what I hadn’t noticed before. You have screwed me again, and this time I will not sit back and allow you to keep what is mine. Return the money, all of it, or there will be no recourse other than violence. The letter was a neon arrow pointing right at my heart.

I took a quick glance at the empty doorway and then folded the letter in half, in quarters, in eighths, and stuck it in my pocket. Destruction of evidence, sure. Obstruction of justice, absolutely. But I was in trouble. Some son of a bitch was setting me up.

And by the date of the letter, that son of a bitch had been setting me up from when Wren Denniston was still very much alive.

18

I went straight back to my apartment after leaving the Inner Circle offices, with a file of desperate letters, all copies, in my briefcase and a single original folded up in my jacket pocket. I wanted to wash the gel out of my hair, sure, but what I really wanted was to figure out what to do with that one original I had swiped. Examine it, hide it, immolate it, I wasn’t quite sure, but I was quite sure I wanted to figure it out on my own, without anyone looking over my shoulder.

Which was why the sight of Detective McDeiss leaning against the side of a car parked right in front of my apartment building was so distressing. He was on his phone, staring at me as I approached.

“What’s that on your head?” said McDeiss when he clicked his phone shut.

“Gel,” I said.

He stared at my hair for a long moment.

“It’s stylish,” I said. “Quite hip.”

“It’s quite something. You look like a mortician I know named Prentice.”

“Handsome guy?”

“Not really. You want to take a ride?”

“No.”

“Excuse me. My sentence was phrased indelicately. It is a statement of fact and not a question. You want to take a ride.”

“So that’s it, huh? Where to?”

“The Roundhouse. Sims was waiting for you at your office. Hanratty was waiting for you at the Denniston place in Chestnut Hill, in case you happened to show up there again. I had nothing going on, so I volunteered to wait a bit at your home. I just got hold of them on the cell, so now they’ll be waiting for you at headquarters.”

“Why didn’t they just call me?”

“They want to talk, and Sims had the sneaking suspicion that you wouldn’t show up on your own. Let’s go.”

“Can I go upstairs first and wash this crap out of my hair?”

“No.”

“It will only take a minute, but it’s starting to feel a little-”

“Icky?”

“Exactly.”

He pushed himself off the car, opened the rear door for me. “Get in.”

“Unless you have a warrant, Detective, I’m going upstairs to wash my hair. The Constitution gives me a right to clean hair.”

“You’re already a gelhead, don’t be a dickhead, too. Get in the damn car.”

I got in the damn car. McDeiss was right, I was being a dickhead. I had my reasons to squawk, first to get that gel out of my hair and second to ditch the incriminating fake letter before I showed up at police headquarters, but to start asking about warrants and bitching about the Constitution with McDeiss was all wrong. He was a Philadelphia homicide detective, he had a caseload to choke a goat, when he said he had nothing going on, he was lying. He had volunteered to wait at my apartment on the odd chance that he could get to me before Sims did. He was trying to help, he had something to say, and I was being churlish by giving him lip before he said it.

“Do you have any idea what the hell you’re doing, Carl?” he said as we drove toward the Roundhouse. He was in the driver’s seat, I sat in the back. I felt weirdly like an old Southern Jewish lady.

“Not really,” I said.

“It certainly shows,” he said, glancing at me through the rearview mirror. “Because you are screwing yourself big-time. I thought I advised you to stay the hell out of this until Sims finally charged the wife.”

“You did.”

“So that’s why you’re rushing all around town with a blackjack in your pants and a bottle of gel on your head?”

“Er…”

“Just so you know, questions are being asked about you. And not just by Hanratty.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Spare me the tears. It doesn’t matter what you say or if I believe you or not. Right now what matters is what Sims believes, and what he can convince the D.A. of. You’re making things too easy for him. And he’s not pulling this crap out of thin air.”

“What does he have?”

“That’s not my place, Victor. It’s his case, he discloses what he needs to disclose on his own time. But I’m telling you not to be a fool. The focus of the investigation is shifting. The wife’s lawyer has been whispering in Sims’s ear.”

“Clarence Swift is an eel.”

“Maybe, but that only means Sims has found a fellow member of the species. And he’s been listening.”

“He’s right to be listening. She didn’t do it.”