"Don't repeat my words back to me, Baldric. It's not nice."

"I suppose if Bob's murderer was a relative, fingerprints, fibers, that sort of thing are all useless because there would be a reason why those people-men- would have been in the house. They're family."

"I wish it were that simple. This is the most convoluted case I've ever worked on."

"Why? Two murders, both tied together. One perpetrator."

"I wish."

Now Bram was confused. "More than one shooter?"

"No. Just one."

"Then-"

"I can't talk about it. We're not sure what we've got yet. It's more complicated than what you're reading in the papers."

"In what way?"

Al lowered his eyes.

"Use me, Al. I'm here for you."

The cop gave him a disgusted grunt.

"Want another cookie?" Bram rattled the sack.

"Save the charm, Baldric. It doesn't work on me." But he grabbed the sack. "Okay, look. You'll find this out in a matter of hours anyway, so I might as well tell you. I learned a few hours ago that somebody leaked one of our main pieces of evidence to the press. We're in possession of a taped 911 call Fabian placed the night he was shot. He called to report a murder down on Shepard Road."

"Loy."

Al nodded.

"Did he say who did it?"

"He was about to, but somebody stopped him. There was another man's voice on the tape in the background, but it was garbled, so we don't know who it was."

"That had to have been Bob's killer."

"No comment."

"But Bob must have said something to give you a lead."

"Maybe."

"Will that be in the newspaper or do I have to beat it out of you?"

Al studied Bram for a moment, then took a sip of coffee. "It sounded like Fabian was about to say his brother killed Loy."

Bram whistled.

"But he didn't finish his sentence. So, for all we know, he may have been going somewhere else with it. A good defense lawyer could drive a truck through a hole that big. And even if he did mean to say that his brother was the one who killed Loy, that still leaves us with a problem. Which brother? Fabian's brother-in-law, Phil Banks, or his half brother, Andy Gladstone."

"Was the entire 911 tape leaked to the press, or just the fact of its existence?"

"We've got the tape locked up. Nobody's got access to it but us. But yeah, I think the press has a transcript."

Bram tapped a finger to his lips. "I saw you at Bob's funeral the other day. I figured you weren't there just to pay your respects."

"You saying I got no compassion?"

Bram spread his arms wide. "Why don't you haul Andy and Phil in, shine a bright light in their eyes, and apply your thumbscrews?"

"You watch too many dumb movies."

"But you've talked to them, right?"

"Like I said, it's complicated." Al took the last cookie out of the sack.

"And I wouldn't understand."

"No, you'd probably get it, but I can't talk about it. I've already said too much."

"You eat all my cookies and then you have the nerve to hold out on me?"

"Guess so," said Al, crunching up the sack and tossing it at Bram's chest.

Bram thought he'd had the real story nailed, but now he wasn't so sure. What the press had reported so far must be only the tip of the iceberg. Glancing at his watch, he saw that he had a little over a minute to get to the sound booth before his program started. "Between you and me, just give me a hint."

"Between you and me?"

"Goes no farther than this room."

Al rose from the chair, dropping the last cookie into his side pocket of his suit coat. "Okay. Listen carefully, pal. I'm only going to say this once." He placed his hands on the desk, bent closer to Bram, and whispered, "Rosebud." Then he winked.

"Asshole."

"No comment."

7.

Chris walked out of the bedroom, toweling her long, curly brown hair dry. As she stood on the balcony that enclosed a section of the second floor, she looked down into the living room. Phil was crouched low next to the front windows, gazing at the street in front of the house through a crack in the curtains. "What's going on?" she asked, curious about what might be happening outside.

"It's that damn car again."

"What car?"

"The one that followed us home last night."

"I didn't see a car."

"That's because you weren't looking. I'm being tailed. Have been for several days."

This was the first Chris had heard of it. "By who?"

"The cops."

"Why?"

"They've got to nail somebody for those two murders."

Chris was aghast. "But you were nowhere near those locations that night. I should know."

"You think that matters to them?" He jabbed his forefinger at the curtain. "They just need a warm body with a potential motive."

"What motive? You liked your brother-in-law. And the idea that you'd ever hurt someone-it's ridiculous."

"Tell that to the plainclothes jerk out in the car."

"Fine," said Chris, marching down the stairs into the living room. "I will."

Phil turned around and grabbed her by the waist just as she steamed past him toward the front door. "God, but you're a sexy woman." With one flick of his hand, he untied her robe. He slipped his arms around her naked body, running his palms up and down her back.

"And you're my guy. I gotta protect you."

"I'll handle the cop."

Chris had dated only casually before meeting Phil, and she'd never been in love before. Phil told her right off that he was used goods. He'd been divorced twice, and freely admitted that the problems in his marriages had been mostly his fault. That admission only made Chris love him all the more. Honesty was important to her, and Phil might not be perfect, but he was an honest man. He was her silver fox, a superconfident older guy who would never let her down. None of the younger men she'd dated could hold a candle to him. The difference in their ages didn't matter a bit to her. He was in better shape than most twenty-year-olds.

Chris was the second child of a hardworking mom and a father who'd dumped her before she was even born. Her first memories were of an apartment over a dentist's office. Tiny rooms. A TV set that didn't work. Lots of canned spaghetti for dinner. When she was nine, she and her mom and her older brother had moved to another apartment, this one above the Lakeside Pavilion in South Minneapolis. It was a cheap dollar theater that, in the '80s, before VCRs were in every home, had made money showing old movies. Chris had grown up watching Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart. Her favorite was Errol Flynn. When she was twelve, she got a job helping the manager at the theater clean up between showings. By the time she was fifteen, she was working the concessions. At sixteen, she manned the ticket booth. One of the perks of her job was a free pass to any movie she wanted to see-and she wanted to see them all. It was a glamorous world totally unlike her everyday life. She always suspected that when she met "the" man, it would be incredibly romantic, just like what she saw in the movies. It turned out that she was right.

Two summers ago, she'd been jogging around Lake Harriet early one morning when she'd turned into Super Klutz, tripped over a rock, and landed in a bush. A man who'd been sitting on one of the benches came over and helped her up. Branches had scraped her legs, but other than that, she was fine.

"If you hadn't been checking me out so carefully, you would have seen the rock," he said. When he grinned at her, she saw that he had a beautiful smile. He looked just like Errol Flynn.

She smiled back at him. And that was how it started. She sat down on the bench and they began talking. He told her he owned a construction company. She said she worked for Cafe Aldo as a line chef. He laughed, said it was a small world. As it turned out, he was part owner of that restaurant. And that's when they realized they'd met before. He'd walked through the kitchen one day a few months before and asked her to grill him a steak. She remembered thinking he was handsome, but that was as far as it went.

They couldn't seem to stop talking that first morning. He invited her to have breakfast with him. She had the day off, so she took him up on his offer. Later, they ended up in Hudson at another restaurant for lunch-one more cafe in which he had a part interest. They spent the afternoon antiquing along the St. Croix, the evening sitting on Phil's deck, and then she stayed the night.

The next morning, Phil asked her to move in with him. He told her he'd never been so powerfully attracted to anybody before in his life, both physically and intellectually. He couldn't let her get away now that he'd found her. He said he felt he'd finally found his soul mate, and even though she wasn't an impulsive person, Chris felt the exact same way.

And still, she hesitated. The apartment she lived in wasn't fabulous-nothing like his home in Woodbury-but it was hers. She'd worked hard to get where she was. When she tried to explain it to him, he said he understood-it wasn't a problem. He'd pay the rent on the place as long as she liked. He just wanted her to give their relationship a try. She brought some of her clothes over the next day.

Phil didn't like schedules. He preferred to make spur-of-the-moment decisions on what they would do each day. Sometimes he'd go to work; sometimes he wouldn't. Six months ago, she'd quit her job. It was a major source of contention between them. Phil would want to do something fun, and she always had to go to work. It just didn't make sense. He said he had enough money to last him a lifetime-and he wanted to share it with her.

A month after quitting, she gave notice at her apartment. The little furniture she owned wasn't as nice as Phil's, so she sold it. All she brought with her were the rest of her clothes and some personal stuff she'd collected over the years. Her mother and her uncle lived in the Twin Cities, but because Phil didn't like her spending time away from him, her relationship with them had become somewhat strained. Chris felt bad about that, but she figured that once she convinced Phil she was completely committed to him, his possessiveness would mellow to more manageable levels. She could hardly deny him her time when he'd been so generous to her. She had a beautiful home, new jewelry, lots of romantic trips to the "Mexican Riviera," as he laughingly called it. Puerto Vallarta. Acapulco. Mazatlan. Phil was everything Chris had ever wanted-and more.

"Why don't you make us some lunch?" said Phil, returning his attention to the window and the cop outside.

"Sure," said Chris. She watched him clench and unclench his fists. "What are you going to do?"

"I'd like to go out there and beat the crap out of that guy."

"But you won't." She knew he had a terrible temper because she'd seen it, but she'd never seen him this wound up before.

"Hell I won't." He turned suddenly and stormed toward the door.

"Take it easy, Phil." She followed him, then stood on the front steps and watched him stomp across the street. He banged on the driver's-side door with his fist.

"Open the goddamn window," he shouted.

The window eased down.

"Listen, jerkoff, you want to ask me something, you come into my house and ask it. But don't follow me around. I don't like it."

The man in the car got out. He was tall and lanky, wearing a baseball jacket over a blue dress shirt and tie. He and Phil talked quietly for a few moments, and then both men headed for the house.

Chris, wearing only a robe, quickly dashed upstairs to put on a pair of jeans and a tank top.

When she returned to the living room, Phil introduced her as his fiancee, Chris Parillo. That shocked her a little because Phil had never talked about marriage. She sat down on the couch next to him and he draped his arm across her shoulders.

"Detective Lundquist here seems to think I had something to do with Ken Loy's murder. I assume he'd like to peg me for Bob's, too, but he's being cagey. He likes to play games. I've already talked to his partner. But it seems that doesn't count. He says he wants to talk to me now. Think I should do it?" He looked at Chris.

Phil could sound so arrogant at times. His personality put people off. He was smart and he didn't mind letting others know it. Chris was drawn to his confidence, although she knew not everyone was. "Sure. Why not? You've got nothing to hide."

The detective's gaze swept over the living room, then rose to the second-floor balcony. "Nice house," he said. He was sitting on a leather chair across from them. Chris could see the bulge under his jacket, the shoulder holster where he kept his gun.

"Glad you approve." Phil turned to Chris. "Al wants to know where I was the night Loy died."

"You were with me," she said. It was the truth.

The detective's quick blue eyes dropped to her.

"We'd gone out to eat at Pazzaluna, and then we drove over to the Grandview theater and saw The Hours. Phil didn't like it. He fell asleep."

Detective Lundquist removed a small pad from his pocket and started to take notes. "What time was that?"

"Well, our dinner reservations were for five thirty. I know because I made them. The movie started at seven fifteen."

"Do you have ticket stubs, anything that would prove you were actually there?"

"I put the dinner and the movie on my credit card," said Phil. "That should be plenty of proof. Look, I already told all this to your partner."