Hit List

sounds like. And if they realized their mistake, maybe they’re waiting at the airport.”
    “That was my thinking. Plus the drive to Cincinnati would give me time to think things out, and maybe listen to the news.”
    “And make sure that wasn’t you in the body bag after all. Just a little surrealism, Keller. Don’t look so confused.”
    “I’ve been confused a lot,” he said.
    “Ever since you got off the plane in Louisville, I seem to recall your saying.”
    “Ever since then. Here’s how it evidently went down, Dot. I did Hirschhorn around nine and went straight to the motel, and—“
    “First you called me.”
    “Called you en route, and then went back to my room—“
    “Your new room.”
    “My new room, and I was in bed by midnight, and around the time I was putting in ear plugs, somebody was killing the lovely couple in One forty-seven. What’s the first thought comes to mind?”
    “The client.”
    “Right, the client.”
    “Tying off loose ends. You did it, and now we make sure you don’t talk.”
    “Right.”
    “Except we know you won’t talk. That’s why we hire somebody like you. You won’t get caught, and if you do you won’t say anything, because what the hell would you say? You don’t know who the client is.”
    “Or what he had against Hirschhorn, or anything about him.”
    “They could have decided that killing you was cheaper than paying the balance due,” she said, “but that’s ridiculous. They paid half in front, remember? If they were that eager to save money, they could have saved the whole fee and done Hirschhorn themselves.”
    “Dot,” he said, “how would they even know the job was done?”
    “Because the man was dead. Oh, you mean the time element.”
    “The body could have been discovered anytime after I did the job. I watched the late news on the chance that I might hear something, but there was nothing to hear.”
    “Just because it didn’t make the news—“
    “Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Exactly what I thought. But that’s not what happened. I found out later the body wasn’t discovered until morning. I don’t know how worried Mrs. Hirschhorn may have been when her husband didn’t come home, and I don’t know if she called anybody, but what I do know is nobody went out to the garage until it was time to drive the kids to school.”
    She drank some iced tea. “So the people in One forty-seven died hours before anybody knew Hirschhorn was dead.”
    “Well, I knew, and you knew because I told you. But you’re the only person I told, and I have a feeling you didn’t spread it around.”
    “I figured it was our little secret.”
    “Besides not knowing I’d done what I was brought in to do,” he said, “how would they know where to find me?”
    “Unless they followed you there from Windy Hill.”
    “Winding Acres.”
    “Whatever.”
    “Nobody followed me,” he said. “And if they had they’d have followed me to the new room, not the old one. I didn’t go anywhere near One forty-seven.”
    “The people in One forty-seven. A man and a woman?”
    “A man and a woman. The room had two beds, they all do, but they were only using one of them.”
    “Let me take a wild guess. Married, but not to each other?”
    He nodded. “Guy at the Louisville paper told me the cops are talking to the dead woman’s husband. Who denies all knowledge, but right now they like him for it.”
    “All you have to do is call up and they tell you all that?”
    “If you’re polite and well-spoken,” he said, “and if they somehow get the impression you’re a researcher at Inside Edition .”
    “Oh.”
    “I told him it sounded pretty open and shut, and he said that’s how it looked up close. He’s going to update me if there’s a big break in the case.”
    “How’s he going to do that? You didn’t leave him a number.”
    “Sure I did.”
    “Not yours, I hope.”
    “ Inside Edition ’s. ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘I can never remember the number here.’ And I looked it up and read it off. I could have just made something up. He’s never going to call. The husband did it, and what does Inside Edition care?”
    “If he strikes out there,” she said, “he can always try Hard Copy . The husband did it, huh? That’s your best guess?”
    “Or his wife, or somebody one of them hired. Or he was two-timing somebody else, or she was. There were empty bottles and full ashtrays all over the room, they’d been drinking and smoking since