"Show me where in mythology or literature there are legends of evil black clouds and I'll-" Murex froze at the screen.

"You what?"

"I just found the hole in Trey Grandmaison's alibi."

"Big?"

"Big enough for a black cloud to come in through. Let's find out when Mrs Grandmaison is coming home."

They called every Nashua New Hampshire funeral home until they found the one responsible for waking Effie Grandmaison.

Knuckles hung up. "The body is coming in on a 7 p.m. flight. Odds are Mr G is accompanying said body."

"Let's go meet the grieving spouse."

Trey Grandmaison looked appropriately startled to see Detectives Murex and Knuckles patiently waiting for him at his Manchester Airport gate.

"We're very sorry to hear about your wife," said Ray Murex.

"A true tragedy," added Bob Knuckles.

"We'd like to clear up a few things. The airport has allowed us to use one of their offices."

Trey Grandmaison followed them willingly, but pensively.

"Let me start with what we know for certain," Murex told him after they took seats. "We know that John Doom died in your gray room while you were in Richmond, and was left there for several days while you were presumably absent. We also know that your wife did not expire as a result of sleep paralysis."

Trey Grandmaison looked at both men by turns. "Sleep paralysis is a medical condition my wife had for years," he said gravely. "This time, it killed her."

"It did not kill her. Therefore, you did."

"I did not! Look, Effie developed narcolepsy. Probably from too much RVing in altered brainwave states. Her doctor can produce the medical records proving it."

"The reason we know sleep paralysis did not kill your wife is that tape she made."

A vein pulsed in Grandmaison's forehead. "Tape?"

"The one recorded in-flight," Knuckles put in. "You didn't think we knew about that, did you?"

"I discarded that tape in LA." The vein continued pulsing.

"Not surprising. Loving husband that you are. Of course you'd throw out your wife's last recorded words-except she didn't record them. You did."

Trey Grandmaison almost cracked a grin. He turned it into a grimace. "I wish now I had saved that tape. We could disprove your theory electronically."

"Yeah," Murex went on. "Too bad. But let me continue. The reason we know your wife did not die of sleep paralysis any more than she or John Doom died while remote viewing something that frightened them to death is that if Mrs Grandmaison had been suffering sleep paralysis at the time, she would not have been able to record her experience. Sleep paralysis doesn't just freeze the major muscles in the body, but the vocal cords as well. A person suffering from SP can't speak. If they can't speak, they can't describe menacing black clouds threatening to murder them. Can they, Mr Grandmaison?"

Trey Grandmaison said nothing. But that vein pulsed more strongly.

"You didn't think it through very thoroughly, did you?" Knuckles pressed. "You knew you couldn't pull that remote viewing h.e.l.l smokescreen twice. So you had to top it. But plausibly. Maybe Mrs G. did suffer from SP. But we all know she didn't die of it."

Gray eyes opaque, Grandmaison said, "No one knows that."

"I know what you're thinking. If a person dies of fright as result of sleep paralysis, only they and G.o.d would know the truth."

Trey Grandmaison threw up his hands. "I wish I had saved that tape. It would resolve everything."

"Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for you, LAPD made a dupe. And here it is." Knuckles slid a microca.s.sette recorder across the table. He hit play.

"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 . . ."

Murex stopped the tape. "Fair job of masking your voice. How hard do you think it will be to match your voiceprint to that recording?"

Trey Grandmaison turned pale and then flushed. He lunged for the recorder, fumbled it open and almost got the minica.s.sette into his mouth before Murex and Knuckles fought it out of his hands.

After they had cuffed him, and his rights were read, Bob Knuckles asked, "Would you say that we've got your number, or your coordinates?"

Ray Murex said, "You can tell us about it, if you'd like."

Grandmaison surprised them. He did exactly that.

"John Doom was a student of mine. One of my earliest students. He kept taking my courses and then he started teaching RV under another name. Using my coordinates. It was getting out of hand. He'd steal my students from my own cla.s.ses. Charge half what I did. Between him and the sagging economy, I was having a hard time. Something had to be done."

"So you decided to do away with him?" Murex prompted.

"That was Effie's idea. She came home from Richmond on the pretext of giving Doom some private training and while he was insession, she sat on his chest, holding a pillow over his face until he suffocated. I showed her how to hold his arms down with padded knees so he wouldn't bruise."

"In other words," Knuckles said, "she burked him."

Murex looked blank. "Burked?"

Grandmaison nodded sullenly. "An old a.s.sa.s.sination technique. Leaves no marks. Looks just like natural causes. Effie had him fast for four days beforehand, promising that it would improve his session work. That was so his bowels wouldn't empty and create a sanitary problem while the body cooled in my gray room."

"Except the body was flipped over after telltale pinpoint haemorrhages appeared in the whites of the eyeb.a.l.l.s," said Murex. "Either his eye capillaries burst while he was smothered, or gravity did it. Either way, the position of the body gave the show away. You can skip the part about how you staged the death scene in the hotel room. We figured that out. Why did you do your wife?"

"She was starting to become unglued. Guilt. Fear. I don't know. But I knew she couldn't hold it in forever. So while everyone was asleep on the plane, I did the same thing to her she did to Doom."

"What goes around, comes around," clucked Knuckles.

The throbbing vein in Trey Grandmaison's forehead became still. "It was easy. I booked seats in the last row. There was no one for six or seven rows around of us. And they were dead to the world."

"You're kind of a control freak, aren't you?" Knuckles pressed. "That's why you staged the death scene using TIRV cla.s.s materials, isn't it? To baffle us and provide you the opportunity to send us off on wild-goose chases?"

Grandmaison shrugged. "It's elementary psychological warfare. What kind of murderer would leave a trail leading directly to his front door?"

"One who was drummed out of the Army for reasons of mental instability. You were so wound up in your Stargate razzle-dazzle, you didn't think we'd look beyond it. You were dead wrong."

Murex frowned. "So you killed this rival Doom because he was stealing your coordinates."

"They're worth thousands of dollars," he said leadenly. "And they're my livelihood."

"But they're only numbers. You told me so yourself."

Trey Grandmaison's composed face wavered, recovered, then fell completely apart. His voice broke.

"It's all I salvaged from my military career," he sobbed. "My business was everything I had. You don't know remote viewing, so you wouldn't understand."

Ray Murex stood up.

"Maybe not. But I understand observable justice. Let's go."

On the Rocks J. A. Konrath J.A. (Joe) Konrath (b. 1970) is the author of Whiskey Sour (2004) and its sequels which feature forty-something Chicago police detective Jacqueline ("Jack") Daniels. She also features in several short stories including the following. Although he has only been writing professionally for three years, Konrath has already been nominated for several awards and won the Derringer Award in 2005 for his short story "The Big Guys". Konrath has also had stints as a stand-up improv comedian, and you can see some of that living-on-your-wits in the way Daniels has to think fast yet stay sane in this, her first locked-room mystery.

"She sure bled a lot."

I ignored Officer Coursey, my attention focused on the dead woman's arm. The cut had almost severed her left wrist, a flash of pink bone peeking through. Her right hand was curled around the handle of a utility knife.

I'd been in Homicide for more than ten years, and still felt an emotional punch whenever I saw a body. The day I wasn't affected was the day I hung up my badge.

I wore disposable plastic booties over my flats because the s.h.a.g carpet oozed blood like a sponge wherever I stepped. The apartment's air conditioning was set on freeze, so the decomposition wasn't as bad as it might have been after a week but it was still pretty bad. I got down on my haunches and swatted away some blowflies.

On her upper arm, six inches above the wound, was a bruise.

"What's so interesting, Lieut? It's just a suicide."

In my blazer pocket I had some latex gloves. I snapped them on.

The victim's name was Janet h.e.l.lerman, a real estate lawyer with a private practice. She was brunette, mid thirties, Caucasian. Her satin slip was mottled with drying brown stains, and she wore nothing underneath. I put my hand on her chin, gently turned her head.

There was another bruise on her cheek.

"Johnson's getting a statement from the super."

I stood up, smoothed down my skirt, and nodded at Herb, who had just entered the room. Detective First Cla.s.s Herb Benedict was my partner. He had a gray mustache, Ba.s.set hound jowls, and a Santa Claus belly. Herb kept on the perimeter of the blood puddle; those little plastic booties were too hard for him to get on.

"Johnson's story corroborates?"

Herb nodded. "Why? You see something?"

I did, but wasn't sure how it fit. Herb had questioned both Officer Coursey and Officer Johnson, and their stories were apparently identical.

Forty minutes ago they'd arrived at apartment 3008 at the request of the victim's mother, who lived out of state. She had been unable to get in touch with her daughter for more than a week. The building superintendent unlocked the door for them, but the safety chain was on, and a sofa had been pushed in front of the door to prevent anyone from getting inside. Coursey put his shoulder to it, broke in, and they discovered the body.

Herb squinted at the corpse. "How many marks on the wrist?"

"Just one cut, deep."

I took off the blood-soaked booties, put them in one of the many plastic baggies I keep in my pockets, and went over to the picture window, which covered most of the far wall. The view was expensive, overlooking Lake Sh.o.r.e Drive from forty stories up. Boaters swarmed over the surface of Lake Michigan like little white ants, and the street was a gridlock of toy cars. Summer was a busy time for Chicagoans-criminals included.

I motioned for Coursey, and he heeled like a chastened puppy. Beat cops were getting younger every year; this one barely needed to shave. He had the cop stare, though hard eyes and a perpetual scowl, always expecting to be lied to.

"I need you to do a door-to-door. Get statements from everyone on this floor. Find out who knew the victim, who might have seen anything."

Coursey frowned. "But she killed herself. The only way in the apartment is the one door, and it was locked from the inside, with the safety chain on. Plus there was a sofa pushed in front of it."

"I'm sure I don't need to remind you that suicides are treated as homicides in this town, Officer."

He rolled his eyes. I could practically read his thoughts. How did this dumb broad get to be Homicide Lieutenant? She sleep with the PC?

"Lieut, the weapon is still in her hand. Don't you think . . ."

I sighed. Time to school the rookie.

"How many cuts are on her wrist, Coursey?"

"One."

"Didn't they teach you about hesitation cuts at the Academy? A suicidal person usually has to work up the courage. Where was she found?"

"On the floor."

"Why not her bed? Or the bathtub? Or a comfy chair? If you were ending your life, would you do it standing in the middle of the living room?"

He became visibly fl.u.s.tered, but I wasn't through yet.

"How would you describe the temperature in this room?"

"It's freezing."

"And all she's wearing is a slip. Little cold for that, don't you think? Did you read the suicide note?"

"She didn't leave a note."

"They all leave notes. I've worked these streets for twenty years, and never saw a suicide where the vic didn't leave a note. But for some strange reason, there's no note here. Which is a shame because maybe her note would explain how she got the multiple contusions on her face and arm."

Coursey was cowed, but he managed to mumble, "The door was-"

"Speaking of doors," I interrupted, "why are you still here when you were given an order to start the door-to-door? Move your a.s.s."

Coursey looked at his shoes and then left the apartment. Herb raised an eyebrow.

"Kinda hard on the newbie, Jack."

"He wouldn't have questioned me if I had a p.e.n.i.s."

"I think you have one now. You took his."

"If he does a good job, I'll give it back."