Killer in the Hills Read Free

I hold up my left wrist, which was rebuilt years ago with chrome and polyurethane parts.
    “Metal pins,” I say, and push up my sleeve to show the cop the surgical scars. He wands me anyway, as Melvin watches.
    “The six thousand dollar man,” Melvin says.
    “Who are you here to see?” the cop asks.
    “Detective Marsh,” Melvin says.
    The cop looks at my New York state drivers license, writes down the number, then we sign in and he accompanies us on the ten-foot stroll to the elevator. The cop slides a magnetic key card into a slot by the elevator buttons and the doors open and we all get inside. The cop punches a button inside the elevator—a button with no number—and we ride up. There is no counter to show what floors we pass as we rise.
    “How come there are no numbers on the buttons?” I ask the cop. He gives a small shrug.
    “Security,” he says.
    Melvin and I exchange a glance.
    “I feel safer already,” I say. No one responds. Somewhere, a lonely cricket chirps.
    Eventually, we are deposited on the unknown but secure floor, and the cop holds the door for us as we exit the elevator.
    “Down the hall to the right, corner office,” the cop says.
    “Corner office,” I say, impressed. The cop looks at me.
    “Yeah,” the cop says with a half-smile. “And it’s Lieutenant Marsh now.” Then the elevator doors close and Melvin and I are alone, unescorted and unarmed, except for our piercing wit.
    “Maybe we should find the men’s room so I can stop and freshen up. Look my best for the Lieutenant,” I say.
    Melvin gives me a quick once-over.
    “Lipstick on a pig,” he says, and we walk to the corner office and knock on the door.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    “I want you to understand, you are not considered a suspect,” Lieutenant Detective Marsh says to me. He is sitting behind a long, sleek reproduction of a mid-century Stow Davis desk, his back to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking City Hall.
    I haven’t seen Marsh in years, but he looks exactly the same, aging at the glacial pace of a California redwood—forties, fit, prematurely gray hair cut trim; smooth, tanned skin, and dressed as neat as a pin, in a crisp white shirt and navy necktie. When he stood up to greet us I noticed his gray slacks didn’t have a single wrinkle or crease. He tilts his chair back and assesses me with his small gray eyes.
    “When we took the missing persons report we discovered you were married to Ms. Fletcher fifteen years ago, so naturally we wanted to talk to you,” he says.
    “Fletcher,” I say. “How many last names did she have?”
    “Four and counting,” Marsh says. “Stage name, screen name, aliases…” Marsh lifts his hand in a vague motion. “But Fletcher is the name on her birth records and what little other records we could find on her—other than the marriage certificate, where she had given her name as Rhodes. She had one arrest, for prostitution and possession, a few years ago.” He leans forward and rests his arms on his desk and waits for me to say something.
    “I’m sorry, Detective, but I have virtually no memory of her,” I say. “You may recall that I pretty much blacked out for that period of my life.”
    Marsh nods. He remembers.
    “Nothing at all?” he says, after a moment. “You don’t remember how you met her? Who she hung out with…?”
    “Nope,” I say. “It was fifteen years ago and I was dead drunk every day for months.”
    “You say you have virtually no memory,” he says. “What, if anything, do you remember?”
    “She was a brunette then,” I say. “I remember hanging out in her apartment, drinking. I doubt that I was with her more than a few days—maybe a week or so at the most. I think I’d remember more if I was with her longer than that.”
    “Do you remember marrying her?” he says.
    “All I remember is the jacket I was wearing at the ceremony was too hot for summer in Las Vegas. It was wool and it was scratchy and it made me sweat. That’s