Flint scratched his forehead. “That’s quite a story. Here’s another one. Martin Benson came to Ms. Snelling’s house, still determined to get the whole story on kinky sex in the suburbs, wants to see her basement, maybe he actually breaks into the house to get a look at it. He’s a moralistic son of a bitch, and would never be persuaded to get on that cross for entertainment purposes. Ms. Snelling has a stun gun on the premises, uses it on Mr. Benson, straps him down and kills him.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. I nodded in the direction of Trixie’s car. “I take it you searched that for a stun gun.”

“That we did,” said Flint. “No such luck.”

Flint flipped his notebook closed and slipped it into his pocket. “Well, I can see you have places to go, people to see,” he said, picking up his hat and putting it on.

“Sure,” I said.

We both went outside, and I locked the front door behind me.

“You have a nice little time away, and I hope things work out with your wife,” Flint said. “She seems like a real nice lady. Too bad about her getting busted down a rank or two at work too.”

There seemed nothing he didn’t know.

“You got a cell phone number where I can reach you if I need to?” Flint got out his notebook and wrote down the number I gave him.

“You have a nice day now,” Flint said, walking down to the curb and getting into his unmarked car.

CHAPTER 18

18

I SWUNG TRIXIE’S CAR into Bayside Park ten minutes later than I’d promised to get there. The heavily treed park was on a high parcel of land overlooking our Great Lake, and when I pulled up alongside a nondescript silver Buick, the view beyond my windshield was blue-gray to the horizon line. There was a light wind, and some chop on the water, and a freighter was moving slowly from west to east, heading back up the seaway.

I didn’t see Lawrence, or his car—neither the Jag nor the old clunker he used for surveillance—anyplace. He’d promised to be here, keeping a watch on things, in case anything unexpected happened.

Where the hell was he?

I glanced over at the Buick, and Brian Sandler got out and opened the passenger door of my GF300. I hastily grabbed my overnight bag and wrestled it over the center console and into the back seat.

“You’re late,” Sandler said, clearly agitated. “I thought you’d decided not to come, that something had happened.”

“Sorry,” I said. “The police dropped by.”

“Jesus!” Sandler said. “You didn’t talk to the police about this, did you? I didn’t tell you to go and call them.”

“Calm down,” I said. “It had nothing to do with this.”