E Is for Evidence

blended with the scent of bacon and eggs. What could smell better than supper being cooked by someone else?
    He shook me gently and I woke to find an omelet on a warmed plate being placed in my lap. I roused myself, suddenly famished again.
    Daniel sat cross-legged on the floor, forking up eggs while he talked. "Who lives in the house?"
    "My landlord, Henry Pitts. He's off in Michigan."
    "You got something goin' with him?"
    I paused between bites. "The man is eighty-one."
    "He have a piano?"
    "Actually, I think he does. An upright, probably out of tune. His wife used to play."
    "I'd like to try it, if there's a way to get in. You think he'd care?"
    "Not at all. I've got a key. You mean tonight?"
    "Tomorrow. I gotta be somewhere in a bit."
    The way the light fell on his face, I could see the lines near his eyes. Daniel had lived hard and he wasn't aging well. He looked haggard, a gauntness beginning to emerge. "I can't believe you're a private detective," he said. "Seems weird to me."
    "It's not that different from being a cop," I said. "I'm not part of the bureaucracy, that's all. Don't wear a uni-form or punch a time clock. I get paid more, but not as regularly."
    "A bit more dangerous, isn't it? I don't remember anyone ever tried to blow you up back then."
    "Well, they sure tried everything else. Traffic detail, every time you pull someone over, you wonder if the car's stolen, if the driver's got a gun. Domestic violence is worse. People drinking, doing drugs. Half the time they'd just as soon waste you as one another. Knock on the door, you never know what you're dealing with."
    "How'd you get involved in a homicide?"
    "It didn't start out like that. You know the family, by the way," I said. -
    "I do?"
    "The Woods. Remember Bass Wood?"
    He hesitated. "Vaguely."
    "His sister Olive is the one who died."
    Daniel set his plate down. "The Kohler woman is his sister? I had no idea. What the hell is going on?"
    I sketched it out for him, telling him what I knew. If I have a client, I won't talk about a case, but I couldn't see the harm here. Just me. It felt good, giving me a chance to theorize to some extent. Daniel was a good audience, ask-ing just the right questions. It felt like old times, the good times, when we talked on for hours about whatever suited us.
    Finally a silence fell. I was cold and feeling tense. I reached for the quilt and covered my feet. "Why'd you leave me, Daniel? I never have understood."
    He kept his tone light. "It wasn't you, babe. It wasn't anything personal."
    "Was there someone else?"
    He shifted uneasily, tapping with the fork on the edge of his dinner plate. He set the utensil aside. He stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back on his elbows. "I wish I knew what to tell you, Kinsey. It wasn't that I didn't want you. I wanted something else more, that's all."
    "What?"
    He scanned my face. "Anything. Everything. What-ever came down the pike."
    "You don't have a conscience, do you?"
    He broke off eye contact. "No. That's why we were such a mismatch. I don't have any conscience and you have too much."
    "No, not so. If I had a conscience, I wouldn't tell so many lies."
    "Ah, right. The lies. I remember. That was the one thing we had in common," he said. His gaze came up to mine. I was chilled by the look in his eyes, clear and empty.
    I could remember wanting him. I could remember looking at his face, wondering if there could ever be a man more beautiful. For some reason I never expect the people I know to have any talent or ability. I'd been introduced to Daniel and dismissed him until the moment I heard him play. Then I did a long double-take, astonished, and I was hooked. There just wasn't any place to go from there. Daniel was married to his music, to freedom, to drugs, and briefly, to me. I was about that far down on the list.
    I stirred restlessly. A palpable sexual vapor seemed to rise from his skin, drifting across to me like the scent of woodsmoke half a mile away. It's a strange phenomenon, but true, that in sleeping with men, none of the old rules apply to a man you've slept with before. Operant condi-tioning. The man had trained me well. Even after eight years, he could still do what he did best… seduce. I cleared my throat, struggling to break the spell. "What's the story on your therapist?"
    "No story. She's a shrink. She thinks she can fix me."
    "And this is part of it? Making peace with me?"
    "We all have delusions. That's one of hers."
    "Is she in love with