He'd been the one all along, the killer. How had she read him so wrong? How had he looked so innocent? The one in the red windbreaker. Ah, the cowboy hat too. And the ruddy face — not from a tan at all but from the tear gas.

Jealousy. He'd killed her out of jealousy.

Healy stopped her as they got close to the building. “Hold up here. This isn't for you.”

“But —”

He just waved his hand and she stopped. He vanished into the building. The night was punctuated with radio messages broadcast over the police cars' loudspeakers. Lights whipped around in elliptical orbits.

Rune turned on the camera and opened the aperture to take natural-light shots of the scene of them bringing Tommy out.

Motion. Men appeared.

She aimed the camera toward the door.

But he wasn't in handcuffs. God, they'd shot him! Tommy was dead, on a gurney, covered with a bloody sheet.

She felt her legs weaken as she kept the camera on the door, trying hard for a steady shot — the matter-of-fact attendants wheeling Tommy's body down from the apartment.

A grim, moving end to the film.

And Shelly Lowe's murderer died just the same way he had killed — violently. It is a fitting epitaph from the Bible — fitting for someone who concocted religious fanatics to cover up his crimes: He who lives by the sword dies by the sword...

The image through the viewfinder went black as a figure from the crowd walked up to her.

Rune looked up.

Sam Healy said softly, “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“We didn't make it in time.”

Rune didn't understand. “You mean to get a confession? But? —” Rune nodded with her head toward the back of the ambulance.

“Tommy was gone when they got here, Rune. That's... Nicole's body.”

Death of a Blue Movie Star

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Another cop stood next to Healy. He wore a light suit that was mostly polyester, and he stood with the tired, unrushed posture of a government worker. Thin, humorless. His eyelids were heavy from fatigue and boredom.

Heavy from years of interviewing reluctant witnesses.

From years of kneeling over bodies in their graves of gutters and car seats and SRO hotels.

From seeing what he'd witnessed upstairs.

Rune whispered, “She's dead?”

The other cop was answering, but to Healy. “DCDS.”

“What?” Rune asked.

Healy said, “Deceased confirmed dead at scene.”

Deceased.

The cop kept speaking to Healy as though Rune weren't there. She thought maybe Healy had introduced her to this somber man. She wasn't sure. She thought she'd heard a name but all she remembered was Homicide. “Looks like torture, strangulation, then mutilation. There was some dismemberment.” He shook his head and finally showed some emotion. “What that goddamn business does to people. Porn... Like any other addiction. Keep having to go for more and more to get a high.”

Then Homicide turned to Rune. “Could you tell us what you know, miss?”