Mr. Murder

you'd just come right out and tell us why you don't believe me," Marty added.
        "I don't disbelieve you, Mr. Stillwater. I know this is all very frustrating, you feel put-upon, you're still shaken up, tired. But I'm still absorbing, listening and absorbing. That's what I do. It's my job.
        And I really haven't formed any theories or opinions yet."
        Marty was certain that was not the truth. Lowbock had carried with him a set of fully formed opinions when he'd first sat down at the dining-room table.
        After draining the last of the Pepsi in the mug, Marty said, "I almost drank some milk, orange juice, but my throat was so sore, hurt like hell, as if it was on fire. I couldn't swallow without agony.
        When I opened the refrigerator, the beer just looked a lot better than anything else, the most refreshing."
        With his Montblanc pen, Lowbock was again doodling on one corner of a page in his notebook. "So you only had that one can of Coors."
        "Not all of it. I drank half, maybe two-thirds. When my throat was feeling a little better, I went back to see how The Other… how the look-alike was doing. I was carrying the beer with me. I was so surprised to see the bastard gone, after he'd looked half dead, the can of Coors just sort of slipped out of my hand."
        Even though it was upside-down, Marty was able to see what the detective was drawing. A bottle. A long-necked beer bottle.
        "So then half a can of Coors," Lowbock said.
        "That's right."
        "Maybe two-thirds."
        "Yes."
        "But nothing more."
        "No."
        Finishing his doodle, Lowbock looked up from the notebook and said,
        "What about the three empty bottles of Corona in the trash can under the kitchen sink?"
        "Rest area, this exit," Drew Oslett read. Then he said to Clocker, "You see that sign?"
        Clocker did not reply.
        Returning his attention to the SATU screen in his lap, Oslett said,
        "That's where he is, all right, maybe taking a leak in the men's room, maybe even stretched out on the back seat of whatever car he's driving, catching a few winks."
        They were about to go into action against an unpredictable and formidable adversary, but Clocker appeared unperturbed. Even though driving, he seemed to be lost in a meditative state. His bearlike body was as relaxed as that of a Tibetan monk in a transcendental swoon.
        His enormous hands rested on the steering wheel, the thick fingers only slightly curled, maintaining the minimum grip. Oslett wouldn't have been surprised to learn that the big man was steering the car mostly with some arcane power of the mind. Nothing in Clocker's broad, blunt-featured face indicated that he knew what the word "tension" meant, pale brow as smooth as polished marble, cheeks unlined, sapphire-blue eyes softly radiant in the reflected light of the instrument panel, gazing into the distance, not merely at the road ahead but possibly beyond this world. His wide mouth was open just enough to accept a thin communion wafer. His lips were curved in the faintest of smiles, but it was impossible to know if he was pleased by something he was contemplating in a spiritual reverie or by the prospect of imminent violence.
        Karl Clocker had a talent for violence.
        For that reason, in spite of his taste in clothes, he was a man of his times.
        "Here's the rest area," Oslett said as they neared the end of the access road.
        "Where else would it be?" Clocker responded.
        "Huh?"
        "It is where it is."
        The big man wasn't much of a talker, and when he did have something to say, half the time it was cryptic. Oslett suspected Clocker of being either a closet existentialist on-at the other end of the spectrum-a New Age mystic. Though the truth might be that he was so totally self-contained, he didn't need much human contact or interaction, his own thoughts and observations adequately engaged and entertained him.
        One thing was certain, Clocker was not as stupid as he looked, in fact, he had an IQ well above average.
        The rest-area parking lot was illuminated by eight tall sodiumvapor lamps. After so many grim miles of unrelieved darkness, which had begun to seem like the blasted black barrens of a post-nuclear landscape, Oslett's spirits were lifted by the glow of the tall lamps, though it was a sickly urine-yellow reminiscent of the sour