“Do the trainers have keys to the medical supplies?”

“Only the doctors and the nurse who’s on call. What do you think is going on?” LaPorte pulled nervously on her lank hair.

“I think your doctors are seriously overmedicating your clients.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What does that have to do with the break-in?”

“I can’t tell,” I said. “You’d need the cops to look into it—they’ve got the bodies to question everyone the doctors ever treated, or athletes with a grudge, or parents who think their kids were damaged. Or the doctors could have nothing at all to do with it—it could be junkies helping themselves to a stash that’s easy to get at. You have seventy-eight employees with keys, which means—”

“No, only about eighteen people have keys. August does because he opens once a week—the trainers all do because they take turns getting here for the five a.m. shift. And then there’s me and the other—”

“Eighteen is a lot of keys,” I interrupted. “Easy to pass around, even if they’re not easy to duplicate. But unless the front-door key opens the medical closet, I’m voting against a junkie. Someone who’s high or low, desperate for a fix, is more likely to break a lock than finesse it.”

“What should I do?” LaPorte’s voice was cracking with despair.

“Get police permission to go into the locker rooms. Photograph them so you have evidence for your insurance company, then hire a cleanup crew to tidy it up. The police don’t seem excited by the crime, since no one was hurt, and the mess isn’t very serious property damage. I don’t think they’ll object. Pity you don’t know where August is—he could video it all for you.”

3
Auteur Deconstructed

When I finished with Denise LaPorte at Six-Points, I was too tired to do anything except go home and collapse in the bath. I could hear the dings announcing incoming texts, but I lay comatose for half an hour, only stirring to add hot water to the tub when it cooled.

It was the two dogs I share with my downstairs neighbor that finally pushed me to my feet. They started scratching and whining outside the bathroom door. Mr. Contreras is over ninety, and although he’d rather root for the Cubs than admit he’s not up to walking Mitch and Peppy, he must have let them into my place as a hint that they needed exercise.

“Okay, guys, okay,” I muttered, toweling myself down.