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He leaned forward "He killed her," he said "So ould he hire you to investigate it?"

"Maybe he didn't kill her"

"Oh, sure he did" He dismissed the possibility of Chance's innocence with a wave of his hand "She says she's quitting him and he says okay and the next day she's dead Come on, Matt What's that if it's not cut and dried?"

"Then we get back to your question Why'd he hire me?"

"Maybe to take the heat off"

"How?"

"Maybe he'll figure we'll figure he must be innocent or he wouldn't have hired you"

"But that's not what you figured at all"

"No"

"You think he'd really think that?"

"How do I knohat soure he's a cokehead?"

"He's got to spend it on soo for country-club dues and a box at the charity ball Le"

"Go ahead"

"You think there's a chance in the world he didn't kill her? Or set her up and hire it done?"

"I think there's a chance"

"Why?"

"For one thing, he hired me And it wasn't to take the heat off because what heat are we talking about? You already said there wasn't going to be any heat You're planning to clear the case and work on so else"

"He wouldn't necessarily know that"

I let that pass "Take it froested "Let's say I never called you"

"Called me when?"

"The first call Iwith her piotten it somewhere else"

"Where? Kim was dead and Chance wouldn't volunteer the information I'm not sure anybody else in the world knew" Except for Elaine, but I wasn't going to bring her into it "I don't think you'd have gotten it Not right off the bat, anyway"

"So?"

"So hoould you have figured the killing then?"

He didn't answer right away He looked down at his near-elass, and a couple of vertical frown lines creased his forehead He said, "I see what you ed it?"

"The e did before you called A psycho You knoe're not supposed to call 'em that anymore? There was a departo From noe don't call 'em psychos From now on it's EDPs"

"What's an EDP?"

"Emotionally Disturbed Person That's what so better to worry about The whole city's up to its ass in more nuts than a fruitcake and our first priority is hoe refer to theure a psycho, some new version of Jack the Ripper Calls up a hooker, invites her over, chops her up"

"And if it was a psycho?"

"You knohat happens then You hope you get lucky with a piece of physical evidence In this case fingerprints were hopeless, it's a transient hotel room, there's a million latents and no place to start with theerprint and you knew it belonged to the killer, but we didn't have that kind of luck"

"Even if you did-"

"Even if we did, a single print wouldn't lead anywhere Not until we had a suspect You can't get ayou're gonna be able to eventually, but-"

"They've been saying that for years"

"It'll never happen Or it will, but I'll havephysical evidence that leads soain You get another couple of cases with the saot him, and then you match him to some latents in the roolass "Then he plea bargains his way to hter and he's out in three years tops and he does it again, but I don't want to get started on that again I honest to Christ don't want to get started on that again"