Deception by Randy Alcorn Page A

don’t trust cops. You’re liars.”
    I saw Guerino’s hand lower a few millimeters toward his pistol. It was a flinch, but I notice things.
    Jordan stepped over the yellow tape onto the lawn. I wanted to put a couple of Glock holes through his camera, but I figured that might win me a return trip to anger management.
    Officer Guerino shouldered up by Dorsey and gave Abernathy a hard stare, which he apparently thought was intimidating. But staring a man in the Adam’s apple, or craning your neck so he’s looking down your nostrils, does not intimidate.
    “You need coffee,” I said to Clarence. “Here’s my thermos. Leave some for me.”
    He eyed the thermos like it harbored an Ebola culture.
    “Look,” I said, “you want to stand here and fight while the body gets cold? We could sit on the lawn and play pinochle. You and Guerino can be partners.”
    Abernathy stared at Guerino. Finally the cop blinked.
    “Or how ’bout I go in the door and do my job?”
    “Your job was to call me.”
    “I called you. Want to watch me work? Fine. Otherwise, quit whining and go back to bed.”
    “You crossed me and you lied,” Abernathy said. “I won’t forget it.”
    “Does this mean,” I said, tapping my fingers on the yellow crime scene tape, “that the honeymoon’s over?”

4
“My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere .
S HERLOCK H OLMES , T HE S IGN OF F OUR
    T HURSDAY , N OVEMBER 21, 3:45 A.M .
    I PULLED ON LATEX GLOVES and foot covers, then handed a pair of each to Abernathy.
    “Never take these off. Got it? Take them off for one second, and you’re on the other side of the yellow tape.”
    His hands didn’t fit the one-size-fits-all. He grumbled but wrestled them on, short of his wrists.
    “Crime scene contamination’s our worst enemy. Somebody visits her cousin and discovers he’s been murdered. She picks up the phone and calls 911. She’s handled the phone, the doorknob, possibly the victim. All contamination.”
    He was taking notes now, so I figured I was forgiven. This was my chance to shine in the newspaper I hated.
    “The 911 operator tells her don’t touch anything else; wait outside for the cops. She might still use the toilet, wash her hands, get a glass of water, pick up her cousin’s picture, and make three more phone calls.”
    Clarence tried to read his handwriting and glared at the gloves.
    “Here’s where I take my first mental photograph of the crime scene. Ready?”
    I turned the corner into the living room. After hundreds of homicides, I’ve learned that what I first see is the image that stays with me. What struck me this time was a smell—the coppery scent of blood that hadn’t dried.
    As I looked at the face of the victim, something crawled across the nape of my neck—it felt like a big spider with wet feet.
    I recognized the man on the floor. He was a professor at Portland State University. I’d sat in on one of his classes years ago—I was trying to remember exactly when and why since I never attended there. I hadn’t seen him since … or had I? Actually, it felt like I’d seen him more recently. But where?
    His face was a color it shouldn’t have been. I don’t mean he looked dead. I mean he didn’t look like a dead person is supposed to look. His skin had a hint of blue, but not the shade of asphyxiation.
    And yet … around his neck was a rope, bright blue with red flecks in it. The rope was three feet long, and the excess beyond the noose was too short to hang from anything. The end was cut smooth, barely fraying. I stared at the knot, which raised a host of knot-making memories from my childhood. Though it was tied snugly, his neck and throat showed no signs it had been tighter, no signs he’d been hung. I looked above me at an undisturbed ceiling.
    The source of the smell was a wound in his chest. Given the shirt fabric, it