K Is for Killer

that you'd keep this conversation confidential."
    "Sure."
    "No exceptions."
    "Okay."
    "Including Mr. Phillips."
    Cheney Phillips, undercover vice cop. I said, "Got it."
    I felt cool air on my face and realized the limo door had been opened. The guy on my right got out, extending a hand to me. I appreciated the assist. It's hard to hump your way across a seat when the sweat on the back of your knees is causing you to stick to the upholstery. I hoped I hadn't wet myself. In this situation, I didn't even trust my legs to work. I emerged somewhat ungracefully, butt first, like a breech birth. To steady myself, I put a hand against the car parked next to mine.
    The guy got back in the limo. The rear door closed with a click and the car eased away, gliding soundlessly out of the parking lot. I checked for the license plate, but the number had been obscured by mud. Not that I'd have had the plate run. I didn't really want to know who these guys were.
    Under my jacket, the back of my turtleneck was cold and damp. An involuntary spasm scampered down my frame. I needed a hot shower and a slug of brandy, but I didn't have time for either. I unlocked my car and got in, slapping the lock down again as if pursued. I peered into the backseat to make sure I was alone. Even before I started the car, I flipped the heater on.
    I sat in a back booth at Frankie's Coffee Shop, as far from the windows as I could get. I kept searching the other patrons, wondering if one of them was tailing me. The place was moderately full: older couples who'd probably been coming here for years, kids looking for some place to hang out. Janice had spotted me when I came in, and she appeared at the table with a coffeepot in hand. There was a setup in front of me: napkin, silverware, thick white ceramic cup turned upside down on a matching saucer. I turned the cup right-side up, and she filled it. I left it on the table so she couldn't see how badly my hands were shaking.
    "You look like you could use this," she said. "You're white as a sheet."
    "Can you talk?"
    She glanced behind her. "Soon as the party at table five clears out," she said. "I'll leave you this." She put the pot down and moved back to her station, pausing to pick up an order from the kitchen pass-through.
    When she returned, she was toting an oversize cinnamon roll and two pats of butter wrapped in silver paper. "I brought you a snack. You look like you could use a little jolt of sugar with your caffeine."
    "Thanks. This looks great."
    She sat down across from me, careful to keep an eye out in case customers came in.
    I opened both pats and broke off a band of hot roll, which I buttered and ate, nearly moaning aloud. The dough was soft and moist, the glaze dripping down between the coils. Nothing like fear to generate an appetite for comfort foods. "Fantastic. I could get addicted. Is this a bad time for you?"
    "Not at the moment. I may have to interrupt. Are you all right? You don't seem like yourself."
    "I'm fine. I have a couple of things I need to ask." I paused to lick butter from my fingers, and then I wiped them on a paper napkin. "Did you know Lorna was supposed to get married in Las Vegas the weekend she died?"
    Janice looked at me as if I had begun to speak a foreign language and she was waiting for subtitles to appear at the bottom of the screen. "Where in the world did you hear such a thing?"
    "Think there's any truth to it?"
    "Until this very second, I'd have said absolutely not. Now you mention it, I'm not so sure. It's possible," she said. "It might explain her attitude, which at the time I couldn't identify. She seemed excited. Truly, like she was wanting to tell me something, but was holding back. You know how kids are.... Well, maybe you don't. When kids have a secret, they can hardly keep it in. They want to tell so bad they can't stand it, so most of the time they just blab it right out. She was acting like that. At the time, I wasn't picking up on it consciously. I did notice, because that's what popped in my head the minute you said that, but at the time, I didn't press. Who was she going to marry? As far as I know, she didn't even date."
    "I don't know the man's name. I gather it was some fellow from Los Angeles."
    "But who told you? How did you find out about him?"
    "His attorney got in touch with me a little while ago. Actually, it might have been the guy himself, playing games. It's hard to say."
    "Why haven't we heard about him before now? She's been dead ten months