Murex made a face. "Maybe to the whackos who take these cla.s.ses, it'll sound like the ultimate thrill ride."

"Maybe his business is failing and he's teaching Doom privately. Discovers he's an incognito rival. Offs him somehow and sets it all up."

"Possible. But why is he so cooperative?"

"He's ex-Army Intelligence. Versed in psychological operations. Being cooperative and up front could be a way of deflecting suspicion."

"Which he actually wants in a perverted way."

"Sure. It's basic reverse psychology mind games." Knuckles leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling. "Try this: DOA Doom croaks. His teacher couldn't find a way to get him back into his apartment all those steps must have been too daunting but checking him into a hotel was easier. Calls and makes reservations to boot."

"Why not a motel?"

Knuckles shrugged. "Big hotel, easier to penetrate. Lot of people coming and going. No car directly involved. No license plate on record with the hotel. He fakes the tape because how else are the investigating parties going to know what Doom was supposedly RVing?"

The phone rang. Knuckles took it. "Yes? Yep. Yep. Good." He hung up. "That was the lab. The paint chips found under Doom's fingernails match the ones I sc.r.a.ped off Grandmaison's gray room. Postive match. No question."

Murex blinked, then remembered Knuckles cleaning his nails.

"Can we use that in court?"

"Won't need to. We can get admissible paint samples later. The question is, did Doom die naturally, or was he snuffed?"

"And if so, who did it?"

"That's easy. Mrs G."

"Too many unknowns to a.s.sume that." Pressing a b.u.t.ton on his desk, Murex picked up the telephone. He dialed the number off the TIRV card and said, "Mrs Grandmaison? This is detective Ray Murex down at Boston Homicide. Sorry to wake you. I have a few more questions, if you don't mind. Were you in Richmond during the week your husband taught that cla.s.s? You were? No reason. Except this: lab tests have proven conclusively that John Doom did not expire in his own gray room. We only know of one other in this area. That one belongs to your husband. Well, until we can rule something out, we have to consider it ruled in. So we'll be in touch." Murex hung up.

Knuckles looked at him. "Why did you do that?"

"Sometimes, you light a fuse. Other times you're just setting fire to a string. Let's see which it is."

The call came from Trey Grandmaison within the hour.

"I'd love to help you guys close out this investigation," he offered. His tone was fluttery.

"Because we can't rule your gray room out of the picture?" said Murex.

"No. Because my wife is becoming upset with your questions. Look, I offered to help before. Why don't I personally RV John Doom's last hours and see what I come up with? Maybe that will give your investigation a fresh direction."

"It couldn't hurt," Murex said dryly.

"I'll a.s.sign the coords and get back to you with whatever data I get."

"Appreciate that."

Knuckles looked at Murex. "This could go either way."

Hours later, the promised pages came sliding out of the office fax machine. Knuckles read it first.

"This is interesting. Seems dead Mr Doom liked to frequent bondage and domination rooms. According to this, he died in someone's 'dungeon' and his mistress relocated his inconvenient remains, using his RV hobby as a cover-"

"Forget it!" Murex snapped angrily. He slid the TIRV business card over.

Knuckles took it, compared it to the coordinates recorded on the session report. "I'll be d.a.m.ned! The same coordinates. He didn't even try. No question now that he's dirty."

"We'll see what the lab says," Murex said darkly.

"About what?"

"About the voice a.n.a.lysis of that call I recorded yesterday."

Knuckles c.o.c.ked a questioning eyebrow. "Mrs G?"

"I have a hunch her voice patterns will match up with the Doom tape."

"You illegally recorded an interstate telephone call. That's not admissible evidence, either."

"We'll worry about that if there's a matchup," muttered Ray Murex.

The aural spectrography report was three days coming through. It arrived one day too late to do any good.

Bob Knuckles was checking with the Richmond hotel that had hosted the TIRV cla.s.s the week before. He thanked someone and hung up.

"That's the last staffer," he said. "They all confirm that Mrs G. arrived with her husband and departed with him six days later. But no one can verify her whereabouts in between."

"So she could have flown home any time in that six-day period. Or taken a train."

"Very possible. Boston and Richmond are at opposite ends of the Northeast corridor."

"And the fingerprint bureau says that every print taken off that steamer trunk matches up with the people known to have handled it."

"So Mr G's hands are clean, after all."

"Too clean. John Doom's prints are not to be found, either. That old trunk was almost forensically pristine. All prints are post check-in."

"And so another perfect crime unravels owing to excessive prep."

"We'll see," Murex said.

The first news reports of the Manchester to Los Angeles airliner making an emergency landing due to a pa.s.senger emergency made no immediate impression on either Detectives Murex or Knuckles. The followup, reporting that a female pa.s.senger had been taken off dead, also pa.s.sed by unremarked on. The pa.s.senger's name was being withheld pending notification of next of kin. But when the morning papers reported that Efthemia Grandmaison had been found dead in seat 23C on the overnight flight to Los Angeles, Bob Knuckles exploded out of his chair.

"He did it! I know he did!"

"Calm down. Let's go at this the right way."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h killed Doom, and then took out his wife because she knew he did it!"

"Doesn't fit."

"What do you mean, doesn't fit? Of course it fits. It fits perfectly."

"A wife can't be made to testify against her spouse. There's more to it."

Murex reached out to Los Angeles police department and asked for the detective in charge of the case to contact him ASAP. A detective John Burks returned the call. After Murex explained his interest, Burks gave him what he had: "The deceased and her husband, this Grandmaison, take the red eye and upon their arrival at LAX, the husband attempts to awaken his wife. She was nonresponsive. EMT's are called to the plane. Wife was p.r.o.nounced dead at the scene. The husband is telling a crazy story."

"How crazy?"

"Claims he was with some secret project during the Cold War that employed mental powers to spy on the Russians. He and the wife teach this Remote Viewing. The wife, he says, was remote viewing something while the husband slept in the adjoining seat. He says this is not the first time someone expired while doing these experiments "Is there an audio tape of the session?" Murex explained. "Usually, they record the experience."

"Yeah, we do have a ca.s.sette. But we haven't listened to it yet."

"You might want to call me back after you do."

"Why don't I just play it this minute and we'll both listen?"

Moments later, a hushed voice came over the line.

"2004 8547 January 31st. 2004 8547 . . . I am in a dark room. I can see a door, but it is closed. Something is stirring above the door, where the wall joins the ceiling. Ominous. Black. A cloud. I see eyes . . . It's speaking, 'Death is coming for you!' It's moving toward me. Trey! Trey! Wake up! Ahhhh . . ."

"Sounds like she was having a nightmare," Burks suggested.

Murex snapped, "I don't buy it."

"You say you're investigating a death tied to the Grandmaisons," Burks prompted.

"Right." Murex gave him the investigation thusfar.

"Seems to me like these people were poking their noses into places human noses don't belong," Burks opined.

"Can we get a copy of that tape for voiceprint comparison?"

"Consider it done."

"Thanks. What are you going to do with Trey Grandmaison?"

"Depends on what the ME says. But he's being very cooperative."

"We'd like to be informed either way."

LAPD got back to them the next morning.

"ME says natural causes," Burks reported. "Heart failure. Probably as a result of night terrors, also known as sleep paralysis."

"I'm not familiar with that one," Murex admitted.

"It's a doc.u.mented medical condition. According to the ME, when you dream at night, your body shuts down so you don't act out your dreams by kicking and flailing around. Sometimes nightmares wake people up in the middle of it, and they find that they can't move for a minute or two. It's apparently a frightening experience when it happens."

"So how does the ME know that's what really happened?"

"Because it happened to him once. Says he was having a nightmare just like the one the woman recorded. A black cloud came at him, threatening to kill him. It roosted on his chest and he discovered he couldn't breathe. Shock woke him up. Found he couldn't move a muscle. But the cloud was gone. The experience scared him so much he talked to his doctor about it. The doc told him about sleep paralysis. End of story."

"Are you satisfied with that explanation?" Murex asked.

"Not especially. But the death technically took place over some other state's jurisdiction. ME says she was dead before she reached California airpace. So we're dropping the matter. The ME will release the body to the husband tomorrow."

"I'll let you know what the voiceprint a.n.a.lysis says."

"Don't run up too big a phone bill on our account," Burks said dryly.

The aural-spectrography report was succinct. Murex frowned as he read it.

"Not the same voice, huh?" Knuckles said.

"The contrary. Perfect match. Effie Grandmaison made Doom's tape. But what good does that do us now? She's dead and can't be questioned."

"Okay. Let's think this through. We're not at rope's end. Yet. Effie Grandmaison slips home during the time her hubby is teaching that RV cla.s.s down in Virgina, probably by Amtrak."

"Right. While she's home, she snuffs Doom. Leaves him in the cellar gray room where he'll keep for a few days, and returns to Richmond. Later, she accompanies Grandmaison home, where he hatches an elaborate hoax to make it look like Doom died elsewhere. All seems well."

"Until we start digging and making Mrs G nervous. Mr G decides the wife is a growing inconvenience, and somehow snuffs her during the flight to LA while crew and pa.s.sengers are sound asleep."

"This time, he concocts a more plausible version of the original perfect crime. One that will stand up in court, provided an expert in sleep paralysis is called in to testify."

"Obviously, he recorded the tape."

"Let's see what the Effie tape tells us."

The FedEx package from LAPD arrived later that afternoon. Murex and Knuckles rushed it over to the lab, twisting arms until a technician agreed to look at it over his lunch break. He came back with a fast answer: "Not the same voice at all. Guaranteed."

Murex took Knuckles aside and said, "That leaves only one voice possible: Trey Grandmaison. After he takes out the wife, he makes the tape in the toilet of the plane. Plants it and he's home free, thinking no one is going to see through to the truth."

"Thinking wrong. But how do we prove otherwise? He's off the hook and walking free under the perfect alibi: asleep beside her the entire time."

Murex said, "I don't buy this sleep paralysis stuff."

"It's ironclad, according to that ME. It happened to him, didn't it?"

Murex went to an idle PC and and started a search. He found several websites devoted to sleep paralysis. One read: Sleep paralysis is an REM sleep parasomnia, and a symptom of narcolepsy, although it can affect about 40 per cent of the general population. It's characterized by frighteningly vivid hypnogogic hallucinations and accompanied by acute respiratory distress. First-time sufferers often a.s.sume that they are dying.

Murex snorted, "I don't buy this at all."

"Says it's a legit medical condition," Knuckles pointed out.

"Not that. The black clouds. Almost every account here says the same thing. Subject is sleeping and has the same nightmare. A malignant black cloud comes into the bedroom, starts threatening them, and lands on their chest. Subject can't breathe. Panic sets in. Fear of death wakes them up. They find they're paralyzed until their body goes back to normal. Ridiculous."

"Maybe it's the opposite of the tunnel of light some people report during the near-death experience," Knuckles suggested. "A trick of the brain."