Catch a Falling Knife

not, but I actually talked to Elise on Wednesday. But I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
    Donna considered this and then said, “Come in.”
    I followed her into the now-familiar front room. I noticed that the pictures of Elise had disappeared from the wall. When Donna offered me a seat I avoided the beanbag chair and sat in another one. She looked somewhat the worse for wear. Her hair was messy and her blouse was wrinkled, as if she had slept in it. She flopped into the beanbag chair, with one leg underneath her.
    “It’s been a madhouse around here,” Donna said. “The police kept coming in here and looking around and taking pictures and looking for clues and all that stuff. I couldn’t sleep here the last two nights. In fact, I didn’t get any sleep at all Wednesday night because Detective Johnson and other people kept asking me questions. Then my folks called and asked if I wanted to go home for a while. I said no. They offered to help me find another apartment, but I like this one. I want to stay here. The police let me back in this morning, but it’s going to be too weird sleeping in the same room where Elise got killed, so I may sleep out here.”
    She motioned toward an old couch. After her outburst she deflated deeper into the chair. I sympathized with her, making the small talk that I’m not great at because I wanted her to view me as a friend. When I thought she had softened toward me, I said, “May I ask you a question, Donna?”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Last week you asked me to tell Dr. Pappas to go to Club Cavalier.”
    “That was a crazy thing to do, wasn’t it?” Donna giggled.
    “Why do you say that? Didn’t you want Dr. Pappas to find out that Elise was the Shooting Star?”
    “Elise wasn’t the Shooting Star,” Donna said, quickly.
    “What? What do you mean?”
    “No. Elise wasn’t the Shooting Star. I was the Shooting Star.”
    I stared at her. “I saw the Shooting Star. You couldn’t be the Shooting Star.”
    “I am. Come on, I’ll show you.”
    I followed her into the single bedroom. It contained twin beds, against opposite walls, plus dressers, bed stands and two wardrobe closets. One of the beds had been stripped down to the innerspring. The mattress had been taken. Donna went to the other side of the room, opened a drawer in the dresser and started pulling things out.
    “Here are a couple of my g-strings and bra tops. Here is my mask and here is my wig.”
    Everything looked familiar, but so what? “Since you shared this bedroom with Elise, having those things doesn’t prove that you were the Shooting Star and she wasn’t.”
    “Watch.”
    Donna put on the mask and the wig. Then she took a lipstick from the top of the dresser and with the aid of a mirror on the wall above it, colored her lips bright red. She turned toward me.
    “Ta-da!”
    I had to admit that from the neck up she looked like the Shooting Star. At least her face looked like the face I had seen in the spotlight as I sat in the back of the room. But what about her body? She weighed more than Elise, and I was sure it would show with her clothes off. Also, breasts are unique to a woman, as well as nipples. Like fingerprints. But again, I might not be able to spot any differences because of my imperfect view at the club. How could I satisfy my doubts?
    “What music did you use?”
    “Perry Como. ‘Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes.’ It’s from a CD Elise had. I have to admit, Elise had the thing for old music, not me. But when I decided to call myself the Shooting Star, it seemed to fit.”
    Donna went into the other room and returned with the CD. The title was something about Perry Como’s greatest hits.
    “I took dance lessons when I was young,” Donna said. “I know it was a crazy thing to do, but I always wanted to dance in front of a live audience. I had to wear the mask and wig. If my parents ever found out…. I made some pretty good money, though. Look at my haul from Wednesday.”
    She pulled an envelope out of the dresser and flashed a wad of bills inside it.
    I was having trouble absorbing all this. “You’re speaking in the past tense.”
    “Yes. Of course I couldn’t go on last night. And now I think it’s time to call it a career. Short and sweet. It was fun while it lasted. Whatever gave you the idea that Elise was the Shooting Star in the first place?”
    “Well, you did. You’re the one who asked me to tell Dr. Pappas to go to the Club