“Morgan” he said. “Siddown.” I thought it was very nice of him to invite me to sit in my own chair, so I sat down. He looked at me for a long moment, chewing on a toothpick that stuck out of one corner of his mouth. He was a pear-shaped guy, never terribly attractive, and at the moment even less so. He had crammed his sizeable buttocks into the extra chair by my desk and, aside from the toothpick, he was working on a giant bottle of Mountain Dew, some of which had already stained his dingy white shirt. His appearance, together with his attitude of staring silently at me as if hoping I would burst into tears and confess to something, was extremely annoying, to say the least. So, fighting off the temptation to collapse into a weeping heap, I picked up a lab report from my in-basket and began to read.

After a moment Coulter cleared his throat. “All right” he said, and I looked up and raised a polite eyebrow at him. “We gotta talk about your statement” he said.

“Which one?” I said.

“When your sister got stabbed” he said. “Couple of things don't add up.”

“All right” I said.

Coulter cleared his throat again. “So, uh —tell me again what you saw.”

“I was sitting in the car” I said.

“How far away?”

“Oh, maybe fifty feet” I said.

“Uh-huh. How come you didn't go with her?”

“Well” I said, thinking it was really none of his business, I really didn't see the point.”

He stared some more and then shook his head. “You coulda helped her” he said. “Maybe stopped the guy from stabbing her.”

“Maybe” I said.

“You coulda acted like a partner” he said. It was clear that the sacred bond of partnership was still pulling strongly at Coulter, so I bit back my impulse to say something, and after a moment he nodded and went on.

“So the door opens and boom, he sticks a knife in?”

“The door opens and Deborah showed her badge” I said.

“You sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“But you're fifty feet away?” I have really good eyesight” I said, wondering if everyone who came in to see me today was going to be profoundly annoying.

“Okay” he said. “And then what?”

“Then” I said, reliving that moment with terrible slow-motion clarity, “Deborah fell over. She tried to get up and couldn't and I ran to help her.”

“And this guy Dankawitz, whatever, he was there the whole time?”

“No” I said. “He was gone, and then he came back out as I got close to Deborah.”

“Uh-huh” Coulter said. “How long was he gone?”

“Maybe ten seconds tops” I said. “Why does that matter?” Coulter took the toothpick out of his mouth and stared at it.