A Killer's Kiss by William Lashner Read Free Book Online Page B

So I decided instead to write her a letter.
    Dear Julia,
    Or should it have been “Dearest Julia”? Or “My Dearest, Dearest Julia”? Or “You Murderous Skank”? It was hard to get a grip on the proper address for a former fiancée who was soon to be indicted for murder. Where is Emily Post when you need her?
    I want you to know how important these last few weeks have been to me.
    I liked the tone of that, a sharp, clinical detachment, like we were working out the details of a business transaction rather than performing our little tango.
    In a way we were able to recapture something that was lost so long ago, when you betrayed me and married that urologist asshole whom you have most recently murdered.
    So much for detachment. And was it oxymoronic to call a urologist an asshole? I crossed out everything after “so long ago.”
    I know that this is a most difficult time, and I very much would like to be by your side as you pass through it.
    Did that sound a little bitter, as if I would enjoy the spectacle of her disintegration?
    But the exigencies of the situation make that impossible. As a material witness, I have been repeatedly ordered by the authorities to stay away from you and your defense. I believe it is imperative for both our benefits that I do so.
    That was actually pretty good, precise and filled with legal nomenclature while still making my cowardice appallingly apparent. I considered it sort of a noble gesture on my part, my spinelessness undoubtedly making the whole abandonment thing less painful for her. Sometimes I’m so noble I can’t stand myself.
    I’m sure you are in excellent legal hands and that your attorney will do everything possible to ensure a just result.
    This was actually a lie. I was pretty sure that Clarence Swift, whom I had never yet met, was in over his head, but there was nothing I was willing to do about that. And the “just result” thing was a double-edged sword, wasn’t it? If you are innocent, I hope you get off, and if you are guilty, may you rot in jail.
    Look me up if you beat the rap, and maybe we can resume precisely where we left off.
    The sentiment was true, absolutely, I could still feel her warm flesh, but I’d have to rewrite that a bit, don’t you think?
    Sincerely,
    As opposed to “Sardonically,” or “Cynically,” or “With All Due Self-Preservation.”
    Victor
    At least that part I got right. The rest needed some work.
    I opened my desk drawer, pulled out another sheet of paper so as to give it a second go. When I pushed the drawer closed, it caught on something.
    Not a surprise, really. While that drawer is not normally an exemplar of neatness, it was now an unholy mess. The contents had been rifled, as had the contents of my bureau and clothes closet, my kitchen, my linen closet and bathroom. They had taken the sheets off the bed, the towels off the rack, had swabbed the shower, had taken apart the drain of my bathroom sink and pulled out all the gunk in the elbow. It wasn’t hard to figure out what they had been looking for: They had been looking for blood, Wren Denniston’s blood.
    And with all that rifling, they had obviously pushed somethingin the way of my drawer slide. I reached in, felt nothing that would stop the drawer from closing, tried shutting it again, and failed. I could either work on the letter or solve this mystery once and for all, and working on the letter was proving more difficult than I expected. So I slid the drawer all the way out of the desk and reached inside, and that’s when I felt it. Something, yes. Something smooth and soft.
    I grabbed hold and pulled it out.
    A little purse, zippered shut. Red. Leather. Coach. About the size of a small hand, Julia’s hand, zippered shut to hide everything inside.
    When I realized what I had found, I dropped it onto the desktop as if it were burning my fingers. It sat there, red, on my desk, like a warning fire.
    Dear Julia, you sly little minx,
    She learns her husband has been