Mr. Murder. By: Dean R. Koontz

evidence of daily life sometimes pointed toward a more troubling

conclusion. Marty had been able to work in the genre with conviction

and tremendous pleasure because he liked to believe that law-enforcement

agencies and the courts delivered justice most of the time and thwarted

it only inadvertently. But now, the first time in his life that he’d

turned to the system for help, it was in the process of failing him. Its

failure not only jeopardized his life as well as the lives of his wife

and children–but seemed to call into doubt the value of everything that

he had written and the worthiness of the purpose to which he had

committed so many years of hard work and struggle.

Lieutenant Lowbock returned through the living room, looking and moving

as if in the middle of an Esquire magazine fashion photography session.

He was carrying a clear plastic evidence bag, which contained a black

zippered case about half the size of a shaving kit. He put the bag on

the dining-room table as he sat down.

“Mr. Stillwater, was the house securely locked when you left it this

morning?”

“Locked?” Marty asked, wondering where they were headed now, trying not

to let his anger show. “Yes, locked up tight. I’m careful about that

sort of thing.”

“Have you given any thought as to how this intruder might have gained

entry?”

“Broke a window, I guess. Or forced a lock.”

“Do you know what’s in this?” he asked, tapping the black leather case

through the plastic bag.

“I’m afraid I don’t have X-ray vision,” Marty said.

“I thought you might recognize it.”

“No.”

“We found it in your master bedroom.”

“I’ve never seen it before.”

“On the dresser.”

Paige said, “Get it over with, Lieutenant.”

Lowbock’s faint shadow of a smile passed across his face again, like a

visiting spirit shimmering briefly in the air above a seance table.

“It’s a complete set of lock picks.”

“That’s how he got in?” Marty asked.

Lowbock shrugged. “I suppose that’s what I’m expected to deduce from

it.”

“This is tiresome, Lieutenant. We have children we’re worried about.

I agree with my wife–just get it over with.”

Leaning over the table and regarding him once more with his patented

intense gaze, the detective said, “I’ve been a cop for twenty-seven

years, Mr. Stillwater, and this is the first time I’ve ever encountered

professional lock picks.”

“So?”

“They break glass or force a lock, like you said. Sometimes they pry a

sliding door or window out of its track. The average burglar has a

hundred ways of getting in–all of which are a lot faster than picking a

lock.”

“This wasn’t an average burglar.”

“Oh, I can see that,” Lowbock said. He leaned away from the table,

settled back in his chair. “This guy is a lot more theatrical than the

average perp. He contrives to look exactly like you, spouts a lot of

strange stuff about wanting his life back, comes armed with an

assassin’s gun threaded for a silencer, uses burglary tools like a

Hollywoodized professional heist artist in a caper movie, takes two

bullets man but walks away. He’s downright flamboyant, this guy, but

he’s also muy misterioso, the kind of character Andy Garcia could play

in a movie or, a lot better yet, that Ray Liotta who was in Goodfellas.”

Marty suddenly saw where the detective was headed and understood why he

was going there. The inevitable terminus of the interrogation should

tumbled to it because it was too obvious. As a writer, he had been

seeking some more exotic, complex reason for Lowbock’s barely concealed

disbelief and hostility, when all the while Cyrus Lowbock had been going

for the cliche.

Still, the detective had one more unpleasant surprise to reveal.

He leaned forward again and made eye contact in what had ceased to be an

effective confrontational manner and had become instead a personal tic

as annoying and transparent as Peter Falk’s disarmingly humble posture

and relentless self-deprecation when he played Columbo, Nero Wolfe’s

thoughtful puckering of the mouth in moments of inspiration, James

Bond’s knowing smirk, or any of the slew of colorful traits by which

Sherlock Holmes was characterized. “Do your daughters have pets, Mr.

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