Outfoxed: An Andy Carpenter Mystery by David Rosenfelt Page A

the direction her voice was coming from. Sure enough, my detective skills are intact, and I reach the kitchen.
    Laurie is on her knees, near another open door. I walk over and see that the door is to a walk-in pantry. Plenty of people live in apartments smaller than this pantry.
    “What are you doing?”
    “The female victim—”
    “Denise,” I say.
    “Denise was hiding in here. They went and found her, and brought her into the other room, where she was killed.”
    “How do you know that?”
    She holds up her hands, with something apparently squeezed between her fingers. “Was she blond?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I’ll bet she was, though it’s not her natural color. I found at least five hairs; I’d bet they grabbed her by the hair.”
    “Couldn’t five hairs be there because she lived here, or spent a lot of time here? Brian is sure they were having an affair.”
    “Possible, but forensics would have already picked up a lot of them. The fact that five were left behind means there were many more. And this door was open, which is not consistent with how neatly this house was kept. And look at this.”
    She points to a small streak or stain of some kind on the floor.
    “What is it?”
    “I’d bet it’s from her shoes. She was dragged.”
    “That backs up Brian’s story,” I say.
    “How?”
    I think Laurie knows the answer to her own question, but it’s a technique she and I have come up with, without ever acknowledging it. We get each other to talk about stuff, even when it’s obvious, because the act of discussing it seems to help us think more clearly.
    “If Brian was the killer, he would have killed her where he found her. There would have been no reason to drag her in there. Especially if he was in a jealous rage.”
    “Why would the killer have wanted to kill them together?” she asks.
    I shrug. “Hard to know. Maybe he wanted to get information out of Wright, and he threatened to kill Denise to get him to talk.”
    “Why do you think the killer used knives? To make it look like a crime of passion and set up Brian as the patsy?”
    I shake my head. “Doesn’t seem possible. As far as anyone knew, he was in prison. That’s a pretty good alibi. It’s more likely he just didn’t want neighbors to hear the gunshots.” I don’t mention it, but the use of knives has troubled me because it doesn’t fit with my theory. It is not the way Petrone’s people normally operate.
    We don’t talk for a couple of minutes. I’m digesting the horror of what went on in this room, and I suspect she’s doing the same.
    She breaks the silence and says, “This guy is the definition of a cold-blooded killer. Not the way you think of cybercriminals, or computer nerds.”
    I nod. “Let’s find him.”

 
    It’s my turn to walk Ricky to school. Laurie and I basically alternate doing so, though she probably winds up doing it two-thirds of the time. I’m going to utilize this morning’s walk to have my talk with Ricky, and I’m a little nervous about it.
    “Rick, do you know what gambling is?” is the way I start.
    “Sure, it’s what you do on football. If your team wins, you win money.”
    “Right, but I can also lose.”
    “I know,” he says. “You lose when you take the Giants.”
    “Rick, gambling is not a good thing.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because people can lose money that they need.”
    “Do you lose money that you need?” he asks.
    “No. But it’s still not a good thing.”
    “Then why do you do it?”
    “It’s a bad habit I picked up.” This is not going well, and it’s aggravating. The truth is I don’t bet very much on games; it’s just a way to keep me interested. But having this conversation is making me feel like Jimmy the Greek. “But you’d be better off going outside and playing sports, rather than staying inside and watching them.”
    “So you can’t stop?” he asks.
    “I can stop.”
    “So it’s a bad thing, and you can stop, but you keep doing