Tourist Trap (Rebecca Schwartz #3) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

feeling Lewis might be Lou and I figured Alan had the same feeling and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of finding out for sure. Which just shows you how small-minded I was feeling that morning.
    Safely inside, I extended a hand: “Mr. Lewis, how do you do?”
    Art’s moon-sized eyes smoldered at me, not resentful now, pleading instead. “Not Lewis,” he said. “Lou. This is my brother, Rebecca.”
    “I thought it might be. Sit down, both of you.”
    “Remember I said Lou might need a lawyer?”
    “You kept my card. I’m glad.” I was glad because I still felt motherly toward the kid, dammit, but I wasn’t ecstatic about having a suspect in a mass murder case in my office. The cops might come in and start blasting; knowing Martinez, that would be more likely than otherwise if he had any idea where Lou was. Oddly, I wasn’t a bit nervous on Lou’s account. Or not so oddly—he and Art were two people who couldn’t possibly be the Trapper.
    Even as that thought ran through my head, I realized I really didn’t know if it were true. “Can I get you some coffee?” I said.
    Lou nodded, Art just stared. I suspected that, having been in prison, Lou wasn’t as susceptible to shock as his younger brother. Outside the office I spoke softly to Alan; “Make us some coffee, will you?”
    “Need something to steady your nerves, do you? Being alone with the Trapper and all.”
    “Alan, was he with Art the whole time I was talking to Rob?”
    “You mean the Trapper? Yep. Never took my eyes off him—that’s how you’d want it, right?”
    “He’s not the Trapper.”
    “Oh, come on. He’s gotta be the kid’s brother—looks just like him.”
    “Just make the coffee, okay? I think he needs it.”
    “Me, too, boss. And by the way, I want a hazardous-duty raise.”
    I went back and joined the Zimbardos. “Lou, you look like your brother.”
    “Older and meaner.”
    A lot older, I’d say—the man was close to my age. He was as slender as Art and better looking if you preferred men to boys, but he had a tired look about him; in another man, it might have been a wised-up look. But Lou looked as if he wasn’t ever going to wise up; he looked as if a lot of bad things had happened to him, and he knew for a fact that a lot more were due, but he was going to be surprised, hence infinitely more mournful, more hurt every time another came along. Definitely not a cockeyed optimist; where Art’s eyes smoldered angrily, Lou’s were resigned. Mean was a way he didn’t look at all.
    “I know the cops are still looking for you,” I said. “Have you come for legal advice about what to do?”
    “Art said you wouldn’t give me any bum steers.”
    “I hope not. But there really isn’t much choice about this situation. Any lawyer will tell you the same thing.”
    “Give myself up.”
    I nodded.
    “Yeah, I know. You ain’t the first lawyer I been to—went to my old one first.”
    “And he gave you the same advice?”
    “Yeah. Also, he acted like I was going to pull a knife on him. Couldn’t wait to get me out of his office.”
    I winced, thinking I might have acted much the same way if the Trapper hadn’t been on the phone to Rob while Lou Zimbardo was sitting in my office.
    “Art said you wouldn’t be like that.”
    I smiled, feeling like a fraud. “I’ll try not to be.” Kruzick came in with the coffee, rather spoiling the whole effect of safety I was working on by staring first at me, then at Lou, then back at me again, like a Doberman trying to decide whether its mistress is about to be raped and mutilated. I would have been touched if the timing hadn’t been so bad. “Before you call the cops—”
    “I’m not going to call the cops unless you want me to.”
    “Okay, okay. Before you throw me out, then—could I tell you something?”
    “Of course.”
    “It ain’t me that’s doing all this.”
    “You know something? I believe you.”
    “You believe me?”
    “I do, actually. But I want to hear your story before we talk about that.”
    He looked hunted and trapped, as if that was a worse idea than going back to prison. “I don’t know where to start.”
    “How about the restaurant on the night of the poisonings. What did you see?”
    He shrugged. “People getting sick.”
    “What did you do when you saw people start to get sick?”
    “Panicked.”
    “Uh-huh. And then what?”
    “I left.”
    “You left. How’d you do that?”
    “There’s a side door.”
    “Did