Twisted

walkie-talkie. She didn’t move.
    A moment passed. “Now.”
    “I—”
    “Ma’am, you’re acting kind of strange. I’d like to ask you to step out of your vehicle.”
    “Well, now, Officer . . .” She smiled and leaned toward him, easing her arms together. Only after a glance at his perplexed face did she realize that theattention-getting valley between her breasts was hidden by her conservative blue blouse.
    She climbed out of the car, handed him the documents.
    “You been drinking?”
    “No, Officer. Well, I had one beer a couple of hours ago. Well, two.”
    “I see.”
    Then she glanced at the rear wheel, frowning. It looked as if somebody had put a trap under the tire—a piece of wood with a couple of nails hammered through it.
    The cop noticed her gaze. “Damn kids. They do that sometimes for pranks. Throw ’em in the road. Think it’s funny. This your current address?” Nodding at her license.
    “Yes,” she said absently. Eyes on the hotel room. More police cars had arrived; there were a dozen now, their lights flashing in alarming red and blue. Two men in suits and badges around their necks—one with bushy hair, one balding—arrived and stepped into room 103.
    The cop walked to the rear of the Lexus to check the license plate. He seemed calm and reasonable. Carolyn was relaxing. He’d let her go. Sure he would. It’ll be okay. Just stay calm and they’ll never put anything together.
    Then the crew-cut cop’s walkie-talkie crackled. “We have a multiple homicide at the Heritage Hotel. Victims are a Loretta Samples, female cauc, thirty-two and a Stanley Ciarelli, male cauc, thirty-nine.”
    “What?” blurted the cop, looking up from the driver’s license he held.
    “Oh, Jesus,” said Carolyn Ciarelli.
    “Detective!” the traffic cop shouted to the bald man with the badge around his neck. “Think you better come over here.”
    Five minutes later she was sitting in the back of the patrol car—no handcuffs, at least—where she’d been asked to remain until everything got sorted out.
    A young patrolman came running up to the detectives. He held a large plastic bag containing the pistol Lawrence had apparently dropped as he fled.
    “What’ve we got here?” one detective asked.
    “Probable murder weapon,” the young officer said a little too eagerly. He drew snickers from the seasoned detectives, Mutt and Jeff.
    “Let’s see it,” the balding detective said. “Hey, Charlie, any latents?”
    An officer wearing latex gloves walked over to them. He was carrying a box with a wand attached, like a small neon tube. He shone a greenish light on the gun, examining it carefully.
    “Nup, not a whorl or ridge.”
    Thank God, Lawrence had wiped the prints off.
    “But,” Charlie added, pulling on an eye loupe, “we got something here. Looks like a bit of blue tissue caught in the cylinder release catch.” He examined it closely. “Yep, pretty sure it’s Kleenex.”
    Oh, my God, no . . .
    She glanced behind her to see the crew-cut cop walk to the Lexus, retrieve something and return. “Look what I found here, sir.”
    He pointed to the wad of blue Kleenex that Lawrence had dropped on the floor after he’d wiped the gun.
    Well, so what? There were hundreds of thousands of boxes of Kleenex around the country. How could they prove—
    Charlie unwadded the Kleenex carefully. There was a triangular tear in the center. Where the scrap on the gun would fit like the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle.
    Another officer came up to the detectives holding the cloth gloves Lawrence had worn. The bushy-haired detective, now wearing latex gloves himself, lifted them. Smelled the palm. “Women’s perfume.”
    Carolyn could smell the scent too. Opium. She started to hyperventilate.
    “Sir,” another cop called, “ran the registration on that weapon. It’s the victim’s. Stanley Ciarelli.”
    No, impossible! It was the same gun the mugger’d had! She was sure. Had he stolen it from Stan’s den? But how could he?
    Carolyn realized all the cops were staring at her.
    “Mrs. Ciarelli?” the bushy-headed detective asked, pulling his handcuffs from the back of his belt. “Could you stand up and turn around, please?”
    “No, no, you don’t understand,” she cried.
    After he read her the Miranda rights and put her back in the rear seat of the patrol car she heard a faint squealing of tires in the distance. She stared at the approaching car but her mind was elsewhere.
    All right,