Victor looked back at him. “You haven’t slept since what? Sunday? You can’t talk straight. You’ve been throwing that stupid ball for an hour. With that gun stuffed in your waistband, you’re going to shoot your nuts off.”

“You really think it’s a good idea to be a junkie when the cops get here?” Russell asked. “Dial it back, Ben. It’s for your own good.”

Thackrey turned away and lobbed the ball to the dogs on the lawn. “Nothing’s for my own good. Could you just finish cleaning up here?”

Victor shook out an empty trash bag. “Okay. What’d you do with the clothes you were wearing that night?”

“Already dumped. Trash pickup was yesterday. They’re in the county landfill.”

“Your shoes?”

“Jesus, yes. The shoes. Pair of thousand-dollar Johnston & Murphys. Speaking of clothes, what’s that thing you’re wearing, Victor?”

Victor raised his arms. “Called a kurta. Traditional Indian shirt. Very comfortable. Just the thing to wear when cleaning up after a murder.”

“Very metrosexual.”

“By the way, I checked the keystroke logger a few minutes ago. The cops identified the body as Elise. And they’ve talked to Craig Lerner, who knows you.”

“Never met him,” Thackrey said. The big mastiff returned the tennis ball to him.

“Doesn’t matter. He knows you and will get around to mentioning it. They’ve also interviewed your girl’s roommates and searched her apartment.”

“Well, God knows what the cops’ll find, but I was never there.”

“You don’t think Elise ever told her roommates about you? We finish here, Russ and I are getting on a plane.”

“Where’re you going?”

“Thailand. Place called Ko Lanta. It’s an island off the southern coast.”

“Let’s get back to Monday night. Did you stop anywhere on the way home that night?” Russell asked.

“Straight home. When we got here, I put on some Sinatra and cooked dinner. That song ‘I’ve Got the World on a String’ came on, and I made her dance with me in the kitchen. She was still scared. She freaked out at first, didn’t want me to touch her. Something about a dream she had. But I held her, and we danced. All around the kitchen. I taught her a couple swing steps, and I sang to her.”

“Sounds magical.” Victor rolled his eyes. “Can we dig the rounds from your gun out of the sheetrock in the living room?”

“Knock yourselves out. Not sure what difference it makes. I told you, Elise fired the gun, not me.”

“Let’s not give the cops too many story lines.”

“Dancing with her, I remember thinking how smart she was. That webpage she did for DivingBell was like a lesson in color theory. The blue and the orange together, opposites on the color wheel, make the images pop. Everyone who sees the site, that’s the first thing they notice.”