The Art of Detection by Laurie R. King Page A

usual sounds made by Crime Scene—voices, footsteps—were oddly soothing in the otherwise empty house.
    “Sherlock Holmes? A self-medicating bipolar with obsessive-compulsive tendencies,” said the psychotherapist. “Why?”
    “Oh, nothing, just that our victim seems to’ve had a serious thing for the man.”
    “My sweet, you do know that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character?”
    “Not too sure this guy did. You should see his place.” Kate stood up to look at another drawing like that concealing the door alarm, but this one showed a single man holding a flower in one hand, and behind it was nothing but a patch of wall. She sat down again.
    “That’s where you are?”
    “Yeah. I just wanted to let you know that I may be late for pizza. We’re waiting for the vic’s lawyer to come, he says he has the combination to the safe, but he wouldn’t give it to us over the phone.”
    “That’s okay, we’ll save you some. Will you be back for bedtime?”
    “Absolutely.” Even if it meant she had to borrow Williams’s car to drive across town and back just to tuck Nora in; she’d only missed a handful of bedtimes in the last three years.
    “I’ll let her know. Say hi to Al for me.”
    “He went back already—there was a school event he needed to be at.”
    “Okay, well, have fun with the pipe and violin.”
    “And you with the pizza.”
    As she flipped the phone shut, a voice said, “Sorry about your dinner.”
    She turned around in the chair, to see the Park detective running his gaze methodically along the shelves. He had gloves on, as she did. Lo-Tec had found no particular reason to think this was a crime scene, but still.
    “It’s nothing. But if we’re still here at eight, I’m going to need to leave you alone for a little while. I like to say goodnight to my daughter.”
    “Her name’s Nora?” he asked. “I heard you say something to Hawkin about Nora’s pizza.”
    “Right.”
    “It’s a nice, old-fashioned name.”
    “A variation on her mother’s name—Leonora.”
    Chris turned around with a puzzled look on his face. “She’s adopted, then?”
    “Oh, no. Lee—my partner—is her biological mother.”
    “Ah,” he said, understanding at last. “Sorry.”
    Sorry for the misunderstanding, Kate translated, not sorry that she was a lesbian. It was somewhat surprising that he hadn’t already known who (and what) she was, and encouraging to think that the name Kate Martinelli no longer produced instant flags of alarm in people’s minds. Her last bout with infamy had been several years earlier; with any luck, the next would be a long time coming. She stood and dropped her phone into her pocket.
    “Finding anything of interest?”
    “The whole place is weirdly fascinating—you know that antique telephone actually has a dial tone? But not a lot of paperwork—it must all be in the safe.”
    They had found the safe in the third-floor office, but the woman from the security service did not have its code. When the photographer finished with the desk, Kate went back upstairs to make a methodical search through it for any record of Philip Gilbert’s family. She found no trace of them, but she did spot a letter from a law firm across the Bay in Oakland, something to do with establishing a nonprofit foundation. She called the number on the stationery, listened to the recording, then dialed the number it referred her to in case of emergency. It took her some time to convince the answering service to hunt the lawyer down, but when she had done so, her cell phone rang in barely two minutes.
    “This is Tom Rutland,” said the voice, which bristled with a lawyer’s inborn suspicion. “My service said you were trying urgently to get in touch with me.”
    Kate thanked him for calling her back, and explained that she had found his name on a letter addressed to a person whose death was under investigation.
    “Who is that?” he said, as if she might be trying to put one over on him.
    But