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"That's right, but we're assuming the worst."

"Come on in out of the heat. Can I get you a beer, or can't you drink on duty?"

Grimsbo grinned. "A beer would be great."

"Wait in there and I'll grab one for you," Solomon said, pointing to a small front room. Grimsbo pulled his shirt away from his body as he walked toward the den.

Thank God they were canvassing in The Meadows, where everyone had air-conditioning.

"I hope this is cold enough for you," Solomon said, handing Grimsbo a chilled Budweiser. Grimsbo placed the cold bottle against his forehead and closed his eyes.

Then he took a sip.

"Boy, that hits the spot. I wish they could think up a way to air-condition the outside."

Solomon laughed.

"You an accountant?"

"A c.p.a."

"I figured," Grimsbo said, pointing his beer at two large bookcases filled with books about tax and accounting. A desk stood in front of the only window in the room.

A computer and printer sat in the center of the desk next to a phone.

The window looked out at Sparrow Lane across a wide front lawn.

"Well," Grimsbo said, after taking another swig from the bottle, "let me ask you a few questions and get out of your hair. Were you around the night Mrs. Lake and her daughter were murdered?"

Solomon stopped smiling and nodded. "Poor bastard."

"You know Peter Lake?"

"Sure. Neighbors and — all. We have a home-owners committee in The Meadows. Pete and I were on it. We played doubles together in the tennis tournament. Marge that's my wife-she and Sandy were good friends."

"Is your wife home?"

"She's at the club, playing golf I didn't feel like it in this heat."

Grimsbo put down the beer and took a pad and pen out of his inside jacket pocket.

"About what time did you get home on the night it happened?"

"it had to be about six."

"Did you see anything unusual that night?"

"Not a thing. I was in the dining room until we finished dinner. The dining room looks out into the back yard. Then I was in the living room for a few minutes. It's in the back of the house too. After that I was in here working on the computer with the blinds drawn."

"Oh.", Grimsbo said, reluctantly ready to wrap up the interview and trudge back out into the heat.

"One thing I forgot about when the officer talked to me the night of the murder. There was so much excitement and Marge was hysterical. I did see Pete come home."

"Oh, yeah? When was that?"

"I can get pretty close there. The Yankees played a day game and I caught the score on headline Sports." CNN runs the sports scores twenty after and ten to the hour. I went into the den right — after the score, so figure seven twenty-two or so. I saw Pete's Ferrari when I closed the blinds."

"He was heading home?"

"Right."

"And you're certain about the time."

"Twenty — after the hour, every hour. So it had to be about then, give or take a minute."

"Did you notice a florist's truck at any time that night, near The Meadows or in it?"

Solomon thought for a second. "There was a TV repairman at the Osgoods'.

That's the only unusual vehicle I saw."

Grimsbo levered himself out of his seat and extended his hand. "Thanks for the beer."

Wayne Turner was leaning against the car, looking so cool in his tan suit that it pissed Grimsbo off.

"Any luck?" Turner asked, as he pushed off the car.

"Nada. Oh, Solomon, the last guy I talked to, saw Lake driving home past his house about seven-twenty.

Other than that, I don't have a thing that wasn't in the uniforms' reports."

"I struck out too, but I'm not surprised. You get a development like The Meadows, you get houses with land. They're not leaning over each other. less chance anyone will see what's going on at the neighbor's. And with heat like this, everyone's either inside with the air-conditioning on or out at their country club."

"So what do we do now?"

"Head back in."

"You get a hit on a florist truck?" Grimsbo asked, when he had the car started.

"There was a cable TV repairman at the Osgoods', but no florist."

"Yeah, I got the TV guy too. What do you think of Waters?"

"I don't think anything, Frank. You seen him?"

Grimsbo shook his head.

"Our killer's got to be high IQ, right? Waters is a zero. Skinny, pimple-faced kid. He's got this little wisp of a beard. If he's not retarded, he's not far from it.

Dropped out of school in the tenth grade. He was eighteen. Worked as a gas station attendant and a box boy at Safeway. He lost that job when he was arrested for jacking off outside the window of a sixteen-year-old neighbor girl. The girl's father beat the crap out of him."

"He sounds pretty pathetic," Grimsbo observed.

"The guy's got no life. He lives with his mother.

She's in her late sixties and in poor health. I followed him for a few days. He's a robot. Every day it's the same routine. He leaves work and walks to the One Way Inn, this bar that's halfway to his house. Orders two beers, nurses 'em, doesn't say a word to anyone but the bartender.

Forty-five minutes after he goes in, he leaves, walks straight home and spends the evening watching TV with his mother. I talked to his boss and his neighbors. If he's got any friends, no one knows who they are. He's held this delivery boy job with Evergreen Florists longer than any of his other jobs."

"You writing him off?"

"He's a weeny-waver. A little twisted, sure, but I don't make him for our killer. He's not smart enough to be our boy. We don't have anything with Waters."

"We don't have anything, period."

Glen Michaels walked into the task force office just as Grimsbo and Turner were finishing the reports on their interviews in The Meadows.

"Whatcha got?" Grimsbo asked. He had shucked his jacket and parked himself next to a small fan.

"Nothing at all," Michaels said. "It's like the guy was never there. I just finished all the lab work. Every print matches up to the victims, Lake or one of the neighbors.

There's nothing to do a DNA test on. No unusual hairs, no fibers, no semen. This is one smart cookie, gentlemen."

"You think he knows police procedure?" Turner asked.

"I have to believe it. I've never seen so many clean crime scenes."

"Anyway," Michaels said, heading for the door, "I'm out of here. This heat is boiling my blood."

Turner turned to Grimsbo. "This perp is starting to piss me off.

Nobody's that good. He leaves no prints, no hairs, no one sees him.

Christ, we've got a development full of people and no one reports an unusual occurrence.

No strangers lurking around, not a single odd car. How does he get in and out?"

Grimsbo didn't answer. He was frowning. He levered himself out of his chair and walked over to the cabinet where they kept the master file on the case.

"What's up?" Turner asked.

"just something… Yeah, here it is."

Grimsbo pulled a report out of the file and showed it to Turner. It was the one-page report of the dispatcher who had taken the 911 call from Peter Lake.

"You see it?" Grimsbo asked.

Turner read the report a few times and shook his head.

"The time," Grimsbo said. "Lake called in the 911 at eight-fifteen."

"Yeah? so?"

"Solomon said he saw Lake driving by at seven-twenty. He was certain he'd just heard the sports scores.

CNN gives them at twenty after."

"And the bodies were in the hall," Turner said, suddenly catching on.

"How long does it take to park the car, open the door? Let's give Lake the benefit of the doubt and assume Solomon is a little off. He's still gonna be inside by seven-thirty."

"Shit," Turner said softly.

"Am I right, Wayne?" Grimsbo asked.