Wait... his pants... still wet?

Eddie grabbed Crane's hand-cooler than the living, but still warm.

Holy Jesus, this just happened!

Eddie threw himself down the ladder and sprinted out, slamming the door behind him.

He ran toward his car.

The slam echoed in Eddie's mind.

Who made the door slam when I first got here?

Not Crane-it had been barely two minutes between the noise and the moment Eddie opened the door to the barn. Even if the rope had been ready, would Crane have had time to hang himself dead? Eddie couldn't say.

Was somebody else here?

Chapter 5.

The police arrived in their Ford Crown Victorias, white with blue and gold stripes. A belligerent lieutenant named Brill wanted to hear Eddie's story again.

"But I told you guys everything," Eddie protested. He looked down Dr. Crane's driveway, past the barrier of police tape, and saw a television news van pull into the cul-de-sac. Word of Crane's death had leaked.

This is crazy. I'm the only reporter with the full story, and I can't get away to write.

The lieutenant was short and built like a power-lifter. His shirt collar dug deep into his thick neck. "So why were you in the man's garage?" he asked.

Eddie started to sigh, but stopped himself. No sense aggravating this lieutenant and dragging out this interview longer than it had to be. "I heard a door, all right?" Eddie said, "I went looking for Crane. Found him hanging in the garage. Ran to my car. Called you guys."

"Uh-huh. So you heard a noise and then broke into the garage," the detective paraphrased, scratching notes on a pad.

"Don't write it that way," Eddie said. "The door was unlocked. I just went in."

Lieutenant Brill looked up from his notes. His eyes were the lightest blue Eddie had ever seen. "Doesn't really matter, under the law."

Eddie sighed. Couldn't help himself. "Somebody else was here," he said. "That's the person you ought to be interrogating."

"Crane lived alone," the detective said. "There's no evidence anybody else was here, except you and him."

"I'm telling you, I heard somebody."

The lieutenant went back to writing. "Mm-hm," he said.

Eddie felt the sudden stab of caffeine withdrawal. It quickly grew worse, as if his skull was a diving bell that had gone too deep.

Another voice said, "When I heard that a reporter found the body, I hoped it wouldn't be you-"

Eddie turned. It was Detective Orr. She looked ticked.

"-but I knew it would be, Eddie."

"I explained everything three times already," Eddie said. "I need to go."

Orr ignored him. She nodded to the lieutenant, and the two of them walked out of earshot. She murmured to Brill, he mumbled to her, and then Orr came back alone to speak to Eddie.

"Crane left a note," she said.

Eddie shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He didn't say anything.

"Did you read it?"

A second TV news van pulled into the cul-de-sac. The reporter from the first van was taping her report with police cars and the house in the background. Eddie's skull felt like it was about to buckle.

Eddie asked, "Is that what Brill was busting my b.a.l.l.s about?" He shrugged, irked that TV news was beating him on a story he had cold. TV should never beat print. He felt like he was letting down the brotherhood of ink scribes. "What do you think, Lucy? Of course I read the G.o.ddam note."

Orr gave a disapproving little grunt. "I wish you could have told me differently." She pointed in the lieutenant's general direction. "Brill wants to arrest you for interfering with a police investigation."

"Oh, come on," Eddie complained, "That's a bulls.h.i.t charge." His head was in a vise. His temperature was rising. Why couldn't somebody make a caffiene patch or some gum for coffee drinkers who needed help between cups? He said, "The investigation didn't even start until I called you."

"Of course," she said. "But Brill can keep you in lockup, force you to pay for a lawyer-they ain't cheap-make your life h.e.l.l for twenty-four hours or so, till the charges are dropped."

She was right. Eddie calmed himself with a deep breath. He said, "Look, I'm not proud of what I did. But this is a big story-Crane admitted that he made it up as he went along for forty years. All those cases? When the district attorney hears this, he'll s.h.i.t his liver."

"He already has," Orr said quietly.

They stepped out of the driveway, to let the black hea.r.s.e drive by.

Orr said, "In light of the Roger Lime fiasco, I've been a.s.signed to investigate Crane's death, and to determine what evidence there is that he falsified his reports."

Eddie whistled. "A big job."

"The lieutenant said that you heard something, before you found the body?"

"He said that? I didn't think he cared about what I heard."

"He doesn't, but I do." She squinted at him.

Eddie told her about the sound that he heard. She took notes. Then they retraced Eddie's path around the house, to the back deck, and then into the barn. Detective Orr timed it at two minutes, fifteen seconds, give or take.

"n.o.body chokes that fast," she said, more to herself than to Eddie.

"I thought hanging was instantaneous-broken neck."

"Only from the gallows, when the body can drop six feet or so-and even then it's not always instant," Orr said. "No, Dr. Crane suffocated at the end of that rope, and that would have taken longer than two-fifteen. Hard to pinpoint time-of-death with body temperature on such a warm day, but he was probably alive within the hour you found him."

They walked back to the driveway. The pressure on Eddie's head had stabilized. He liked Detective Orr's methodical style. She was the constant drip of water that eventually wore away a stone. Eddie had more information that any other reporter on the story. If he could get a cup of coffee and a telephone line in the next thirty minutes, he'd be okay.

"So either I imagined a door slamming," Eddie said, "or somebody ran out of the garage when I came calling for Crane."

Detective Orr was quiet a moment. Then she said, "Could have been neighborhood kids, here to steal a bike."

"You don't believe that."

She gave him the fake smile he hated.

The TV was on in the Perez Brothers diner. The place was packed with the lunch crowd, mostly third-shift factory workers ordering their first meal of the day: cheese omelets and Budweiser. Four men were engaged in an animated argument in Spanish, either about Ma.s.sachusetts politics or the metric system-Eddie wasn't sure.

He pounded the story into his laptop.

Bobby Perez refilled Eddie's coffee mug. "How can you write with all this noise, man?" he asked.

Eddie kept his eyes on the keyboard. "Deadline makes me deaf." He typed some more, and then added: "This place is peaceful compared to the newsroom I used to work in."

"Oh yeah, you worked for The Empire, man, that rag."

Eddie finished a final sentence, and then cracked, "I was young, I needed the money." He smiled and handed Bobby the modem cord.

After he transmitted his story, Eddie relaxed with coffee and a rumpled newspaper left behind by an earlier customer. It was the current edition of The Second Voice, gamely reporting the reappearance of Roger Lime, a week after every other paper in America had the story. Lew Cuhna had run the photograph the kidnappers had released, under the double-decked banner: Thought to be Murdered Last Spring Bank President Held for Ransom The story was a week late, but at least Cuhna had used his own byline on it, and had done a competent job with the writing.

The noon news was starting on TV.

"Could you turn this up, Bobby?" Eddie asked. "That's my compet.i.tion."

Eddie had little tolerance for local TV news, and the noon broadcasts were usually the worst. The TV anchormodel teased the rehashed material from the night before-a bar stabbing, a man who found his cla.s.s ring twenty years after he had lost it down the toilet, and the Red Sox rain-out in Texas. Then she began a breathless reading of the morning's one fresh story: Local coroner Dr. Alvin Crane was found dead at his home this morning, the victim of an apparent suicide. Crane has come under fire in the past week over his misidentification of the skeletal remains of kidnapped financier Roger Lime...

Bobby Perez pointed to the TV. "This your story, Eddie?"

"Yeah, but they don't have half the material I have. They'll be updating their six-o'clock report with my exclusive stuff."

Sources close to the investigation say that evidence found at the scene suggests that the doctor was despondent about his mistaken work on the Lime case, and perhaps other cases going back forty years...

Eddie clapped his hands on his head.

How did TV news get that info?

Eddie was the only reporter to read the note.

Lieutenant Brill!

He knew Eddie was about to break the story, so he leaked Eddie's scoop.

Dr. Crane was p.r.o.nounced dead at the scene, after a local freelance journalist, Edward Bourque, discovered his body while at the house to ask Crane for an interview...And now a check of the weather...

Eddie was slack jawed. Most reporters despised becoming part of a story. Those who didn't became columnists. Eddie had never wanted a column. If Eddie became too closely identified with the death of Dr. Crane, no news organization with any ethics would pay him to write about the case.

Bobby grinned and slapped Eddie on the shoulder. "You're famous, man. So you found him, huh? And the old man-he was dead?"

Eddie frowned and then downed his coffee. He thought about the noise he had heard at Dr. Crane's place. His palms grew damp reliving the feeling of Crane's skin, the fading warmth left behind by a life that had hastily departed.

"Yeah, he was dead, all right," Eddie grumbled, "though just barely."

Chapter 6.

Eddie's Washington Post was a mess again in the morning, parts of it missing. He made a mental note to call the delivery service. He often made mental notes about trivial items, and rarely followed up on them. He could never remember mental notes. For important stuff, he wrote real notes. A mental note was Eddie's way of telling himself that an inconvenience wasn't important enough to do something about. A few more days without the cla.s.sified section, and he'd write himself a real note.

General VonKatz was at Eddie's feet, screaming about the dry kibble in his bowl.

"I've got nothing to share," Eddie told him. He leaned over and showed the General his breakfast plate-a mound of fried red cabbage with Velveeta. "See?"

The General sniffed Eddie's food. Satisfied that n.o.body was eating better than he, the cat crunched his cereal.

The bag of cabbage discovered in the crisper drawer had been three days past its expiration date. It still went well with a quart of Hawaiian Kona coffee. But, really, what wouldn't? Eddie would happily wash down a plate of potting soil with Kona.

He had planned to dedicate the day to running down the tip Henry had given him. But he found himself loitering over the box scores, unable to start his research. The thought of his brother left Eddie uneasy, and he wasn't sure why.

He pushed the newspaper away and grabbed for the telephone, determined to unscramble Henry's tip. There was just one place that would have all the information he needed. He dialed a local number.

After three rings, a deep, rumbling voice answered, "Daily Empire, news library."

Eddie whispered, "Durkin? It's Eddie Bourque."

"Bourque? That can't be right. That chicken s.h.i.t little b.a.s.t.a.r.d don't work here anymore."

Eddie laughed. "You're still campaigning for an a.s.s-kicking. Why don't I come down there and apply one?"

Durkin roared. "That's a good crack, Bourque. The next crack outta you will be your tibia, when I snap it like a candy cane." He laughed like a dragon on a new pile of gold. "Been a long time, Bourque. What can I do you out of?"

"Same s.h.i.t as always. I need to see a file."

"Ooo. You heard the new rules? Employees only down here in the library. And that would go triple for you, considering all the trouble you caused this place when you left."

Eddie was shocked. "Since when do you listen to any rules that weren't chipped into stone on a mountain?"

"You're right-there's only ten rules in the world, and there's nothing in them prohibiting a favor for an old friend. I was just softening you up for what you gotta do to get in here without security calling the cops."