Mr. Murder

and technicians were in his office to photograph the room where the violent confrontation had begun, dig a couple of bullets out of the wall, dust for fingerprints, and take blood samples from the carpet.
        They were also photographing the upstairs hall, stairs, and foyer.
        In their search for evidence that the intruder might have left behind, they assumed they had an invitation to poke into any room or closet.
        Of course they were in his house to help him, and Marty was grateful for their efforts. Yet it was embarrassing to think that strangers might be noting the admittedly obsessive way he organized the clothes in his closet according to color-he and Emily both-the fact that he collected pennies and nickels in a half-gallon jar as might a boy saving for his first bicycle, and other unimportant yet highly personal details of his life.
        And he was more unsettled by the plainclothes detective in charge than by the rest of them combined. The guy's name was Cyrus Lowbock, and he elicited a complex response that went beyond mere embarrassment.
        The detective could have made a good living as a male model posing for magazine advertisements for Rolls-Royce, tuxedoes, caviar, and stock-brokerage services. He was about fifty, trim, with salt-and pepper hair, a tan even in November, an aquiline nose, fine cheekbones, a dark-blue cable-knit sweater, and white shirt-he had taken off a windbreaker-Lowbock managed to appear both distinguished and athletic, although the sports one would associate with him were not football and baseball but tennis, sailing, powerboat racing, and other pursuits of the upper classes. He looked less like any popular image of a cop than like a man who had been born to wealth and knew how to manage and preserve it.
        Lowbock sat across the dining-room table from Marty, listening intently to his account of the assault, asking questions largely to clarify the details, and writing in a spiral-bound notebook with an expensive black-and-gold Montblanc pen. Paige sat beside Marty, offering emotional support. They were the only three people in the room, although unifor Lowbock, and twice the detective excused himself to examine evidence that had been deemed relevant to the case.
        Sipping Pepsi from a ceramic mug, soothing his throat while recounting the life-and-death struggle with the intruder, Marty also experienced a resurgence of the inexplicable guilt that had first troubled him when he'd lain on the wet street with his hands cuffed.
        The feeling was no less irrational than before, considering that the biggest crime of which he could justifiably be accused was routine contempt for the speed limits on certain roads. But this time he understood that part of his uneasiness resulted from the perception that Lieutenant Cyrus Lowbock regarded him with quiet suspicion.
        Lowbock was polite, but he did not say much. His silences were vaguely accusatory. When he wasn't taking notes, his zinc-gray eyes focused unwaveringly, challengingly, on Marty.
        Why the detective should suspect him of being less than entirely truthful was not clear. However, Marty supposed that after years of police work, dealing with the worst elements of society day in and day out, the understandable tendency was toward cynicism. Regardless of what the Constitution of the United States promised, a longtime cop pronounced women-were guilty until proven innocent.
        Marty finished his story and took another long sip of cola.
        Cold fluids had done all they could for his sore throat, the greater discomfort was now in the tissues of his neck, where throttling hands had left the skin reddened and where extensive bruising would surely appear by morning. Though the four Anacin were beginning to kick in, a pain akin to whiplash made him wince when he turned his head more than a few degrees in either direction, so he adopted a stiff-necked posture and movement.
        For what seemed an excessive length of time, Lowbock paged through his notes, reviewing them in silence, quietly tapping the Montblanc pen against the pages.
        The splash and tap of rain still enlivened the night, though the storm had abated somewhat.
        Floorboards upstairs creaked now and then with the weight of the policemen still at their assigned tasks.
        Under the table, Paige's right hand sought Marty's left, and he gave it a squeeze as if to say that everything was all