But was it up to me to keep Trixie from having to answer for the things she’d done? Or to at least explain them? Was I responsible for Trixie’s future? And what of my obligations to the Metropolitan? To my profession? If I had any intention of actually writing about this—assuming Magnuson put an end to my suspension, and that was quite an assumption—how could I tell only part of the story? If I couldn’t do the job properly, I had no business doing it at all.

I needed to talk to someone about this.

And the only person I could think of was Sarah.

I reached for my cell, started dialing our home number, glanced at the dashboard clock and realized Sarah would be at work by now. So I started punching the numbers for the main switchboard, since I had no idea what Sarah’s extension was in the Home! section. But when I got to the second-to-last digit, I stopped, and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.

Maybe later.

There was no one home when I got there midmorning. Paul was at school, Angie at college. It looked as though everyone had fled in a hurry, dirty dishes still on the kitchen counter, the cream not put away. I opened the fridge, poured myself a large glass of orange juice, downed it, and trudged upstairs.

I dumped my travel bag on the bed, walked into the bathroom, turned on the radio that sat next to the sink.

I looked in the mirror. I hadn’t yet shaved, my eyes were bleary, my hair a tousled mess. I reached into the shower, turned on the taps, started unbuttoning my shirt.

It was the top of the hour and the news came on. The morning rush-hour traffic had thinned; it would be overcast with the odd sunny break. And then:

“Police have made an arrest in the grisly murder of an Oakwood newspaper columnist who was found dead, his throat slit, in the basement of a dominatrix earlier this week. Charged is Miranda Chicoine, who ran a sex business from her suburban home in Oakwood. Police arrested Chicoine outside of the village of Kelton, at the home of her sister and brother-in-law, Claire and Don Bennet, early this morning. They had been led to her location by Zack Walker, a reporter for the Metropolitan, who had been trying to track down the woman, hoping to talk her into turning herself in, according to police. In Washington—”

I turned off the radio.

I was undoing my pants when the phone rang. I walked back to the bedroom, picked it up.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, I’ll be damned, you’re there.” It was Dick Colby, the paper’s odiferous crime reporter. “You’re quite the man.”

“What can I do for you, Dick?”

“This story about you and the hooker just broke, police issued a statement, it’s already on the radio—”

“I know.”