appointment calendar. Donât act on any information or evidence you found among the victimâs effects.â
âWhat if I research her background? Wonât you talk to the party guests first?â
Lockwood nodded, but it was an effort for him.
âJournalists often do a better job on background than we do. Iâve had reporters provide critical information that came out of left field as far as our investigation was concernedââ
I smiled and started to say something. He stopped me.
ââbut Iâd prefer that you didnât. Iâll keep you apprised of our progress as long as you donât print anything without my permission.â
âI promise not to print anything, but thatâs all. I canât not act.â
He nodded, and it was another effort.
âThen if nothing else, donât bother the Hollywood people. Theyâll cause trouble if they arenât handled correctly. And Iâll need to know where you can be reached.â
I said, âWhat do you mean? You know where I live.â
Lockwood gave me a look. âHas it occurred to you that you might have been the intended victim?â
âIt did. But all the lights were on, and Stenholm and I arenât twins.â
âWhat if it was dark at the time? Maybe the killer made a mistake, then tried to cover it with the lights and simulated suicide.â
I felt a wave of fearâmuch stronger than anything Iâd felt that morning. I sat down on the bed.
I whispered, âBut thereâs no reason to kill me.â
âJust tell us where you decide to stay, and donât leave town under any circumstances.â
âHow can I be a suspect
and
the intended victim?â
Lockwood held up his stopwatch. âWhen I say go, I want you to show me everything you did from the time you woke up. Go.â
He pressed the stem in.
âBut-â
âGo.â
I leaned over and pretended to get my clothes off the floor. I pretended to put them on, wondering if this was payback for the way the
Millennium
had savaged him. But Lockwoodâs face told me zero.
CHAPTER FIVE
I DROVE INTO the office at dinnertime thinking about a cartoon. It was an animated short I saw at a festival once called âBambi Meets Godzilla.â A giant prehistoric claw comes down from the sky and squashes a doe grazing at the bottom of the frame. It lasted less than a minute.
Splat!
The End. And you laughed.
My encounter with Lockwood was just as lopsided. I had braced myself for a heroâs resistance and he broke me down so fast, it was pathetic. The Xerox machine, my computer, my family, the Colt: heâd gotten everything there was to get almost. He didnât even give me a chance to struggle; I never saw the claw coming.
But I wasnât squashed flat. He didnât find my copies of Greta Stenholmâs Filofax. He hadnât threatened legal action, or warned me in graphic terms not to get involved. Iâd expected him to play the prehistoric heavy, and he hadnât. But he did make one mistake. I discovered it after he left. When he erased my notes on the crime scene, he didnât think to look for a backup file. I always put an extra backup file on disk.
So I had the xeroxes, and I still had my notes. All I needed now was Barryâs permission to go ahead. I was determined to fight him for it, but I also had to be diplomatic. I remembered what Mark said about Barryâs schizy moodâand I remembered our last conversation. It wasnât smart to hang up on him.
Barryâs assistant had gone for the night. I knocked on Barryâs door and walked in unannounced. He looked up from what he was reading.
âWhere have you been?â
âI didnât know you were expecting me.â
âWe have to discuss your piece. Whereâve you
been?â
âWith Lockwood.â
âAll this time? What for?â
I sat down on the edge of his desk. âLike