Mummers' Curse by Gillian Roberts

womanhood, but I was warmer. “What is it?” I muttered. I caught the first fragrant fumes of brewing coffee. “What’s going on?”
    “I missed you, so I made a detour. Nice that we live so close to headquarters.”
    “I’m always glad to see youuuuu….” The you turned into a gigantic yawn. When it was finished, I continued. “Only, sometimes more than other times. I thought you were working.”
    “I am.” Enough had dripped into the pot to pour us each a cup. I felt more nervous with each nuance of coffee-serving minutiae, as if Mackenzie were inventing a ceremony for an onerous event. Something was amiss if the man visited this way at this hour while on a new homicide case.
    He rummaged around until he found leftover bagels, then he sliced two and put them in the toaster oven.
    “You’re gonna get a call,” he said, “later, from the department. Billy Obenhauser, okay? Wants to talk about your buddy. Devaney.”
    “Why?” I knew that business that Mackenzie had said earlier, but I didn’t know why . “As a character witness?”
    “As an alibi.” He sat down across from me and sipped his coffee, never taking his eyes off my face. I hoped the attentiveness was love, not surveillance.
    “Whose?” I asked. “For what?” Those weren’t over-bright questions, but I was sleep deprived and even if I hadn’t been, the idea still wouldn’t have made ready sense.
    “Vincent Devaney’s. He insists—not to me, to Billy, who was questioning him—that he was not around for the probable time Jimmy Pat was shot. Says he was with a teacher from his school. Namely, you.”
    “But I was with you!”
    “I know that and you know that. Devaney seems the only one who doesn’t know that. Of course, there are gaps like when you and Karen left. I can’t vouch for then.” He waited.
    So that hadn’t been love light in his eyes but the gleam of professional observation. “What are you intimating? We stood in line for the Porta Potti, and then we stopped at a pretzel vendor’s.”
    “And the other time was when I went to get us hot dogs.”
    “What are you saying, C.K.?”
    “Just the facts, ma’am. The thing is, Vincent doesn’t appear to have known that we were parade-viewing together. Or that I’m a cop. You never told him about me?” He seemed to feel slighted.
    “About you? Told him what? I notified him of your existence. Of our relationship. And probably about what you do for a living.” We’d talked lots in the months during which I was supposedly writing my article.
    The article. I felt an avaricious and shameful flash. Would it be more salable because of the murder?
    I had to think about precisely what I had told Vincent. Before school ended for winter break, I’d mentioned that I was taking my niece to the parade. I had no idea whether I’d said Mackenzie would be there, too. Probably not, because I couldn’t have known for sure two weeks ago. The man’s schedule is not exactly predictable. So it could have appeared I’d be at the parade with Karen and no one else. The implications of this made me sad. “He’s not a killer,” I said.
    “Nobody is. Everybody is, pushed enough.”
    “They were like brothers.”
    “So were Cain and Abel.”
    “Come on. Best friends, then.”
    “Fighting over everything,” he said, surprising me. “Pretty heatedly about who would be the next club Captain.”
    I waved that away. “Good-natured rivalry, that’s all.”
    “Even about who would wear the frame suit. And Jimmy Pat had a habit of always winning their contests. This could have been one contest too many.”
    “You’re pushing too hard. Not Vincent.”
    Mackenzie raised an eyebrow.
    “That’s all I know and now I’ve said it. So why does somebody else have to question me?”
    “Ethical gray area if I question you about your whereabouts. I was part of them, remember?”
    “Then why this visit? Surely, warning me about being questioned is even grayer.”
    “I’d never warn you