The Magic Hour

Chapter 2: By Accident

WHEN HE OPENED the door to his apartment the stillness hit him. It felt like a dead thing. He hung his raincoat on a hook near the door and kicked off his shoes. In the kitchen he put leftovers in the microwave and went into the living room and turned on a lamp. The soft light made him feel better. He poured out a glass of wine, determined to think about nothing at all.

    That wasn't so easy. What was it about her? Naliv, what kind of name was that? Maybe Russian, Eastern European. That could account for the accent and the formal way she spoke. He swallowed the wine and poured another glass. It was too expensive to guzzle down, but for once he didn't care.

    How long had it been since he'd cared about a woman? Not that he cared now. Georgia had left a long time ago with most of his worldly goods and his best friend. He'd always been aware that he was the victim of the classic cliché. That still rankled him more than the actual fact she'd left at all.

    There was Jennie. Again he pushed the thought away. Not now.

    He sat down to his lukewarm supper, finished it quickly, and threw the container into the trash. Hands in his pockets, he paced the floor, and finally stopped and looked out the window. The rain had stopped. The streetlights left the wet road in amber light.

    "Who are you, Naliv?" he said softly into the room.

    Nothing she'd said to him made any sense. She wasn't a viable witness. She'd just shown up at the station. He had no real proof she'd been at the scene, and he hadn't managed to find out anything about her. "Like she had me in a trance," he said into the glass, "only that's no excuse."

    When his cell phone went off he let it ring several times before picking up. "Yeah, Byrne," he said finally.

    "Well, Detective Byrne, it's your friendly medical examiner with a late bulletin."

    "Nan. What do you have? Something I can use?"

    "That's for you to find out. I need a shower after grubbing through this junk and debris, that much I know. At least the bodies I get are in one piece most of the time. Here's the thing. I found trace elements on some of the leaves they packed up. Nothing I've identified yet. The only part that matters is that it showed up on the stuff they collected from the east bank, where the guys were fishing. Where they had their camp. I'm analyzing it now. If I had to guess, and I don't do that, it could be cleaning fluid, or some kind of solvent."

    "That's it?"

    "That's all there's likely to be till the analysis is done, but I'm not expecting any surprises. Seems an obvious outcome, doesn't it?"

    "You mean that the whole river story is made up, that something happened between them on shore."

    "Yes, and I'm assuming that already occurred to you ages ago. That's exactly what I'm thinking. Happily I don't have to prove it, you do. Gotta go."

    "Another date?"

    "Oh, sure. No, that happy camper has bolted away. My job is such a turn-on to the men I meet. Try as I can to prevent it, they always find out. The call to the woods gave me away, didn't it, yes indeed. Now I really have an agenda to keep, so bye, bye. I'll let you know when the results come in."

    "Wait, Nan. Different issue. Did you tell Paulson that the Lewis case is self-defense?"

    "Andy's such an eager fellow, isn't he, in his climb to the top? No, I didn't. You should know me better than that. What I told him—and what is in the report update I sent him at his request—was that the bullet entered on the right side at a downward angle of sixty degrees, meaning Lewis shot the burglar invading his home from halfway down his staircase just as the man was turning away from him, probably trying to escape, since silver and jewelry weren't in evidence, or any other pretties. Andy seems to think it was a fair fight because even though the victim had no weapon, he was after all where he didn't belong. I'd call him an idiot but that's just me. Are we done here?"