Mr. Murder

triumph of the former over the latter, and about the reliability of the justice system in a modern democracy. They were popular because they reassured the reader that the system worked far more often than not, even if the evidence of daily life sometimes pointed toward a more troubling conclusion. Marty had been able to work in the genre with conviction and tremendous pleasure because he liked to believe that law-enforcement agencies and the courts delivered justice most of the time and thwarted it only inadvertently. But now, the first time in his life that he'd turned to the system for help, it was in the process of failing him. Its failure not only jeopardized his life as well as the lives of his wife and children-but seemed to call into doubt the value of everything that he had written and the worthiness of the purpose to which he had committed so many years of hard work and struggle.
        Lieutenant Lowbock returned through the living room, looking and moving as if in the middle of an Esquire magazine fashion photography session.
        He was carrying a clear plastic evidence bag, which contained a black zippered case about half the size of a shaving kit. He put the bag on the dining-room table as he sat down.
        "Mr. Stillwater, was the house securely locked when you left it this morning?"
        "Locked?" Marty asked, wondering where they were headed now, trying not to let his anger show. "Yes, locked up tight. I'm careful about that sort of thing."
        "Have you given any thought as to how this intruder might have gained entry?"
        "Broke a window, I guess. Or forced a lock."
        "Do you know what's in this?" he asked, tapping the black leather case through the plastic bag.
        "I'm afraid I don't have X-ray vision," Marty said.
        "I thought you might recognize it."
        "No."
        "We found it in your master bedroom."
        "I've never seen it before."
        "On the dresser."
        Paige said, "Get it over with, Lieutenant."
        Lowbock's faint shadow of a smile passed across his face again, like a visiting spirit shimmering briefly in the air above a seance table.
        "It's a complete set of lock picks."
        "That's how he got in?" Marty asked.
        Lowbock shrugged. "I suppose that's what I'm expected to deduce from it."
        "This is tiresome, Lieutenant. We have children we're worried about.
        I agree with my wife-just get it over with."
        Leaning over the table and regarding him once more with his patented intense gaze, the detective said, "I've been a cop for twenty-seven years, Mr. Stillwater, and this is the first time I've ever encountered professional lock picks."
        "So?"
        "They break glass or force a lock, like you said. Sometimes they pry a sliding door or window out of its track. The average burglar has a hundred ways of getting in-all of which are a lot faster than picking a lock."
        "This wasn't an average burglar."
        "Oh, I can see that," Lowbock said. He leaned away from the table, settled back in his chair. "This guy is a lot more theatrical than the average perp. He contrives to look exactly like you, spouts a lot of strange stuff about wanting his life back, comes armed with an assassin's gun threaded for a silencer, uses burglary tools like a Hollywoodized professional heist artist in a caper movie, takes two bullets man but walks away. He's downright flamboyant, this guy, but he's also muy misterioso, the kind of character Andy Garcia could play in a movie or, a lot better yet, that Ray Liotta who was in Goodfellas."
        Marty suddenly saw where the detective was headed and understood why he was going there. The inevitable terminus of the interrogation should tumbled to it because it was too obvious. As a writer, he had been seeking some more exotic, complex reason for Lowbock's barely concealed disbelief and hostility, when all the while Cyrus Lowbock had been going for the cliche.
        Still, the detective had one more unpleasant surprise to reveal.
        He leaned forward again and made eye contact in what had ceased to be an effective confrontational manner and had become instead a personal tic as annoying and transparent as Peter Falk's disarmingly humble posture and relentless self-deprecation when he played Columbo, Nero Wolfe's thoughtful puckering of the mouth in moments of inspiration, James Bond's knowing smirk, or any of the slew of