LITMIR.BIZ

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eyes wandered to my unfinished beer on the counter. I picked up the bottle, then thought better of it and went to get the vodka from the kitchen. Leah would snap out of it. She just needed time. I poured the clear fluid over some ice cubes, then added a little cranberry juice for color. I should write something…like a book, or more specifically, the book my editor thought I had already started working on. In four months I would be touring to promote my latest finished Alicia Bright mystery, Words To Die By, and it would be helpful if I could complete the first draft of the next book in the series before hitting the road.

      I silently welcomed the burning sensation the liquor provided as it worked its way down to my liver. The problem was I wasn’t quite ready to write another murder mystery yet. It had only been a few weeks ago that some lunatic had tried to break my head open with a golf club. Funny how being stalked by a homicidal maniac can knock the blood lust right out of you. Although I did want to kill my brother-in-law, Bob. That was promising progress.

      I eyed my drink. It looked a little too red so I diluted it with more alcohol. If only Leah had gone running off to her friend Becca. Becca would have told her to kick Bob to the curb. But Becca was currently touring Europe with her boyfriend and it was doubtful Leah knew what country they were in, let alone what hotel.

      I took another sip. I needed to relax. Erika may not give the best advice in the world, but evidently she and Leah had become close. She would undoubtedly offer Leah the emotional support she needed. This was good. Leah had Erika, and I had Absolut.

      My pet strolled into the kitchen and blinked at me. “That’s what I like about you, Mr. Katz. You’re quiet, nonconfrontational, and it was legal for me to cut off your balls.”

      

      It must have been a little after 10:00 p.m., because a Friends rerun was on. That meant I’d been unconscious for one…no, two and a half hours. The last thing I remember was watching a Will and Grace rerun. I had only consumed two cocktails (albeit, two very strong cocktails), but the combination of the alcohol and a good dose of emotional exhaustion had pretty much done me in for the evening.

      It took a little effort but I managed to get off the couch. Unfortunately, the ringing of the phone interrupted my journey to the bedroom. I tapped the receiver with my index finger and considered my options. It rang again. Hell, it was worth picking it up just to keep it from making that shrill sound two more times. “Hello?”

      “Sophie?”

      I rolled my eyes skyward. “Leah, I’m tired, I’m grouchy, I’m intoxicated and I’m going to bed.”

      “Sophie, please.”

      There was something in Leah’s voice that stopped me. It wasn’t the desperation that had colored her tone earlier, but it was unnerving nonetheless. I sighed and leaned against the dining table. “Okay, what is it this time?”

      “It’s Bob…I’m home…I’m here with Bob. Oh God, Sophie!”

      I stood up a little straighter. “What? Did he hurt you?” My bloodlust was definitely back. I was going to kill him. Actually, I’d do better than that. In my next book I’d castrate a philandering husband named Bobby by rigging his inflatable sex doll with explosives.

      “No, no, he didn’t hurt me. He can’t. Oh God, Sophie…Oh God, he’s dead! Bob is dead!”

      My eyes traveled to the depleted bottle of vodka on the counter. “I’m sorry, Leah, but I think I must have misunderstood you—”

      “He’s dead! D–E–A–D. BOB IS DEAD!”

      “You mean like dead dead?”

      “How many kinds of dead are there?”

      “I’m not getting this.” I shook my head in an attempt to clear it. “Bob is only five years older than I am. Thirty-five is a little young for—”

      “I think he was shot or something.”

      “Shot or something?”

      “I think so. I don’t know. He’s just lying there and there’s all this blood coming out of his head. Sophie, what do I do?”

      Well, I wasn’t sure about her but what I wanted to do was throw up. “Leah, how exactly did Bob get ‘shot or something’? Who shot him?”

      “How in God’s name would I know? I just came home and found him in the middle of the living room with a hole in his head! And our pictures, the framed wedding pictures that were in the room, they’re all smashed up. No one even bothered to clean up the glass! What if Jack had come home with me and cut himself?”

      Excuse me? I lowered myself into a chair and tried to figure out if Leah’s instincts proved her to be Mother of the Year or just stark raving mad.

      “Sophie, are you still there? What am I supposed to do?”

      “I’m here.” Big sisters taught their younger siblings how to straighten their hair and apply their makeup. They did not instruct them on how to behave at a murder scene. “Leah, I honestly don’t know. What do the police say?”

      “The police? I don’t know, they’re not here. Do you think they’re coming?”

      “Didn’t they say they were coming?”

      “No, no, I haven’t called them yet…. I called you. Oh, Sophie, he’s really dead! I mean really, really…”

      I couldn’t hear Leah anymore, nor was I suffering the effects of the alcohol. All I could feel was the beginning of a panic attack. I took a deep breath and tried to make my voice slow, steady and clear. “Leah, I need you to hang up the phone right now and call the police.”

      I could make out Leah’s quiet sobs on the other end of the line. “Leah, this is really important. I’m coming over but I need you to call them right now.”

      She made some kind of weak affirmative noise. I hung up and for a few moments I couldn’t get myself to move. This was very bad. Hours after Bob had informed Leah that he was leaving her, he had transformed into a bloody corpse, and the phone records would show that the first number Leah dialed after discovering his body was not 911, but mine.

      I looked down at Mr. Katz who had wrapped himself around my foot. “What now?”

      

      My first stop was not Leah’s but Anatoly’s. I double parked in front of his building, ran up to the stoop and stood methodically tapping the buzzer until he relented and came down. He threw open the glass door and glared at me.

      “Get your finger off the button, now.”

      “Anatoly, I need help.”

      “I’m not a psychiatrist.”

      “Not that kind of help—” I took a moment to turn and acknowledge a driver yelling obscenities as he maneuvered around my illegally parked Audi “—although that should probably be my next stop. I’m here because Leah’s in trouble.”

      “Leah’s made her choice, and you’re going to have to deal with that. Who knows—maybe she’ll get lucky and he’ll end the affair.”

      “The affair’s pretty much a nonissue now, unless of course his mistress is into necrophilia.”

      Anatoly’s lower jaw seemed to detach from his head. “She killed him? What the hell is wrong with you people? Doesn’t anyone in your family understand that vigilante justice is wrong?”

      “She didn’t do it.” As soon as I said the words I realized my voice lacked the conviction to make them believable. I cleared my throat and forced myself to look Anatoly in the eye. “My sister did not shoot her husband. She loved him. Yes, they were having problems, but she was fully confident that they would work through them.”

      Anatoly’s forehead creased and he leaned against the door frame. “What is this? Rehearsal for when you have to talk to the police?”

      “Why?

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