Dead Watch

was linked to Goodman. Then, I think, they killed Schmidt. But I don’t know that. That’s just what I think.”
    “Green was in on it? I saw the pictures in his office . . .”
    “Green was gay, a former lover of Bowe’s. He might have been about to fold up. I mentioned Schmidt to him, how he disappeared. He sorta freaked. I got the feeling that he looked on the whole Bowe-death thing as a complicated political joke. Certainly didn’t think murder was involved . . . Anyway, I came out to talk to Green about it and scared the hell out of him. He said he had to talk to some friends about what to tell me, so I walked down to a bookstore, bought a novel, ate a bagel, and when I came back . . . there they were.”
    “Sonofabitch,” Parker said.
    “How long have you known this, Jake?” Novatny asked. “That Bowe was gay? That the whole thing might have been a setup? Why in the hell didn’t you tell us?”
    “I’ve known Bowe was gay for a couple of days. Madison Bowe told me, asked me not to pass it along if I didn’t have to, but left it to my discretion. She was afraid that it would leak—and it would have—and that would have ended the investigation. It would have become a gay thing. She still believes that her husband was murdered, and that Arlo Goodman was involved. And she had a point.”
    “But now . . .”
    “Now things have changed,” Jake said. “I didn’t think it was a gay thing. That was too far-fetched and that’s why I didn’t tell you about it. Nobody cares about gay anymore—and Bowe wasn’t even in office. Then I got Madison Bowe’s permission to go to New York and look at Bowe’s apartment. I found an empty pill bottle there—it’s still there—and tracked it back to Bowe’s doctor, who told me about the cancer.”
    “And then you thought . . .”
    “I thought it was all too much: Nobody can figure out where Bowe went. He was smiling when he disappeared. His body is found in this spectacular way with an arrow pointing straight at Schmidt. Why did Schmidt get rid of every gun in the house, except the one that could convict him of killing Bowe? That was goofy. I started thinking that the whole thing was faked. And I’ll bet you something: I bet if you look at Schmidt, that you’ll find some kind of tie to Arlo Goodman. One that Goodman might not even know about, but that would look suspicious if somebody got tipped off.”
    “So it’s all a fraud. The Bowe murder,” Parker said.
    “Yes. I started to think it was basically a suicide, and it occurred to me that, if that’s what happened, that his friends had to be involved. People he could trust absolutely—and that suggested it might be this group of gay lovers, people who’d kept the secret all those years. And who had reason to fear Goodman.”
    Novatny and Parker looked at each other, then Novatny rubbed his face with his hands and said, “On the way out here, I figured out twenty reasons why you were here and there were dead people, and how it might be related to Bowe. Nothing I thought of was this weird.”
    “Is Madison Bowe in on it?” Parker asked.
    “No.” Jake shook his head. “She and Lincoln Bowe haven’t been together for years. She’s just been a cover for him. And she’s the one who’s been pushing the investigation. She got me started in this direction. She gave me Green’s name. She gave me the key to her apartment, pointed me at the doctor. I think that Lincoln Bowe deliberately kept her in the dark. Maybe because she wouldn’t have gone along; or maybe to protect her.”
    Novatny was skeptical. “You have no idea who the killers might be.”
    “Bowe’s gay friends. You could ask around, you’ll turn them up. Madison still thinks that Goodman is involved. She thinks the idea of a bunch of Bowe’s friends getting together to kill him is ludicrous. Your guess is as good as mine.”
    “Assuming that you’re telling us the truth—and I think you are, even if we’re not getting all of it—then the killer’s somebody from here in Madison,” Parker said. “Got to Green inside of an hour.”
    Jake scrubbed at his hair with the palms of his hands, then said, “That doesn’t seem right. That just doesn’t seem right. But that’s what happened.”

    “Have you figured out how it went down in Green’s office?” Jake asked.
    Novatny frowned. “We think the killers were professional—nobody heard any shots, but the shots were probably fired from a .22. Those