That’s a lot of detail for someone who hasn’t talked to the police, I think to myself. And for someone who didn’t kill her.

“Go on,” I say. “Tell me about the second woman.”

5.

Jason

Tuesday, June 4

“The second woman was Lauren, Lauren Gibbs,” James Drinker says. “She worked at a bank and was trying to build a website design business. Nice woman. Nice woman.” His eyes move away from mine and over to the walls of my office again. “She was killed two days later, May twenty-fourth, I think. A Friday.”

“And when did you last speak with her?”

He heaves his shoulders. “Couple of weeks ago?”

“There would be phone records, e-mails, things like that, connecting you to her?”

“Yeah. Phone. Not e-mail. Not Facebook. But phone, yeah. I mean, our friendship wasn’t a secret.”

I shift in my chair, but I can’t get comfortable. My hand itches, but it’s one of those inside itches that my scratching fingernails can’t find. I chew the cap on the Bic pen until it’s at its breaking point.

“Something wrong?” he asks me.

I take a breath.

“I need a minute,” I say.

I head to the bathroom and splash some cold water on my face. I see dark bags under my eyes. Sleep has been a problem for me. I reach into my pocket, remove my small tin of Altoids, and pop a mint into my mouth. I chew it up and cup some water from the sink.

When I leave the bathroom, Shauna is standing outside Bradley’s office and turns to look at me. She reads something in my expression and says, “What?”

“Nothing,” I answer.

Not interested in prolonging that conversation, I make it back into my office, where James Drinker is standing over by the wall of diplomas and photographs.

“You played football at State, didn’t you?” he asks, wagging a finger at a photograph of me catching a football my freshman year.

I ease back into my chair, making noises like an old man getting out of bed. “Once upon a time,” I say. “Let’s get back to this.”

Drinker resumes his spot in the chair across from me. “Okay.”

“Do you have alibis, James? For these murders?”

“I was like Macaulay Culkin,” he says.

I stare at him. He stares at me. I’m supposed to understand.

“Home alone,” he says. “I was home alone. I don’t get out too much.”

Now that I could believe. “Any evidence of your being home alone those nights? Did you make phone calls from a landline? Did you send e-mails or go online or order in Chinese food or order a pay-per-view movie? Anything like that?”

His face goes blank. “I’m not sure. I don’t go online a lot, but maybe. I didn’t order food or anything. I might have ordered a movie on pay-per-view or something.”

I reach for my pen but can’t find it. Must have knocked it off my desk. I bend over to search the carpet, and when I come back up, my body makes me pay: a lightning strike between the ears and a swimming pain in my stomach. I hold my breath and wait it out. Fuck the pen. I’ll just memorize the information.

“Good, okay,” I say. “Think that stuff over. Now, if the police contact—”

“I’m being set up, Mr. Kolarich.”

“It may be premature to jump to that—”

“How would you do that?” he asks. “If it was you? How would you set somebody up for murder?”

I sigh, loudly enough for him to get the picture that I’m not very interested in this conversation.

“Please,” he insists. “I think that’s what’s happening. How would you frame somebody?”

“How would I . . .” I drum my fingers on the desk. “Well, okay. The police will usually look for motive, means, and opportunity.”

Drinker scratches at his face, his mouth open in a small O. “Motive? Why would I wanna kill them?”

From the cops’ view, that would be the easiest part of the equation. Boy meets girl. Romance, unrequited love, maybe a little jealousy and obsession sprinkled in. If I put this homely guy next to a hot-body stripper who later wound up with a knife in her chest, first thing I’d think was, She rebuffed him, he didn’t take it so well. A second girl, same story, or some variation of that story. There can be plenty of variations, but the basic tale is the same—matters of the heart—and the cops see it every day.

“Opportunity,” Drinker says to himself.

“Sounds like you don’t have much of an alibi. If someone were framing you, they’d pick a time they knew you had none. Meaning, a time when you’re alone. No one to vouch for you.”

Drinker takes a deep breath. That box has been checked, in his case. He was like Macaulay Culkin.

“And means?” he says. “What is that?”

“He’d choose a weapon that you, yourself, had available, too.”

“Like a knife.”

“Sure, like a knife.”

He looks at me with a blank face. “Well, I have a knife,” he says. “Everybody’s got a knife.” He scratches his face again. “Go on. What else?”

“I don’t know what else there is,” I say. “But if someone wanted to frame you, he might want to help the cops out a little. Leave some clues.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know if he did that or not. You mean, like, drop my driver’s license there?”

“That, or even more subtle, I suppose. Maybe scrape some grease off the floor of your auto shop and smear it at the scene. Or if he has access to your house, he could take something from your house—a fiber of carpet, some hair from your comb, something like that—and leave it at the crime scene.”

“Damn.” Drinker looks like he’s lost a little color. “Go on. What else?”

I look up at the ceiling. It’s been a while since I framed somebody for murder, so I’m a little rusty.

“For that matter,” I say, “if he had access to your house, he could plant all sorts of things there. The murder weapon. Something from the crime scene. A drop of the victim’s blood, even.”

Drinker lets out a shiver. “I don’t think anybody can get into my apartment.”

“You should make sure of that, James. Do you have an alarm system?”

He shakes his head no.

“Get one,” I say. “It’s not that expensive. I have one. But however expensive it may be, it’s worth it. If you’re serious in thinking that somebody is setting you up, you don’t want that person getting into your apartment.”

But he can’t be serious about that, can he? He thinks someone’s killing women and trying to put him in the soup?

Silence. He studies me. His mind is wandering, and he’s not thrilled with where it’s going. I can’t tell if this guy is for real. Anything’s possible, I suppose.

“Guess I got some work to do,” he says.

“I charge three hundred an hour, James. Not counting today. So I’m not cheap.”

He looks up at me, not terribly surprised to hear that number. “I think I can afford that,” he says. “I’ve been saving up.”

I don’t comment on the significance of that statement, but he—the innocent man who didn’t kill anybody—catches it himself.

“I mean, saving up for a rainy day of some kind,” he clarifies.

Fair enough. I don’t know if he’s innocent or not, but I do know that if I limited myself to innocent clients, the phone wouldn’t ring very often.

“Well, it sounds like it may be raining soon,” I say.