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for those tapes. Crouch, Johnson, help Herb and I search the apartment. Let’s see if we can find the murder weapon.”
    We did a thorough toss, but couldn’t find any rope. Herb, however, found a pair of needle nose pliers in a closet. Pliers with pink handles.
    “They were neighbors,” Herb reasoned. “Janet could have lent them to her.”
    “Could have. But we both doubt it. Call base to see if they found anything on Hale.”
    Herb dialed, talked for a minute, then hung up.
    “Glenn Hale has been arrested three times, all assault charges. Did three months in Joliet.”
    I wasn’t surprised. All evidence pointed to the boyfriend, except for the damned locked room. Maybe Herb was right and the killer just slipped under the door and…
    Epiphany.
    “Call the lab team. I want the whole apartment dusted. Then get an address and a place of work on Hale and send cars. Tell them to wait for the warrant.”
    Herb raised an eyebrow. “A warrant? Shouldn’t we question the guy first?”
    “No need,” I said. “He did it, and I know how.”
    Feeling, a bit foolishly, like Sherlock Holmes, I took everyone back into Janet’s apartment. They began hurling questions at me, but I held up my hand for order.
    “Here’s how it went,” I began. “Janet finds out Glenn is cheating, dumps him. He comes over, wanting to get her back. She won’t let him in. He uses his key, but the safety chain is on. So he busts in and breaks the chain.”
    “But the chain was on when we came in the first time,” Crouch complained.
    Herb hushed him, saving me the trouble.
    “They argue,” I went on. “Glenn grabs her arm, hits her. She falls to the floor, unconscious. Who knows what’s going through his mind? Maybe he’s afraid she’ll call the police, and he’ll go to jail—he has a record and this state has zero tolerance for repeat offenders. Maybe he’s so mad at her he thinks she deserves to die. Whatever the case, he finds Janet’s toolkit and takes out the utility knife. He slits her wrist and puts the knife in her other hand.”
    Five inquisitive faces hung on my every word. It was a heady experience.
    “Glenn has to know he’d be a suspect,” I raised my voice, just a touch for dramatic effect. “He’s got a history with Janet, and a criminal record. The only way to throw off suspicion is to make it look like no one else could have been in the room, to show the police that it had to be a suicide.”
    “Jack,” Herb admonished. “You’re dragging it out.”
    “If you figured it out, then you’d have the right to drag it out too.”
    “Are you really single?” Patel asked. He grinned again, showing more spinach.
    “If she keeps stalling,” Herb told him, “I’ll personally give you her number.”
    I shot Herb with my eyes, then continued.
    “Okay, so Glenn goes into Janet’s closet and gets a length of climbing rope. He also grabs the needle nose pliers from her toolbox and heads back to the front door. The safety chain has been ripped out of the frame, and the mounting is dangling on the end. He takes a single screw,” I pointed at the screw sticking in the door frame, “and puts it back in the doorframe about halfway.”
    Herb nodded, getting it. “When the mounting ripped out, it had to pull out all four screws. So the only way one could still be in the doorframe is if someone put it there.”
    “Right. Then he takes the rope and loops it under a sofa leg. He goes out into the hall with the rope, and closes the door, still holding both ends of the rope. He tugs the rope through the crack under the door, and pulls the sofa right up to the door from the other side.”
    “Clever,” Johnson said.
    “I must insist you meet my mother,” Patel said.
    “But the chain…” Crouch whined.
    I smiled at Crouch. “He opens the door a few inches, and grabs the chain with the needle nose pliers. He swings the loose end over to the door frame, where it catches and rests on the screw he put in halfway.”
    I