Chapter 52 Chapter 52

Back home, we ordered pizza.This is my idea.After a futile round trip to Clay's house, the scouting team was down, and I thought maybe some pizza would cheer everyone up.We ordered a large half veggie and half spicy sausage - thanks to Dani we were able to order that.If it's just Claire and I, there's no way I can finish a whole queen-sized one.I can eat four small pieces at most, and one or two for Clare is enough.Dani, the water snake, claimed that she could eat up to three pieces, and Claire respected her spontaneously. "Really? Three dollars? But you're so skinny."

Dani shrugged: "The goodness of dancing, it's all gone. I also do yoga and Pilates." "I do yoga and have always wanted to try Pilates. They say Pilates is good for the core." "absolute." I nodded vigorously.I don't know what the core is, or even if men have it, but seeing two female friends have something in common makes me almost ecstatic. "I did yoga once," I said. "You?" Dani sneered. "Really," Claire said, "worst student in class, can't tell right from left." "I'm so nervous," I said, "I admit my sense of balance isn't great."

"Stop bragging," Claire said. "He nearly ran over a pregnant woman." "Besides you're stiff as a board," Dani said. "You stretch like you're pulling Velcro." "That's right," Claire said. "The instructor won't let him try a handstand. She's afraid of the defendant." They laughed like two flowers.I tried to defend myself: "She praised my baby pose." "Yes, there is probably a coffin type," Dani said.The line must have been playful, because Claire chuckled into the straw and the soda squirted out.They finally found a common hobby - picking my thorns.We stuffed ourselves with cheese and grease, sat down in chairs contentedly, and drank the second round of soda. As the group leader, I began to review today's lessons.

"Well, looks like I'm not detective stuff, right? I don't know what I'll find today. Bloody footprints?" "Isn't that what detective work is all about?" Dani asked. I shrugged and said, "How do I know?" "They're revisiting the crime scene, looking around, looking for clues," she said. "Until they do, who's going to know what he's looking for?" "Colombo seems to know," I said. "I love Colombo," she said, picking a morsel of dried cheese out of the cardboard box with her fingernails, popping it into her mouth and eating it.

"Disgusting," I said. "Who's Colombo?" Claire interrupted. "Old episodes from before you were born," Dani said to her, "and from before I was born." She smiled at me. “He always noticed little details that other people overlooked,” I said, “like where the victim’s car keys were, or why a girl folded her clothes before jumping out of a window.” "Why?" Claire asked. "She was hypnotized and jumped off the building." "Monk notices these things too," Dani said. "I like him." "Well, there's Sherlock Holmes," I said, "who sings a long one-man show about cigar ashes."

"That's what we need," Claire said, "CSI type evidence. Like body hair in the gutter, or a tooth." "Stop kidding," I said. "What am I supposed to do? Get my old microscope? The Bureau should have already done that." "I love those British detectives on PBS," Dani said. "Sergeant Moss, Sheriff Rinley, they're all so driven." "I like Sheriff Forrester," I said. "Me too, but he's uninspiring, just serious old-school policing. Experience and instinct, right, friend?" "Well, I'm afraid I don't have either," I said, "like Ed McBain said his book, From Proper Policing Procedure."

"And "Principal Suspect"," Dani continued, "what's the name of the lead actor?" "Helen Mirren." "She's pretty hot in the show." "Indeed," Claire agreed, "especially the part where she makes out with the young black man." "And the psychology detectives," I said. "A profiler," Dani said, "is like Psycho and Hannibal Lecter." "I'm actually thinking of Inspector Maigret," I said, "and maybe Poirot. Just the kind of detectives who are willing to immerse themselves in the environment and empathize with other characters. They're like authors, creating a narrative that's believable enough."

"You're good at this," Claire said. "You can do it. It's like you write a novel—except believable." "I just wish I wasn't the Lou Archer and Philip Marlowe type." "How?" Dani asked. "They just run around until they're kidnapped or beaten up," I said. "The same goes for Hammett's protagonists, like Sam Spade, who get hits on the head every now and then. Marlowe almost every Every case will be overturned, but he just doesn't care. The bad guys ask him to smoke, but he immediately lights up." "Because he drank too much," Dani said.

"Have you noticed," I continued, "that they never bathe and sleep, but they shave a lot? It's like this: 'I went home, shaved and changed my shirt.'" "But they look good in suits and top hats," Dani said. "Even villains like them." "And cracking wisecracks along the way, like Humphrey Bogart," Claire said, "and taking no one's credit." "And smoking unfiltered cigarettes and whiskey stashed in the desk drawer," Dani said. "And the girls always end up leaving them penniless," said Claire.We seemed to have emptied the bookshelves, and silence fell over the room.Claire pushed away the chair, hiccupped lightly, and lay down on the sofa.Dani got up and started clearing the table.I picked up the empty soda can and followed her.

"I remember when I was a child," I said, "I'm not sure how old I was, but it must have been when I was in elementary school. There was a rapist nearby, and I saw the portrait and physical characteristics of the suspect posted by the police on the lamppost. Remember, he wears glasses, has a moustache, and has his hair parted in the middle. All in all, the police ask everyone to pay attention to this person and report all information and clues. I take it seriously. Looking for this person everywhere on the way home from school and so on, even more bizarre I even started looking for clues. I even got a magnifying glass."

Dani smiled and washed the dishes.Claire lay on her back, snoring softly.I went on. "I remember collecting all sorts of crap that I thought was a clue anyway. A little badge that I thought was made of gold, but was actually plated brass at best. A wire cap—that's just a little piece of wire hanging from it. The little plastic stuff on the outside. The still-smelling cigar wrappers. The purple ones with gold prints on them, which I thought were cool. I hid them in my shoebox and pretended to smoke with the cigar wrappers in my mouth, Researching it piece by piece, trying to piece together some truth. Then one day I was passing by an alley and heard a scream. Of course I was terrified, sure the rapist was attacking someone in the alley. I wanted to run but forced myself to go At the end of the alley, around the back of a building. I remember how I tiptoed, my heart racing, my back against the wall. Then, with all my courage, I looked around the corner." I stopped and Dani looked over at me and said, "Then what? What did you find? The rapist?" "Of course not. Nothing. There's a staircase leading down to the basement. Who knows where the screams are coming from? Someone's arguing, or the TV. Maybe it's not the screams at all. Maybe it's a child laughing. I'll check again One look, too scared to move, eyes fixed on one thing: a cigar, half-smoked, on the ground in front of me. The gold and purple logo is exactly the same as the one on the pipe of my cigar." "Wow, then what?" "Nothing. I picked up the half of the cigar, I thought that must be some kind of evidence, and ran away and ran home. I put the half in the cigar tube, and my mother smelled it and confiscated it all Stuff. She promised to turn them over to the police, but for some reason the police never contacted me." Dani laughed. "But the point of this—" "Yeah, I'm thinking about that too," she said. "Well, apparently these things have nothing to do with rapists." "Obviously." "Things exist only in a child's imagination. Even if the cigars match, so what? It's just a random coincidence." "But it's bizarre." "Not so outlandish when you think about it. Cigars and cigar tubes? Probably a cheap brand, sold everywhere. Maybe dozens of them around. I didn't notice because I didn't look for them. Things made sense to us, We're the ones who notice. Like the Diet Coke can, the broken shoelace, the redhead in the blue socks. Who knows what else in that alley I didn't see but would have noticed if I paid attention? Like Newport cigarette packs or shredded lottery tickets with the number six on them. I sometimes feel that rather than the clues leading us to the case, the case suddenly turns a lot of things into clues." "I know what you mean." She turned off the water and dried her hands. "It's like after my sister died. I haven't seen her in years, but suddenly everything I see reminds me of her. Tissue commercials, a An old song. I see her everywhere I go - literally for a split second I think it's her, turning a corner or getting into a car. She doesn't exist to me when she's alive, but she's everywhere when she's gone figure." I reached out to touch Dani's hand.She squeezed my wrist hard, then let it go quickly to get the cigarettes in her handbag.I looked over to the couch and saw that Claire was already awake, lying there with her eyes open, listening to us. "I've got to go back and get dressed for work." Dani was smoking a cigarette by the open window.The curtain rolled, as if a person was wrapped inside and was about to get out soon. I picked up Claire's car keys and went out with Dani.Finally it was just me and her. We took the elevator downstairs and walked to the car. The awkward atmosphere came back, and I searched my guts to find something to talk about.Claire's question from the day before yesterday came to my mind: what if Claire is really innocent?You can certainly dismiss Floski's and Treo's misgivings as opportunist delusions.But what about the others who were convinced he was the killer?Would it be too selfish?Proving Clay's innocence could spell disaster for Townes, the police and the courts.Just the mere mention of his possible innocence angered Toner and the families of the other victims.With Dani around, the thought of that possibility made me sad.I opened the passenger door for her, then went around and got into the driver's seat. "Dani," I said, closing the car door. "Shut up," she interrupted, "let's do it." I nodded, started the engine, and drove a few blocks onto a quiet street.I parked in a shaded, secluded spot behind a truck, glanced accidentally in the side mirror, and saw a new black Chevrolet Antelope parked quietly up the block.We're being followed, or so I think.Dani grabbed my arm and I followed her to the back row.She took off her jumper, unbuttoned her jeans, and I glanced in the rearview mirror—no sight of the Chamois.She pressed against my body and I closed my eyes.